TeachMeetNZ from Ulimasao Van Schaijik
Kia Ora, Talofa and greetings everyone.
My name is Sonya Van Schaijik
I am a teacher at Newmarket School in Auckland New Zealand.
My topic tonight is the Joys of Google Hangout.
However it is more about sharing the story around setting up TeachMeetNZ and the people involved.
“TeachMeet was never about technology 100%, it was about the Teach first of all, and the tech was instrumental to achieving what we wanted to achieve pedagogically and never the other way around.” Ewan Macintosh
NZ is aiming for New Zealand Educators to share and the virtual is the online part.
The journey is two years old and began with the Reform Symposium when there was a call for moderators for the unconference.
I agreed to be a moderator and Kimberley Rivett was a presenter.
We used elluminate to present with.
Then in 2012, a call for virtual presenters came via Arjana of TeachMeetInt.
It was a 3.00am session on September 29. The session featured speakers from 16 countries sharing their passion.
After that we had the Google summit at Albany College and I heard Tony Richards speak on Google Hangouts. We were able to see a live hangout in session. I was inspired and the seed started growing.
Next in March of this year, Steve put a call out for moderators for the School Leadership Summit using Blackboard. I offered to be a moderator and looked after three online presentations.
During the second TeachMeet Int, there was a system crash. It was 4.00am. I was 6thin line to present and there had been problems. So I flicked over to slideshare and presented using the audio on Elluminate. The idea was taking shape.
Two weeks later at Ignition in May coordinated by Mark Osborne , I placed a notice up if anyone wanted to trial google hangout and to present a nano presentation. There were 6 people who joined the discussion and I shoulder tapped others.
I spoke with Arjana about using the TeachMeet format and she put me in contact with Ewan McIntosh. He was supportive and directed me to the TeachMeet Wiki and said, help yourself.
We agreed on a date and my team of helpers supported me in ironing out all the glitches. I am grateful for their help. We live streamed all the training and mistakes. So that they could be rewound and learnt from.
We used twitter to communicate, slideshare and google presentations to share the work, Google Hangout to come together and sort any challenges and wikispace to aggregate and live stream our work.
Any challenges with the tools, we faced together and sorted out together.
The week before the first session, I lost a presenter and the day before I lost another. Both cancellations were for valid reasons.
Ah Huh moments happened. I quickly saw the potential of the tool for learning. I can see the principal recording a message for our parents. I can see school events being live streamed. I can see teachers giving live messages to parents.
The TeachMeetNZ project is the final part of my efellow learning about hyperconnectivity It has allowed me to rethink the ways that teachers can share learning. The project has also allowed me to focus on my own learning and hyperconnecting and developing the face to face connections as is stressed by Mark Pesce.
The format of the sessions involves each presenter with a 3 minute slot. The rest of the participants turn off video and mic to conserve bandwidth.
Questions and comments take place on twitter.
Our second TeachMeet was a lot easier because I knew the tools so much better and the training sessions were focused. Again I shoulder tapped a few teachers and this time we had observers from Korea and Saudi Arabia.
A good idea is to include the audience almost by acting out a part. For our second session we had a an audience viewing of 89 with some from Brazil and India. This video has already passed 100.
Each participant introduces themselves and sets up and flicks on their presentation. Everyone is encouraged to say where you are from and even what the weather is like. Our second session had presenters fro Christchurch and Nelson.
I challenge you to have a go.
You get to meet some amazing educators almost face to face.
You end up with a product for your portfolio including a TeachMeetNZ badge.
If you want to know more or would like to be part of the next TeachMeetNZ session using Google Hangouts and if you are not attending Ulearn, then please send me a tweet or an email.
Faafetai lava everyone .
Thanks for your time.
Sonya @VanSchaijik 