Shareski Shares!

Last week we had a guest presenter from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan via Skype.

Isn't technology wonderful?

Anyhoo, his name was Dean Shareski and (according to his weblog) he is a Digital Web Consultant who specializes in the use of technology in the classroom. And what better way for a tech guru (in my opinion) to deliver a presentation but through Skype? It was really interesting to be able to see him on the screen knowing that he could see us also.

When he showed up on the screen,  a mental image of Sheldon Cooper (The Big Bang Theory) popped into my head.

Sheldon Cooper...robot?

One of the points of his presentation that I thought was most important, and that I took away, was the fact that it is our professional responsibility as educators to share what we know. In fact, a quote he shared with the class was:

"If there is no sharing, there is no teaching." - David Wiley

I agree wholeheartedly with this. How can we teach if we don't share?

The downside of this is that you have to create more than a digital footprint, you have to create a digital path, and walk it regularly and maintain it.

I am so private. I actually take great pains to Google myself every once in a while to see what kind of digital presence I have. I even Google my e-mail address. Once I was horrified to discover a profile under the name of sharper752 (my e-mail address!) on a free porn site. As much as I like to joke about me and porn, this profile was NOT me. It was some guy from Arizona or somewhere. Ugh.

What makes it worse is that, sometimes I don't censor myself. Yup. I should not be let near a computer or a keyboard sometimes. Especially when I'm feeling happy. Because then all sorts of things happen. Like weird video uploads such as:

Or:

Haha.

Sometimes, I wonder if showing this side of me to my future students would benefit me in a classroom. I remember from high school that my most favourite teachers were the ones who were funny and shared part of their lives with us, whether it was through stories of their (crazy) younger days or sharing their favourite music with us.

Or maybe it will backfire and I'll have significant classroom management problems. I am scared to death and practically give myself anxiety attacks when I think of having my own classroom.

But I will remember this key point "Be friendly, NOT friends!".

Anyway, back to Shareski's presentation. I think that I definitely have to work on being more comfortable regarding leaving a digital trail (and work on censoring myself a little). I do have a Twitter account and have been tweeting already for quite awhile. Last year during my ICT class, I messaged one of my twitter contacts who is from Arizona and is a Navajo and asked if she would be interested in helping me out with our (Shawna Spence and I) final project, which was about the importance of preserving our languages. She agreed and send me her opinion on the topic. She was so happy that she helped us get an "A" for our class and tweeted to all her contacts. This just shows how the power of the internet is far-reaching and can have positive implications.

I think that's about all. Oh, and I do love Dean Shareski's name and how it fits his message of "sharing". It's funny how fate works sometime.

Sylvia.

P.S. During the presentation, I happened to look at the jacket of a girl sitting in front of me and noticed that there were zippers in the armpits. For some reason this disgusted me and I tweeted this thought to Twitter. Never for once thinking that Mike N. was following me and could see my tweets. Imagine my surprise when he replied back to my tweet. Haha! I swear I was listening! I just have a wandering mind. I can't even sit through an evening of Bingo, or a movie at the theatre without my mind wandering. LOL.