March Musings #17: Collaboration Counts Poetry Slice

I am not sure how it all began but I do remember it was one of the nights this week when the Night Owl PLN got together on Twitter. I decided to switch up the conversation. One of our group members sent me an absolutely, beautiful landscape photograph she took while driving in Pennsylvania. The photo just begged for a poem to accompany the image and I was ready to design my global winter gallery of artistic designs, Winter Wonderland. The stillness, the serenity, the lightly tread upon road all called out for more so I proposed a collaborative poem. 

I set up a Google Doc and invited those interested to join the writing fun activity, afterall it was different way of having a conversation. Oops! Did I say fun? I think I moved a few of my Twitter friends out of their comfort zone as I placed some ideas on the Google doc. When I realized that ideas coming in were evolving into a poem in verse I thought, "But isn't that what I said was out of my comfort zone? "

"When a group of colleagues step out of their comfort zone to collaborate and create, they are the risk takers that their students need to stand before them."
-Carol Varsalona

And so we began the process of adding ideas, making comments, and having others take a peek at our collaborative poem based on Spiri's photo. We were going public, putting ourselves out there for critiquing. We were vulnerable and yet there was pleasure in the creation process. (You can take a look at our Google Doc here.) 

I worked over the course of several days to edit, revise, and word weave (the process I designed to move words in and out, creating a designed effect during the revision process). Then, I moved from Google Docs to Buncee to create a digital poem. The end product is below but you can see a larger version at my Buncee dashboard. 

This image poem will be added to my Twitter repository, #WinterWonderland18, as I prepare to organize and design my winter gallery. Stay tuned for more on when the gallery will be unveiled. 

I thank the following members of my Night Owl PLN who chose to step out of their comfort zone and write alongside me:

Melissa Chouinard-Jahant

Steve Kelley

Faige Meller

Chris Quinn

Valerie Tilton

and to Spiri Howard for her fine photography skills

Collaboration Counts!
I celebrate collaboration today.

"Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work."
-Vince Lombardi

Ruth Ayres has a wonderful story of friendship and the power of one word

at Celebrate This Week.

 

Day 17 of Two Writing Teachers' March Slice of Life Story Challenge

March Musings Day 5: Power of Being Connected

Being Connected Matters!

Within connected spaces

an electricity explodes.

Borders flatten.

Tribes come together.

Voices rise and expand.

PLNs grow exponentially.

Learning thrives.

©CVarsalona, 2018

I am a believer in the power of being connected, as do other connected educators. I understand that virtual communications bind us together in unique ways. Within my tribe of connected educators, I find support on my journey to find my greatness as a lifelong learner.  

Before connected learning was popular, voices were in silos. People worked alone, trying to navigate their path. One shot professional development did not open doors to enlightened learning unless strategies discussed were implemented, reflected upon, and shared with colleagues. Now with the advent of asynchronous, choice-driven learning available on Twitter, sparks fly. 

Today is #CelebrateMonday, the day set aside to extol successes in educations so I am celebrating connections, particularly the one with Kimberly Davis, the author of Brave Leadership. I met Kimberly online after hearing her speak at #G2Great. I was thrilled that Kimberly enthusiastically agreed to join me at #NYEDChat tonight for a lively Twitter conversation on the topic of "Owning Our Brave". While preparing for this chat, I read her manifesto. One statement jumped out at me "We believe that everyone has the ability to make a positive impact." Isn't that a powerful belief? 

I am excited to be able to moderate NYEDChat tonight and be in Kimberly's powerful but virtual presence. Will you join me to dig deeper into the topic, "Owning Our Brave"?  I am ready to embrace the connections.

 

It's Day 5 of the March Slice of Life Story Challenge at Two Writing Teachers.

Post Chat: Find Your Greatness

The countdown began early in the day. By midday, the momentum built up. Questions were loaded on TweetDeck and a fast flurry of pre-chat thoughts shared.  Our stellar team of educational friends, Laura Robb, Evan Robb, and Dr. Mary Howard, were ready to rock Twittersphere with burning questions and a topic for all, "Find Your Greatness". As the hour drew near, colleagues began sending tweets and tagging friends to join the convo. Then, the magic happened. I opened the doors to #NYEDChat and a tribe of tweeps, full of energy, gathered together in a virtual hall of conversation.  

For veteran tweeters and newbie chatters eager to grow as learners, nothing can match a virtual professional conversation for its depth, passion, collegial spirit, and instant shot of positivity. Let's take a look into the inner workings of an hour-long chat on Twitter. When visiting #NYEDChat be prepared for a fast-paced experience filled with greetings, quick responses, sidebar conversations, and beneficial, asynchronous professional development delivered to you in the warmth of your home. Topics are key and vary, professional learning a given, and growing a professional learning network a plus. Teamwork by a supportive and inviting group of connected colleagues who value and honor voice is evident. Everyone leaves the chat with a feeling of euphoria, a layer of new knowledge, new friends to chat with in the future, and an action step for the following week. 

Now let's dig deeper and see what transpired at last night's chat. Within five minutes of the opening remarks, Dennis Schug and I, along with our panel of all-stars, watched as comments, like fireworks split in the air causing a rush of excitement.  The news of #NYEDChat's trending on Twitter propelled a continuous flow of voices being raised across social media. Find Your Greatness tidbits of wisdom were shared along with one words to guide professional and personal journeys. The hashtag, #FindYourGreatness, was the spark for a stream of questions and amazing responses. It was heartwarming to see so many colleagues from different roles come together to exchange comments on the hows and whys of their journeys to find their greatness. 

For two hours after the airing of the convo, #NYEDChat was one of the top trending chats on Twitter. The conversation was filled with many memorable statements. Mary Howard was so excited by the awesomeness of the conversation that she storified the chat immediately. You can read that here. 

What a pleasure to spend an hour exploring GREATNESS

with it surrounding me at every turn."  - Mary Howard

Participate partners with NYEDChat and also created a transcript of the chat. You can access that here.

Wisdom Tidbits and Digital Inspirations from the #NYEDChat Community

Greatness -
a never-ending journey,

a pathway to betterment.

©CVarsalona, 2018

Greatness is something to strive for. 

The challenge to pursue greatness is so motivating.

©Brent Gilson, 2018

You can see Brent's Pe-Chat blog post here. 

The guest moderators and moderators were all excited that Brent had the enthusiasm to post before the chat. 

From Valerie Tilton

From Valinda Kimmel

From Stephanie Affinito

Evan Robb: 
Greatness evokes a desire to serve students, teachers and parents. 
"Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service." 
-Martin Luther King Jr. 
Great to be here tonight. Lift others up and find the greatness that is in you and those you go through life with.

Dr. Mary Howard: 
Greatness means that we have left our thumbprint on those around us in some way that will live beyond ourselves and enrich the lives of others.
Question 2 reminds me that each of us are on our journey. I love and respect that our personal own journey can converge with the journey of others.
Greatness was never meant to be a lonely proposition. I love that we can do it in the company of others.

Laura Robb:
An honor to be here tonight with this dedicated and inspiring group of educators. Keep striving for greatness through your work and learning with others. Thanks to Dr. Mary Howard, Evan Robb, Carol Varsalona and Dennis Schug. Memorable chat!
Every time you reach out to another person, a student, and support them, treat them with kindness. You've taken a step toward greatness.

Thanks to the unwavering support and preparation of my all-star team of Laura Robb, Evan Robb, Dr. Mary Howard, and Dennis Schug, we planned, delivered, and lit up Twitter with powerful and inspirational statements from a "tribe of tweeps". Finding greatness is an ongoing pathway and what better way to walk the path than with like-minded professionals committed to impacting teaching, learning, and life. 

Request:
Since I could not capture all of the amazing quotes and digitals, please  leave your blog links, digitals, posters, and inspiration in the comment section for all to see how #NYEDChat's tribe of tweeps are finding their greatness.

In closing I leave you with a few digital inspirations to ponder.

©Brent Gilson, 2018

                      

©Carol Varsalona, 2018

Rocking to a Positive Beat

Last night as the 8:00 hour for #NYEDChat neared, a huge band of positivity champions rallied for a well-advertised Twitter chat. Voices were predicted to rise as high in the skies as the New York City skyscrapers. All were primed and ready to let positivity prevail, dissipating any notion that negativity exists in the world (if only for one hour) and so the dream unfolded. What transpired was a feat of unparallelled magnitude in #NYEDChat history. 

Nineteen positivity champions were scheduled to join the #NYEDChat conversation. Within a week's time, our usual moderating team (Bill Brennan, Victoria Day, Blanca Duarte, Dan McCabe, Lisa Meade, Starr Sackstein, Dennis Schug, Tony Sinanis, and me) plus a special band of #EduFriends (Bobby Dodd, Sean Gaillard, Reed Gillespie, Phil Griffin, Neil Gupta, Jon Harper, Jennifer Hogan, Eoin Lenihan, Craig Vroom, Jennifer Williams) prepared a celebratory event that was sure to rock the Twittersphere. With the true spirit of connected colleagues, the positivity team engaged in backchannel conversations and twitter messages leading up to last night's chat. #vachat and #OHedchat friends were called in and tweets sent across the world to our German colleague. We were ready.

From the first gif, NYEDChat flowed with positivity and a new sense of camaraderie was established. Positive thoughts were shot out in rapid succession by tweeters from across the states. Both newbie and veteran connected educators and friends chimed in. As the sounds of positivity were shouted loud and clear across the Twittersphere, the news of #NYEDChat trending on Twitter was a front page headline for us. 

Like the NYC skyscrapers only 30 miles away, connected colleagues' voices rose high in a collective chorus of positivity while posters and high fives were shared. Many interesting statements, such as those below, flowed from the topic, Positive People Do More. 

•  casehighprinc So thrilled to be a part of this evening!! Rock-star-a-palooza!!! 
•  MrsVandeborne positivity looks like engaged excitement, deeper learning, & real/visible progress, collaborative efforts & LOTS of high fives!
•  ERobbPrincipal #NYEDchat Wow a real convergence of Ed Leaders-- Great to be here!!!
•  MentorTextCentr Positivity is definitely a good-feeling energy making the workplace filled with a 'positive flow' of ideas/ collaboration.
•  iChrisLehman positivity often starts by watching and listening to kids at work. They do wonders to raise our spirits.
•  karenvaites Positivity is often a matter of mind over matter!
•  smgaillard #NowPlaying What A Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong #NYEdchat #CelebrateMonday ♫https://t.co/mzNiM5hW5C
•  rggillespie As educators, we've been entrusted by parents with most precious possession, their children. How can we not be positive?
•  danieldmccabe Positive people do more because they don't waste their energy complaining, making excuses or pointing fingers. Own it.

Sampling of Positivity Posters:

@mgrosstaylor

MRHS_Principal

OrganicLeaderVB 

ShannonMStark

Sample Call To Action Statements:

• Jennifer Hogan: Call to action: I'm COMPELLED to be a positive force & advocate for educators! Who's with me?!!!
• Greg Richards I'll continue to show #positivity because I'm richly blessed to do the work daily-inspired by & inspiring young people daily. 
• Melanie Meehan I will substitute "get to" for "have to" every chance I get! Such a different spin! 
• The Teaching Factor 
  I will always be positive, share the love, & hang up posters/images from 2 night's chat around my classroom 2 promote positivity.
• Danny Steele 
  "Awesomeness" is not accidental. We will be awesome on purpose!!!

Positivity poems can be read here.

You can review the amazing conversation captured by Participate Learning here.

Debby Call

As a band of positivity champs, participants and the team of nineteen joined together to see new possibilities as we celebrated positivity. 

@lauriemeston 

To round off the amazing experience of being in the company of positivity champions, I found this tweet from Jasper Fox Sr. in my notifications today: "Feeling super positive this AM after the great chat last night on that topic on #NYEDChat." I have to agree with Jasper. Rocking to a positive beat is a high-energy type of feeling. As part of my call to action statement, I spread positivity today and will continue because there is joy in being a positive connected educator. 

Two Writing Teachers
#sol16

Reach and Connect

The skyscrapers of New York City remind us to reach. Like those skyscrapers, connected colleagues' voices can rise high. Joined together we can envision new vistas, see new possibilities, and celebrate positivity. 

Each Monday on Twitter, #CelebrateMonday asks us to showcase the positives. To open dialogue on positivity, Dan McCabe and I will lead the #NYEDChat moderators in a conversation with our connected "edufriends" on Monday, May 2, 2016 at 8 pm EST.

NYEDChat Moderators :

Bill Brennan, Victoria Day, Blanca Duarte, Dan McCabe, Lisa Meade, Starr Sackstein, Dennis Schug, Tony Sinanis, Carol Varsalona

Connected Educator Guest Moderators:

Bobby Dodd, Sean Gaillard, Reed Gillespie, Phil Griffin, Neil Gupta, Jon Harper, 
Jennifer Hogan, Eoin Lenihan, Craig Vroom, Jennifer Williams

While the above connected educators are Positivity Champions, I recognize that there are so many more I come in contact with on social media who have a growth mindset. On behalf of the NYEDChat team I send out this invitation to join the conversation, Positive People Do More, to all who champion the "positives" across the globe. 

NYEDChat, as the voice of New York State educators, reaches beyond our state boundaries to connect with others on timely topics in education. Please join me at #NYEDChat on #CelebrateMonday May 2, 2016 for an epic conversation. The question document below is ready for your perusal. 

Ready to rock the Twittersphere as we discuss how to end the year with a strong finish, right up to the #lastbell, as Jennifer Hogan says. 

Don't forget to #CelebrateMonday today. 

Question to Ponder: 

What might you do differently to create a positive environment that celebrates the journey toward success?