Over the past couple days, I’ve had the honour of connecting online with a number of people. It started yesterday morning with a Zoom conversation with Kelly Christopherson for almost 1.5 hrs. I connected with him again this morning to record a podcast. Last night, my wife and I connected with 2 other couples on FaceTime. We had a trip planned this summer including a cruise ship visiting Spain and Italy, as well as holiday time in Portugal. Those plans are done, but the conversation was still wonderful.

Yesterday I had a TEAMS meeting run by our school district for Principals, then a colleague and I connected to have a conversation afterwards, first on Messenger, then again on TEAMS. I’ve been Twitter and TEAMS Direct Messaging another colleague today and hope to do a podcast with him, maybe tomorrow. Tonight I had a 4-way Text conversation, that moved on to What’s App, with my three sisters and one of them said, “Why didn’t we do this years ago?”

I’m not a fan of music trivia. I recognize every song, but can’t name it, or it’s band/artist. That said, I popped into Dean Sharaeski’s #namethattune music trivia Live Periscope for a short visit. What a fun thing to do, and to get people connected!

#namethattune here we go! https://t.co/83YALH9toU

— Dean Shareski (@shareski) March 26, 2020

The social distancing due to Covid-19 has been challenging, and getting outside once a day for a walk has made me feel a little boxed in. But we live in a time when it is easier than ever to connect with people online.

Who will you reach out to next?

I’ve been invited to host a Round Table Breakout Session at the 10th Canadian EdTech Leadership Summit today, titled; “Harnessing the Power and Potential of Social Media to Build Learning Communities.” The invitation was born out of a Podcast I did with conference organizer Robert Martellacci @MindShareLearn, where we discussed my free ebook, Twitter EDU.

Exclusive Podcast with David Truss, Principal Coquitlam SD43, on his newly released book “Twitter EDU” https://t.co/8JH5B73lOo Thanks you for the interview Robert @mindsharelearn

— David Truss (@datruss) February 13, 2018

You can get the book here:

FREE on Apple, the iTunes version is available here.

FREE on Barnes & Noble, the NOOK version is available here.

Download the FREE ePub version now from Smashwords: (You might need to open this in your web browser, if you came here via mobile Twitter: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/776978 )

What I’ll share below are resources to support the conversation, and hopefully this can also be a resource to come back to later, after the discussion.

For those interested in tweeting during the discussion, please use both of these hashtags: #CDNedtech19 and #TwitterEDU

Advice from Dave Sands @dhsands: (If you are playing along, follow the people I share tweets from!)

My True Story Of Connectedness about my network being better than Google:

Here is a short link to the video: 2di.me/connectedstory.

Here is a Twitter Moment I shared where I asked, “What’s the best advice that you have to share with someone that’s new to Twitter?”

Short link: 2di.me/advice

Discussion Points/Questions

“The hardest part of Twitter is that it does not have a friendly entry point.”

What are the challenges of engaging on social media?

—–

Bill Ferriter @plugusin “My goal in social media spaces isn’t to “have a bigger audience.” My goal is to find people who challenge my practice.” (Link to tweet)