Siyavula supports communities of educators working together in South Africa. One way in which we believe this could be better achieved is through blogging and social media. We have recently run workshops in Johannesburg and Cape Town for educators to show them how to use these tools to connect, share with and support other educators.

2. Contexts abound ...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/khym54/600539107/

3. All are challenging ...
http://www.parklands.co.za/photo-gallery

4. Technology's Promise
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dolescum/2503834924/

5. Collaboration
Sharing is fundamental to teaching

6. Effective Sharing
Open everything ...
o p e n p r o c e s s e s – iterative, transparent and
collaborative
o p e n c o p y r i g h t l i c e n c e s – freedom to distribute, adapt
and enhance
o p e n s t a n d a r d s – formats that enable the
freedoms
o p e n s o u r c e s o f t w a r e – freedom distribute, adapt and
enhance

7. Cape Town Open Education Declaration
Required
reading ...

8. Our Work
Increase the
library of openly
shared resources
(OERs)

9. Our Work
Identify innovative
and engaging
ways of delivering
curriculum

10. Our Work
Support
communities
and conduct
professional
development

11. A simple introduction to:
Social Media and Blogs

14. Skills 1 Recap:
Create a gmail account
Create a twitter account
Follow some interesting people
Siyavula's purpose: help you develop an
appreciation for blogs and the feedback they get.
Benefit for you: passive consumption of great
content and ideas.

15. What you could have missed since the first talk:
c
o
/ N
Dan Meyer on principles for engaging Maths s
lt ie
instruction a
p en
o
/ N
PsyBlog on postures for creative thinking
ns
t io
a
gAfrican Robotics Network and
li
Tim O'Reillybon
o
latest research on risk to sharks
o
N

16. Skills 2 Plan:
Create a Wordpress blog
Theme your blog
Link it to your twitter account
Siyavula's purpose: help you begin to author
content and enage with your peers online.
Benefit for you: authoring content distills ideas,
feedback drives enhancement and innovation.

17. Technology & Community & Openness
Dan Meyer
writer, speaker, learner, worker, go-getter

18. Technology & Community & Openness
Dan Meyer
writer, speaker, learner, worker, go-getter

19. Technology & Community & Openness
Dan Meyer
writer, speaker, learner, worker, go-getter
But blogging was the cheapest, most risk-free investment I could
have made of my personal time into my job. You start by writing down
things that are interesting to you, practices you don’t want to forget.
And then you start trying new things just so you can blog about them
later, picking them apart, and dialoging over them with strangers.
Periods of stagnancy in your blogging start to correspond to periods
of stagnancy in your teaching. You start to muse on your job when
you’re stuck in traffic, in line for groceries, that sort of thing. That

20. Our ultimate goal:
A community of educators confident and
comfortable to author, review and openly share
content online.

21. Siyavula Badges

22. A simple introduction to:
Blogging

23. Wordpress.com
1

24. Wordpress.com

25. Passwords
Long – take a phrase and concatenate it
Complicated – mix CaSe, numb3rs, characters!
Write them DOWN!
Better to write down a hard password than make
an easy one ...

26. Don't (my opinion) ….
Only blog in lists (those posts are done already)
Clutter the page with widgets
Rant

27. Do ….
Blogging is personal so write sincerely
Keep it simple
Develop your own style
Respond to comments
Respect others (even if they don't)

28. The internet is a dangerous place?

31. Anonymity
Invisibility
Stop/start communication
Voices in your head
Imaginary world
No police

32. www.siyavula.com