Here we go!

One of the big things about doing a course through social media is realizing how much I don’t know. I don’t know if I should admit this, but I am not an expert in social media. In a lot of ways that’s a good thing. Firstly, because if anyone wants to emulate this course they don’t need to be an expert to do it. Secondly, I am learning a lot!

This past week, I have learnt how to use Wordpress. My blog site looks like a proper little website. I’ve learnt how to do little bits of code to put in pictures – woo pictures! I learnt how to use Jing, which is a screen capture tool that you can do voiceovers. After doing the video about 10 times I've sick of the sound of my own voice. But, I did get stuck when it came to convert the SWF file (don't ask me what SWF means) that Jing produced into something that could be uploaded to YouTube. Gareth (husband for those of you who don’t know) had to come to my rescue here.

Another benefit is that I’m like a sponge for learning and leadership information at the moment. I’ve seen some cool presentations through IGNITE where primary and high school teachers do short sharp presentations about what they are doing professionally and what they are passionate about. I’ve learnt a lot from them about how to facilitate collaborative learning (it also makes me wonder how far corporate organizations are lagging behind the education sector in how learning is delivered). I also went to a cool workshop through Blacksmith on what NZ Post is doing with leadership development. I really liked how they used people who weren’t necessarily facilitators to facilitate the programme. I also liked the ideas about sharing stories and authenticity as leaders.

I have inspiration from a lot of corners at the moment and it gives me faith in what I am doing. Now to see if it works J