Education ∪ Math ∪ Technology

A discussion with our Education Minister George Abbott

When George Abbott first became education minister, I sent out an email to him inviting him to join us on Twitter, and find out how educators are using it to communicate with each other across vast geographic distances. Unfortunately, the email got lost during his leadership attempt in BC, and I forgot about it. However, a few weeks ago, his aide, Chris Sandve contacted me through my website and indicated they were interested in getting back to my email. George Abbott sent me back an email recently, suggesting that he would like to participate in a discussion through Twitter on the topics of "technology and personalized education and how we can work together to build a great education system in British Columbia."

We’ve planned the discussion for June 13th, at 4pm. Chris Wejr and myself will be the moderators for the event, so direct any technical questions our way.

Anyone who wants to follow along in the conversation can read the threads on the #BCed hashtag on Twitter by following this link. If you have a Twitter account, and are interested in participating in the conversation, just make sure to read the #BCed hashtag at the right time, and include the hashtag #BCed in your tweets. If you want to try out Twitter for this conversation, but are unsure of how to get started, you can see my series of videos on using Twitter for some help.

We are considering this an open dialogue so that anyone with an interest in education in British Columbia is welcome to participate. This includes, but is not limited to, teachers, administrators, school support staff, parents, school trustees, media personel, and students. We welcome both participants from the private and public sectors of education, since George Abbott is the minister of all education in BC. We are even happy to have participants from outside of British Columbia participate.

Please be aware that the chat will be very fast, and George Abbott will not be able to respond to every reply sent his way. However, it will still be an opportunity to express our opinion, and potentially shape the vision of education in British Columbia. We should feel free to respond to each other in this chat, as well as to Mr. Abbott. Further, let’s try and make this a productive dialog about the future of education in British Columbia. I would like this not to end up being a political discussion about the lack of funding for BC schools, and focus more on what we think the role of technology and personalized learning means for our students.

Update:

If you are planning on participating in this discussion at your school (or workplace) you could project the conversation on #BCed using an LCD projector, and invite your colleagues (or friends) to participate in the conversation as well. This way we can include people in the conversation without requiring them to create a Twitter account.