Category: Workshops

Tweeting and conferencing.

11/23/2015

"I was staying at the #Westin with Jesus and John Wayne." -#WarrenZevon #westinbayshore

A photo posted by Jeffrey Nordstrom (@jeffnords) on Nov 19, 2015 at 1:15pm PST

My room at the Westin Bayshore for the next couple nights. #hotelroom #conferencing

A photo posted by Jeffrey Nordstrom (@jeffnords) on Nov 18, 2015 at 11:16pm PST

Last week I had the opportunity to take part in the BCSSA's semi-annual conference for educators. I attended as a teacher representative for my district. I stayed at the Westin Bayshore in Coal Harbour, Vancouver, BC, right above where the conference itself took place. Overall, I had a good time.

Knowing that I would be encouraged to do a lot of tweeting during the conference, I set up a new Twitter account in order to address more education-based tweets; I had no interest in filling people's feeds with my usual sets of links and reflections. Fortunately, my phone makes it easy to switch between the two accounts.

I tweeted a lot.

For example, I used my clip-on 12x lens to take these photos of the keynote speakers, namely Robert Marzano and Dr. Norman Doidge:

@robertjmarzano at the #bcssa15 pic.twitter.com/zXBp8KWl15
— Jeffrey Nordstrom (@jnordedu) November 19, 2015

Dr. Norman Doidge. #bcssa15 pic.twitter.com/Qvk3cO4c9u
— Jeffrey Nordstrom (@jnordedu) November 20, 2015

And I tweeted lots of responses to speakers and presenters. For example,

Ohhh... Saw the "Attendance is affecting performance" quote at the bottom of that slide. □ Report cards can be so cold. #bcssa15
— Jeffrey Nordstrom (@jnordedu) November 20, 2015

From the floor: Model resiliency. Put yourselves out there, make mistakes, and keep going. Take a risk or two. #bcssa15
— Jeffrey Nordstrom (@jnordedu) November 19, 2015

If I expect my students 2 use literacy strategies & reflect on how they use 'em, I should expect the same 4 myself re. my teaching. #bcssa15
— Jeffrey Nordstrom (@jnordedu) November 19, 2015

Disruption is important, but I fear manufacturing it in the name of innovation. Identify your disruptions wisely. Just pondering. #bcssa15
— Jeffrey Nordstrom (@jnordedu) November 20, 2015

Now, I'm fully aware that I don't use my hashtags with skill or aplomb, and I rarely tweet incendiary comments in order to drum up controversy. I enjoyed writing tweets while people presented; it worked as an interesting way to frame my notes and memories from the content. It felt a little rude to be looking at a screen now and then while presenters were making their points, but it was fun and generally served its purpose.

Unless your purpose was actual networking and meeting real life people. I didn't meet a single one of the people with whom I shared a Twitter dialogue. All those tweets and I didn't come out of it with a single new connection. All that screentime without a new face.

The only people I really met were people I met face-to-face without the aid of a phone.

What's the point, then? Why spend all this time tweeting if you don't get to meet a real person out of it?

All of this only shows me one thing: that if I'm crummy at meeting people in real life, Twitter is not the method I need to use to facilitate more connections.

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Music Business 101 at Tractorgrease Studios.

11/23/2014

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Today I attended the first workshop in the Music Business 101 workshops put on by Tractogrease Studios in Chilliwack, BC. Ridley Bent was one of the speakers; I've known of his music since a few singles from his debut album were regularly played on the local CBC a few years ago. The other speaker was Dustin Bentall, whom I've only heard here and there for the last few years. They spoke a little about their respective songwriting processes and stressed the need for collaboration. They repeated the need for good sounding boards for new songs, and to be willing to change things if the song isn't necessarily working.

My name got on the website!

I can't say they said anything new; at this point I can't help but feel that I've heard it all. However, I can say that they reaffirmed the following tenets:

It's a little easier to find inspiration when you're regularly reading books.
It's important to keep trying to write new songs, even though life might be busy.
It's important to collaborate with people; don't be overly possessive over your songs.

I've slated my own "free live performance video from Tractorgrease Studio" for December 7. I've discussed it with my wife and we think it might be best to perform "35, 17." I'll have to spend a bunch of time practicing the song to make it into a good solo-performance song, at least for the context of a video performance.

I have to admit that I'm really enjoying how "35, 17" is sounding right now, as a demo recording. I look forward to hearing a mastered version.

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Tweeting and conferencing.

Music Business 101 at Tractorgrease Studios.

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