It is truly incredible to think about how impactful the #TOSAChat community has been this past year! #TOSAChat was the brainchild of Ben Cogswell, TOSA Technology-trainer at Alisal Union School District back in the summer of 2015. Ben then approached Karly Moura, Kelly Martin, and me with this idea and after a couple of months, countless Twitter DM messages (back when they were restricted to 140 characters), creating a dedicated @TosaChat Twitter and Google account, and establishing tosachat.org, #TOSAChat launched its first chat on Monday, August 17, 2015.
#TOSAChat had its anniversary chat this past Monday, August 15, 2016, and it was truly amazing to see how much the #TOSAChat community has grown. It's amazing to reflect on how this community has influenced and improved everyone's coaching, professional development, pedagogy, resources, professional learning network (PLN), and our impact on the teachers we work with, and of course, ultimately the students.
It is incredibly hard to have a comprehensive list of the impact of #TOSAChat on the coaches, TOSAs, and teachers this past year. Below is a feeble attempt of listing some highlights.
- First chat: Monday, August 17, 2015 - my inaugural chat blog post
- Fall CUE
- October's Blogging Challenge
- #TOSAChat t-shirts (1, 2, 3) and stickers (1, 2, 3)
- 1st #TOSAChat Tiki Meet Up at California STEM Symposium - #CASTEM15 (picture)
- EdTechAri - Ari Flewelling - being @TosaChat's social coordinator (for meetups, Voxer, and more)
- What's In Your Bag
- Holiday Gift Exchange
- #TOSAChat on Voxer and its many smaller Voxer groups (book clubs, healthylivingedu, formmule, ...)
- #TOSAChat Tiki Meetup #2 during the runDisney Star Wars Half Marathon weekend and playing a BreakoutEDU game by Jody Green.
- Team @TosaChat on Ben's Coach's Corner (picture from Ann Kozma)
- Team @TosaChat on Teachers Talk Live with Amanda Haughs and Lee Araoz
- Meeting so many coaches and TOSAs at EdCampSV (1, 2, 3)
- National CUE (Slidedeck, Hyperdoc, Twitter handbook, TweetDeck Cheat Sheet)
- Team @TosaChat on #EDURoadTrip
- Having amazing guest moderators including Jen Abrams, Matt Miller, Jon Corippo, Kelly Hilton, Lisa Highfill, Sarah Landis, ...
- Coaches meeting in real life at ISTE, CUERockStar, other summer PD, and of course, just for fun (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
- #TOSAChat Summer Meetup
Again, that is definitely not a comprehensive list of the impact of #TOSAChat, but what an impact its had on all of us!
#TOSAChat is definitely our collective reason to #CelebrateMonday! As Joanne Ireland wrote, I Found My Tribe!
I informally and unofficially met Karly Moura before knowing the journey we'll experience together in June 2015.
Karly and Kelly met face to face at Fall CUE.
I officially met Karly at MDUSD's STEM and EdTech Symposium.
Ben, Karly, and I met face to face at EdCampSV. Of course we HAD to get Kelly on a video conference! (Thanks Lindsey Blass for taking that picture.)
Ben, Karly, and Kelly presented together at National CUE on creating Twitter chats with me supporting remotely from Palo Alto.
By the way, I have yet to meet Kelly. :( However, even though that hasn't happened yet, the work we put into the #TOSAChat community definitely filled a need for TOSAs and coaches. I think this really goes without saying, but I'm going to write it anyway - #TOSAChat is nothing without everyone in the community. Ben, Karly, Kelly, and I just started the community, but it's everyone that participates on Twitter, Voxer, EdCamps, conferences, and of course in real life that makes #TOSAChat what it is - our tribe.
Once again, #TOSAChat is definitely our collective reason to #CelebrateMonday! Happy First Anniversary, #TOSAChat.