I love conferences such as ATLE (Alberta Technology Leaders in Education).  It's so refreshing to see educators getting together to talk about new and current trends in technology in education, discuss shifting ideas and focus on communication, sharing and engagement with our students.

Plus the food at ATLE is always EXCELLENT! lol

It all kicked off with a bang with a keynote address by none other than the famous Couros bros (@coursa & @gcouros for all you tweeps out there). Sadly, they didn't perform their song and dance routine that they had promised a few weeks back...*sigh*. Instead, the main focus of their discussion was the theory and reality behind sharing information and communication within schools.  Hopefully, most of you got to join it either in person, or virtually via Elluminate. 

As always, I learned something, had some great real-time discussions with the people sitting next to me as well as on Twitter, and, most importantly, picked up a few pieces of wisdom to share with you on my blog!

Enter Piece of Wisdom #1: BuddyPress

BuddyPress is essentially a group blogging site, where an identified group of people can share their experiences, thoughts and just generally contribute to the social networking within that particular group.  For example, you might create one for your football team, Math department or Grade 2 classroom.  The point is that it's not a single person adding the majority of content, but rather it's a collaborative area for people to add items as they see fit. Want to be able to communicate as a teacher with parents? Want your students to be able to blog their reflections of their completed projects for those same parents to access and comment? BuddyPress is one site that facilitates this openness and discussion.

And that, boys and girls, is why it's so awesome.

Stay tuned for more brilliance from fantastic educators at #atle10! Follow along with the discussion on Twitter :)

Vanessa