Pondering a few things about #ELTChat - key among them time(s)!
Image: Hartwig HKD
Having missed another session of #ELTChat on Twitter early this morning (this is the second time) without notice, one thing I found myself contemplating this morning is whether I really ought to give up my claim to being one of the ELTChat moderators.
Last night, as with the other time I missed ELTChat, I simply passed out and slept through the session. The first session kicks in at 1 a.m. local time here in Australia (on a Thursday morning), and the second session gets underway at 7 a.m. I'm not available for the 7 a.m. session, and on those occasional evenings when our two young kids are restless, I occasionally sleep through the earlier one.
This is clearly not good moderator behaviour, no matter what any of the kind co-moderators say! Besides that, I don't have time to help with the maintenance of the ELTChat site, nor to participate in organising things like the brilliant podcasts that are uploaded after the chats take place.
Personally, I'm starting to feel rather inept, and potentially a fake when it comes to acknowledging a moderator role! Should I toss in the role and let someone more committed have a shot at it?
But more importantly, I think we might like to think about the timing of #ELTChat.
1 a.m. and 7 a.m. sessions clearly don't work well for ELTers in Australia, but it is a time zone roughly shared by most of North East and South East Asia -- where there are tens of thousands of ELTers.
And I'm not all that sure the selected times turn out all that well for our colleagues in the Americas, either (please feel free to let us know!).
I know the given times (3 p.m. and 9 p.m. on the Wednesday, London time) are generally suitable for our wonderful and highly active European colleagues, but I do worry that we may be inadvertently creating a highly Eurocentric movement.
What are your thoughts?
Would it be viable to change the ELTChat session times to be a little more inclusive of the time zones in more parts of the world than Europe? Even a 1 p.m. first session (London time) would equate to 10 or 11 p.m across most of the Asia-Pacific region, which I think is a lot more feasible for ELTers in those regions. And we need to hear what our teachers in the Americas think, as well.
Or are those times (3 and 9 p.m.) absolutely the best/most feasible for Europeans, and perhaps a better idea might be to set up a completely separate time for #ELTChat in the Asia-Pacific and/or Americas regions?
All I know is that ELTChat is an absolutely fantastic movement and vehicle for PD and sharing of ideas, and however we can find ways to include more teachers from more regions, the better we will make it.
Worth thinking about/discussing!
=D
