Edublogs Serendipity webinar overview – CC images “storing” for future use

REMINDER

It’s that time of year again! Over the next few weeks timezone chaos will reign. Half the world goes onto daylight saving and half comes off daylight saving. Except for a few regions such as here in Western Australia where we don’t have daylight saving. Just to make it even more complicated different places change on different dates. This is one of the main reasons we use GMT/UTC for our webinar times – because (like our West Australian time, but with much more “credibility”) it stays the same all year round.

If you have just lost or gained an hour then double check the times for anything trans-global in which you are involved. In the Northern Hemisphere you are heading back into winter so will “lose” an hour when your clocks are set back, thus our webinars will be an hour earlier “your time”. In the Southern Hemisphere you are going forward into summer so you “gain” an hour resulting in webinars an hour later “your time”

(For the link for live webinars and info about the times and topics scroll to the bottom of this post)

Introduction

The topic this week for our recorded Serendipity webinar was about how best to “keep” (appropriately Creative Commons licensed) images that we had found for use in presentations or other resources. The purpose being to be able to easily and quickly add them to future presentations. We also spent  a little time at the end of the session discussing and looking at managing student Edublogs accounts.

The session

Before starting the discussion we asked the proposer of the topic to give the context behind the question. This was mostly an issue of time both to re-find/re-access a remembered image and to carry out any rezising and cropping activities necessary.

The great challenge of this topic is not in keeping or classifying the images but in finding a way to easily store/access them with the attribution and a live link to the original source  integrated.

We began with a whiteboard brainstorm although most of the discussion was via audio and text chat. A number of ideas were shared and the pros and cons discussed. These related to platforms (eg DropBox, EverNote, Powerpoint). However there were fewer suggestions for ensuring that all the attribution information and a live link were retained.

Some thoughts on a strategy for the above

This has been on my mind since the session because of the difficulty I have myself in ensuring that students attribute and link when using CC licensed images. If I could find a strategy they could use that would tie the attribution and the link to the image for future use  I would be very happy! My current thoughts on the issue would be the following:

  1. Use Powerpoint as the platform/medium
  2. Find and download an appropriate CC licensed image (from Flickr CC search is good and easy)
  3. Check the license conditions, copy the attribution and the link to the image within the owner’s photostream & paste these to the Powerpoint slide
  4. Edit the image as required (if permitted under the terms of the license) for me this is usually limited to resizing and occasionally cropping. I use PhotoFiltre because of its simplicity. See this previous webinar overview for more on PhotoFiltre and this post from the 2011 Edublogs Teacher Challenge on Free tools for more about PhotoFiltre and the importance of image size.
  5. Save the resized image and then load into Powerpoint – alternatively you can frame as much as you want of the image and just copy/paste onto the Powerpoint slide.
  6. Position the attribution and the link either just within the image boundary or below the image. Adjust the sizes of text boxes and font so that they are not significantly wider than the image.
  7. Group the image and the text boxes together.
  8. If you need to tag in some way then add a list of keywords to the slide – you should then be able to use the “Find” option in editing to take you to suitable topics.
  9. Save the Powerpoint! You can then store it anywhere that suits you – including in the cloud.
  10. To re-use, select the grouped objects (image, attribution and link), copy and paste into your new presentation. NB if you are uploading to a blogpost you will need to save the grouped image as an image file (jpg or png are good). Then upload as usual. To make a live link you will need to insert an additional link to the photostream see below.

Link to johartoz’s photostream

I would love to hear from anyone else with ideas on how to do this better and/or from anyone who has tried/is trying something similar. This post has turned into rather more than the usual simple overview & recording link.

Our short look at managing student Edublogs blogs was around the different ways that blogs might be set up for students and how the teacher might be able to access the blog with some admin control/rights if the blog was set up independently by the student rather than by the teacher using the class set up process.

Conclusion

This ws a great session with many ideas shared. Storing CC images for easy re-use was not a topic I had ever really considered myself so I found it particularly interesting. Mostly I use my own images – either photographs or screenshots, although I do occasionally source an image through Creative Commons search on Flickr. If I need to re-use one of these I just go back to wherever I previously used it (usually Powerpoint) and copy/paste the image with associated attribution and link.

Our Next Session

Our next Webinar is an Edublogs “Fine Focus” session. It’s a long time since we talked Twitter” and there seems to have been a recent spate of h*ck/ph*sh/sp*m attacks so this week in “A cuckoo free Twitter nest!” we will take a look at some strategies that might help you evade these.   Join us on Thursday October 4th at 23:00 GMT/UTC the time for you will vary depending on your timezone (check yours here) Thursday afternoon/evening in the USA, late night Thursday in Europe, and Friday morning October 5th in Australia – in the usual Blackboard Collaborate virtual room.

Two Edublogs webinars – Serendipity and Prezi

Introduction

Two overviews in one this week – a slight improvement on last time. (For the link for live webinars and info about the times and topics scroll to the bottom of this post).

Serendipity

In this recorded Serendipity the topic chosen was “How to ratchet up the rigor w/o killing the class”.

The topic was inspired by the continuing concerns over enforced curriculum and the heavy focus on standardised testing even for Kindy age groups.

The discussion was wide ranging and, probably because we had adult educators as well as Kindy teachers, there were parallels drawn between:

  • the “teaching to the test” scenario raising its head in Kindy as well as throughout the rest of the the school system and;
  • the similar need in adult education situations for learners to be following a designated curriculum leading to some sort of certification in order for courses to attract funding and be viable.

Also raised were issues around the high profile of educational publishers in testing and in teacher training as well as in resource provision. This giving rise to concerns about being “locked” in to publishers who might eventually dictate the entire who, what and when of teaching in some areas.

A very lively session with much discussion and sharing in text and by audio. I think we were all left with much food for thought!

Give yourself a Prezi

This recorded and very interactive session was an exploration of Prezi – the zooming presentation tool. We all learned much about Prezi as a result of the session!

I followed my usual practice of trying to get some idea of everyone’s current knowledge of the tool – we had all seen or tried it out.

In my experience peoople either seem to love Prezi or dislike it strongly and often reasons for dislike seem to centre around the zooming issue which can make people feel queasy. Certainly that was my first reaction to Prezi, and although I played with it a little a few years ago I have avoided it until very recently. The reason for trying again was to give students an engaging alternative to Powerpoint/Slideshare that they could also embed in their blogs.

We took a look at a simple Prezi I had made for students using App  Share to share this. Then we looked at a slightly longer one using Prezi’s option to present by sharing a link so that everyone else was able to see as I moved through the presentation. In retrospect I should have kept the App Share open at the same time because if you watch the recording you will hear and read in text what is going on but be unable to watch. However the top link on the page should take you to the Prezi.

Then we moved on to  had some discussion/comments about what might be unlikeable or likeable about Prezi, and why you might use it even if you don’t like it yourself. I also shared the links to a couple of Prezis made by two of my students.

We then collaborated on a Prezi. This was fun, exciting and chaotic! We started in App Share and then I shared the edit link.

Once we got started I closed the App Share, however about halfway through I realised how unhelpful this would be to those watching the recording so I re-started it. For me this sort of experience is one of the best ways to explore the strengths and weaknesses of a tool and learn about it.

This was a great session for me because I learnt lots more about Prezi as well as getting my head round the need to keep the App Share open for the benefit of people watching the recording. I have always remembered  in the past with Elluminate (a very memorable one for me being playing with G+ hangout in its early days)  but for some reason I find it more difficult to remember in BbC.

Conclusion

Two excellent sessions! I enjoyed them very much. The Serendipity was a subject very close to my heart that I am always happy to discuss. As for the second – as most of you probably know I love playing with tools online and collaboratively so I found this great fun, and learned so much from the mistakes I made as we went through! I do hope that I didn’t bore everyone else by being slow and getting things wrong.

I really enjoy sessions where someone else is the main facilitator. If you have something to share please let us know (add a comment to this post, or Tweet us – @JoHart or @philhart) and then join us to facilitate a session about your e-edu passion! If you are not familiar with BlackboardCollaborate we can help you plan how best to do your session so it works for you.

Our Next Session

Our next Webinar is an Edublogs “Serendipity” session where we invite you to suggest your “hot” topics for discussion – we then select the topic by poll.  Join us on Thursday September 27th at 23:00 GMT/UTC the time for you will vary depending on your timezone (check yours here) Thursday afternoon/evening in the USA, late night Thursday in Europe, and Friday morning September 28th in Australia – in the usual Blackboard Collaborate virtual room.

Three Edublogs webinar overviews – e-publish, Serendipity, don’t lose data!

Introduction

Three overviews in one this week. At the moment I seem to have no time for anything and so once again the previous two week’s webinar overviews were postponed.

(For the link for live webinars and info about the times and topics scroll to the bottom of this post).

E-publish or be e-damned!

In this recorded session Phil  led us through some of the tangled web of e-books, beginning with some discussion on what they are.

From the plethora of formats (file types) and different publisher standards that Phil told us about, it seems that the world of e-books/e-publishing is at that stage in development where the publishers are attempting to “lock in” both writers and readers to their particular format. They are fighting to corner the market so that eventually almost everyone will be working with one format – that of the “winning” publisher who will “own” that format!

Phil moved the discussion on to consideration of e-books/e-publishing from the perspective of the author looking at factors around: saleability, preparation format – prepare in a common format and convert or author directly in the format for publishing. We also took a look at deciding on a publisher/format.

Producing a great (and successful) e-book is not just about having great ideas and content. Understanding the medium, having some knowledge of mark-up languages, presentation and marketing are all  important and the whole process can be hard work!

A great session which certainly made me much more aware of the ramifications of e-publishing and also very conscious that many e-books are not presented or sometimes even written particularly well. Perhaps e-books are currently in a similar stage of development to that of Science Fiction as a genre in the era of the “pulp” SF magazines last century!

Serendipity – what are, and how we use, wikis

This was a very lively recorded session with lots of audio and text chat interaction and not much on the whiteboard, though we did share some wikis and blogs through AppShare.

Initially we tried to get some clarity on wikis. I remember my own early confusion with wiki and Wikipedia when I first came across wikis and this is potentially even worse now with a multitude of online projects prefixed by the work “wiki” giving a variety of different impressions of what wikis are about.

Discussion then moved on to uses of wikis in a teaching contexts with some sharing of wikis and later blogs by participants to show how they are being used. There was a lot of side discussion ranging across many related topics particularly with reference to blogs. I think that the functional crossovers between wikis and blogs make it almost inevitable that if you discuss one you will also include the other.

A true Serendipity session with lots of serendipitous discovery as well as the chosen topic exploration.

Don’t lose your data!

As always we recorded this session and my personal opinion is that this is a “must” for anyone who has ever lost any data – and that means all of us! Again this session was led by @philhart who gave us fantastic insights into risks to our data and some of the ways to combat these. When Phil is not involved in edu activities he is a computer consultant who works with a variety of personal and business clients often advising on data preservation strategies as well as developing software.

Phil kept us busy throughout the session starting with a few questions to get us thinking about what we understand by the terms “data”, “risk” and “consequence”. We then moved on to consider the possible impacts on ourselves of losing data with consideration of where we keep our data and what risks we ourselves see.

Then Phil moved on to discuss some of the detail of what he sees as the three primary risks to our data: theft, loss and corruption. The risks can’t be eliminated entirely but we can control them to some extent. We need to do what is effectively a cost/benefit analysis where we balance the likely “cost”, not necessarily in material terms, of data loss against the “cost” of backing up.

Phil asked us what we do for our own data security – for most of us the focus was on some degree of backing up to reduce the “loss” element of the risk without much upfront consideration of the other . However it was interesting that when Phil shared his own strategy this was a blend which addressed all three areas of risk much more broadly!

To finish Phil asked us what we might do differently in the light of this session – for most of us this seemed to be a variation on the theme of find out more about what we already have and do more backups!

I found this session incredibly useful – despite living with “a backup obsessive” ie Phil it still opened my eyes to more risks that I need to consider!

Conclusion

Three fantastic sessions! I enjoyed all of these as always. I particularly enjoy sessions where someone else is the main facilitator. If you have something to share please let us know (add a comment to this post, or Tweet us – @JoHart or @philhart) and then join us to facilitate a session about your e-edu passion! If you are not familiar with BlackboardCollaborate we can help you plan how best to do your session so it works for you.

Our Next Session

Our next Webinar is an Edublogs “Serendipity” session where we invite you to suggest your “hot” topics for discussion – we then select the topic by poll.  Join us on Thursday September 13th at 23:00 GMT/UTC the time for you will vary depending on your timezone (check yours here) Thursday afternoon/evening in the USA, late night Thursday in Europe, and Friday morning September 14th in Australia – in the usual Blackboard Collaborate virtual room.

Edublogs Serendipity webinar overview – reading to dogs, why great apps close, mismatched expectations

Introduction

Again a Serendipity session where we didn’t vote on a topic! When we are only  very small group as has been the case often lately it works well for us to briefly visit several topics. This week we looked a “reading to dogs”, “why great programs/apps close” and 2stC expectations in a digital age. As always we recorded the session.

(For the link for live webinars and info about the times and topics scroll to the bottom of this post)

The session

This was an interesting session starting wih a look at “reading to dogs” a fascinating topic shared by @jofrei about “Reading Assistance Dogs” who help reluctant readers with reading aloud by being non-judgemental listeners. Jo shared a number of links, and this caused us to widen our thoughts into other animals as “assistants”

We then moved on to consider some possible reasons why what we feel are great programs/apps disappear or are changed beyond recognition by being taken over.

An offshoot from this included thoughts on the proliferation of new apps many of which seem to be very similar in purpose and which often don’t last long. My own leanings are towards using Open Source apps maintained by the community. This is because it appears to me that anything small and commercial that is good is immeditely a target for takeover by one of the giants in the field. It is then either shut down because it was a competitor or changed beyond recognition in the name of re-badging. These closures of good apps also raise issues about loss of personal data that has been uploaded and/or the complexities of removing it and transferring to a new platform. This provides a strong argument for having everything backed up in the “down here” and not just up in the cloud.

Our final very briefly visited topic was about the continuing existence of 20th Century expectations/methodologies being applied to assessment of learners who are learning using digital technology. This raised questions about: the time spent teaching the students how to use the tech tools instead of working with content; and the fact that students no longer need to learn and regurgitate content but must instead be able to evaluate information that they source from the Internet and make informed judgements on its reliability. This is definitely a topic for a full Finefocus session in the future!

Conclusion

As always a fascinating session – we almost forgot to stop at the finish time! These flying visits to several topics in a session are fun, and they work well with a small group.

Our Next Session

Our next Webinar is an Edublogs “Fine Focus” session. In this session Phil Hart (@philhart) will take us on an introductory look at e-publishing in “E-publish or be e-damned”.  Join us on Thursday August 23rd at 23:00 GMT/UTC the time for you will vary depending on your timezone (check yours here) Thursday afternoon/evening in the USA, late night Thursday in Europe, and Friday morning August 24th in Australia – in the usual Blackboard Collaborate virtual room.

Edublogs webinar overview – all about #gtchat

Introduction

This is the overview for our most recent (recorded as always) FineFocus webinar with guest presenter Lisa Conrad (@ljconrad).Lisa gave us a fascinating look at the Twitter (Gifted and Talented) #gtchat from its inception to the current position and on into the future. She also gave us opportunities for and answers to many questions!

The session

Lisa began with an explanation of #gtchat and a poll to find out our awareness of #chats in general on Twitter. Then she talked about the origins and history of #gtchat from its foundation by Deborah Mersino the first moderator, through the transition to Lisa herself as moderator, and also the support from the Texas Association for the Gifted & Talented.

Next Lisa gave us a run through on joining Twitter and also: ideas on finding relevant people to follow; suggestions on setting up a Twitter client for #chats; and some explanations of Twitter jargon.

Then came a look at the format of #gtchat

With a look at how topics are determined by Poll. This led into a look at some recent topics, and some recent guests.

Lisa then moved on to the future, starting with upcoming events and then moving into the future with exciting ideas for future developments in other social media to enhance the undoubted value of #gtchat as a professional development opportunity.

This concluded the formal part of the session and we moved on to a great question and answer session where Lisa did a terrific job in responding to many questions.

Conclusion

This was a great session! Lisa gave us a fascinating insight into the “inner workings” of #gtchat and much food for thought and inspiration through the potential future developments that will add another layer of “richness” to #gtchat. Thank you Lisa for such an interesting session!

Next Webinar

Our next session will be an Edublogs “Serendipity” session on Thursday August 16th at 23:00 GMT/UTC (Afternoon/Evening USA) or Friday August 17th at 7am West Aus, mid morning Eastern States Aus depending on your timezone (check yours here) – in the usual BlackboardCollaborate room. This is one of our fortnightly unconference sessions where we invite you to bring along your “hot topics” and “burning issues” for our poll on the topic

Edublogs Serendipity webinar overview – emerging tech et al

Introduction

As has been the case a couple of times recently this was  a Serendipity session where we didn’t vote on a topic! The consensus was to take a quick look at all three that were proposed – “Emerging technologies for the classroom”, “Introduction to PLNs” and “rscon4” The last of these is a little cryptic. It refers to the Reform Symposium Conference for which a date has not yet been finalised. The hashtag seems likely to be #rscon4. The session was, as always, recorded.

(For the link for live webinars and info about the times and topics scroll to the bottom of this post)

The session

A lively session with much sharing on the whiteboard and in text chat, although I felt – as so often that I talked too much!

We began with a whiteboard of ideas about emerging technologies. 

Then shared our knowledge of those we had any experience with – my particular fascination out of this part of the session was with the concept of 3D printers. Something completely new to me & definitely out of the realms of science fiction! This was the longest part of the session.

Our next topic was “Introduction to PLNs”. Again we used a whiteboard to share our thoughts on the variety of tools and strategies we use as part of our own individual PLNs. Any discussion about PLNs is always worthwhile because there are always new thoughts and angles on how we each view them. This was a “flying visit” to the world of the PLN but sufficient to give a flavour!

Finally another “flying visit” this time to “#rscon4” this is actually the probable #tag for this year’s (or maybe early next year’s) – the date is yet to be finalised – Reform Symposium Conference. This was a very short chat as the planning for rscon4 is still in the early stages. However it seems it will be a very exciting event using multiple strands and platforms.

Conclusion

This was a great session – I always find something new and interesting to me personally in every session. However some stand out more than others and 3D printers are a definite standout for me. The whole idea is getting so close to Star Trek “replicators” that I can almost hope for “transporter beams” to enable me to travel without the claustrophobic “tin tube” experience of flying!

Our Next Session

Our next Webinar is an Edublogs “Fine Focus” session. This week Lisa Conrad (@ljconrad) – the Moderator of  the lively Twitterchat for Gifted and Talented (#gtchat) will give us a “heads up” on #gtchat and on moderating a #chat.  Join us on Thursday August 9th at 23:00 GMT/UTC the time for you will vary depending on your timezone (check yours here) Thursday afternoon/evening in the USA, late night Thursday in Europe, and Friday morning August 10th in Australia – in the usual Blackboard Collaborate virtual room.

Edublogs webinar overview – the Global Classroom project

Introduction

In this session, recorded as always, we heard from Michael Graffin about the variety of projects that have formed part of the “Global Classroom Project” (#GlobalClassroom) this year.

The Session

Michael took us on an incredible journey. He started with some background, firstly explaining how the Global Classroom came about and its reach both geographically and in numbers. Then moving on to the aims and ethos of the community.

For me the most exciting part was the project stories – Michael shared the project stories and some of the highlights of the year. We were lucky in that Lin-Lin Tan from Taiwan, one of the teachers involved in several projects was able to join the session. She told us a little about how the Global Classroom projects have affected her and her students.

Michael moved on to consider some of the impacts of Global Classroom on teachers and some lessons learnt. Finally he turned to the future with thoughts for next year’s #GlobalClassroom.

Conclusion

This was a fantastic session! Michael gave us a brilliant overview of Global Classroom and the projects. Chat was very lively throughout with many ideas shared and also links to many of the projects (thanks to Anne Mirtschin for her help in dropping links into chat). If you are looking to be both inspired and awe inspired then this is a MUST catch recording!

Next Webinar

Our next session will be an Edublogs “Serendipity” session on Thursday July 19th at 23:00 GMT/UTC (Afternoon/Evening USA) or Friday July 21st at 7am West Aus, mid morning Eastern States Aus depending on your timezone (check yours here) – in the usual BlackboardCollaborate room. This is one of our fortnightly unconference sessions where we invite you to bring along your “hot topics” and “burning issues” for our poll on the topic

Edublogs Serendipity webinar overview – a lucky dip!

Introduction

This was one of those sessions where we talked about several topics. As always the session was recorded and makes interesting listening. The consesus was to spend some time on each of several topics, these being: the vocational education system; online maths programs & making maths easy; and a quick chat about some iPad apps.

The Session

We used a whiteboard for each topic for a heading to help us maintain topic focus, but also to be available for ideas and sharing as needed. It was interesting that each of the topics was addressed differently in terms of the way we used BbC. This demonstrates well the capability of the platform as a learning space. The first topic (TAFE) was almost entirely discussed via audio and text chat. The second (online maths & making maths easy) made heavy use of the whiteboard for ideas and link sharing. Our third topic of iPad apps also used the whiteboard but to a much lesser extent mainly for sharing app names.

We were a small group – all Australian which  gave rise to one of the topics. Our public Vocational Education and Training system is currently the centre of much debate regarding funding. It is under pressure to compete for students with private trainers who do not have the same government imposed constraints – hence the heading of TAFE (Training and Further Education). I know I had far too much to say about this because it is my own sector and I care about it intensely! There were many comparisons to be drawn with other sectors and globally.

The maths topic – as is always the case with maths generated much activity. We had a whiteboard in two columns – for sharing links and ideas for making maths interesting. However so many links were shared that the second column was largely taken over by the first! If you access the recording and use the bottom scroll bar in it to scroll to about 3/4 of the way through you can access most of those links live from the whiteboard. These lead to a positive “treasure chest” of online maths!

Our final topic was a quick look, with short descriptions, at some of the apps that those of us with iPads have and find useful.

Conclusion

This was fun! As always (for me anyway) the great thing about our Serendipity sessions is that we never know where they will lead. Sessions where we range accross several topics are particularly interesting because of the diversity of information shared and views expressed.

Our Next Session

Our next Webinar is an Edublogs “Fine Focus” session.   Join us on Thursday May 31st at 23:00 GMT/UTC the time for you will vary depending on your timezone (check yours here) Thursday afternoon/evening in the USA, late night Thursday in Europe, and Friday morning June 1st in Australia – in the usual Blackboard Collaborate virtual room.

Edublogs webinar overview – Exploring story makers

Introduction

This session, recorded as always was one in which we took a look at some online story making tools in one of our “quick and easy tools” explorations. These are occasional sessions where I put up a list of a few tools and each participant chooses one (preferably one unknown to them) to explore for ten minutes and then give feedback to the rest of us. The first time I did this the tools were a mixture of different functions however more recently I have chosen ones with similar purposes.

My personal rationale for “ten minutes to explore” is that if it takes too long to “pick up” the basics of using any tool then the focus of the “lesson” in which it is being used may change from the educational purpose to the tech being used. In other words we risk using “tech for tech’s sake” rather than as a tool to achieve the educational purpose.

The Session

The decision to explore story makers for exploration comes from the fact that I have been investigating story makers for use with my own students.  When looking for possible tools to explore I was surprised at how few there were that did not have a very heavy focus on using audio. I specifically wanted text and images both: to meet the needs of my adult literacy curriculum; and to keep the process simple. I find that  digital story making applications with audio can be time consuming for students to learn if they want (as they invariably do) both voice and music in the audio. So this session only looked at four tools – these were:

We started with a have you used it and to what degree on the four tools to be explored. This revealed that most of us had some awareness of, or familiarity with at least one or two of them and one participant was very familiar with two of the four.

The next step was for everyone to choose one of the story makers to explore and then investigate it for ten minutes with the following considerations in mind:

  • how easy to learn the basics
  • how engaging to use
  • a lesson/context in which to use it
  • whether they personally would use it with students

After the ten minutes everyone came back and took turns in talking about the ease of use and other features of the tool they had explored. There were also some great ideas for use in class.

We finished with some feedback and a look at our best takeaways from the session.

Conclusion

This was great session! These are always great fun and much enjoyed by all. I have recently shown Storybird to my own students who are taking part in the ELFADA project. One of their projects is an online story that they will embed in their blogs and they have been exploring some different types of stories made with applications they are already familiar with (PowerPoint/Slideshare and Toondoo) as well as Storybird which is new to them.

Next Webinar

Our next session will be an Edublogs “Serendipity” session on Thursday May 24th at 23:00 GMT/UTC (Afternoon/Evening USA) or Friday May 25th at 7am West Aus, mid morning Eastern States Aus depending on your timezone (check yours here) – in the usual BlackboardCollaborate room. This is one of our fortnightly unconference sessions where we invite you to bring along your “hot topics” and “burning issues” for our poll on the topic.