Selfie number 7

With Shelly at EduTech Australia, Brisbane, June 2015

In this series of short posts, I'm writing about my top ten selfies with people who have inspired me or have influenced my thinking. Previous selfie posts can also be viewed on this blog.

I meet a lot of people on my travels, many of whom are very expert in their specialism, but I don't believe I have met anyone who is as enthusiastic and passionate as Shelly Terrell. She is a live wire and an ultra-connected educator. She has been called a global netweaver and curator. Above all, she is an innovator.

I first met Shelly when she stood in at the last minute when one of my keynote speakers fell ill and had to withdraw from the Plymouth Enhanced Learning Conference (Pelecon). At the drop of a hat, Shelly flew in from Germany where she was living at the time, and gave a rip-roaring performance that had everyone enthralled. She talked about how social media was making a huge impact on learning, and gave some great examples from her own professional practice. It was the start of many subsequent encounters.

Shelly has been behind a large number of the high impact initiatives that have influenced education globally in the last few years. She was one of the founders of the Reform Symposium, a very popular 72 hour, follow the sun online event with facilitators on 3 separate continents. Along with Tom Whitby and Steven Anderson (sadly I have not yet met either of those gentlemen), she was responsible for setting up #edchat, a highly influential Twitter chat for educators across the globe and she also established the much respected Teacher Reboot Camp. She is also behind the 30 goals challenge (which can be viewed here) and NAPW voted her Woman of the Year for 2014. And of course, Shelly has a huge following on social media, and is a prolific speaker and presenter on the international circuit. She has an insatiable appetite for helping others to learn, and pours all of her considerable energy into supporting and developing teachers. Not only has she inspired me, she has had an impact on the lives of countless other educators across the globe.

Photo by Steve Wheeler


Selfie number 7 by Steve Wheeler was written in Plymouth, England and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.