Twitter & microblogging

Last night I decided to clean up my blog a little and give it some attention that it dearly needed. I spent a few productive hours and I'm pretty happy with the results. But much of it was just 'busy stuff, being productive but not a lot of thinking or learning. So what kept me amused and what probably made a job that should have taken one hour stretch out to three was all the Twitter tweets that came through via twhirl as I was working. Many of them lead me to another site or a blog or a bookmark that interested me.
Twitter is kinda like blogging but not. Some people use it to say what they are up to at that particular moment, others use it to say what they are reading or viewing, others use it to start conversations or ask questions. It can be referred to as microblogging. Twitter is as powerful and as useful (or intrusive) as you choose to make it. Check out some ways that Laura Milligan suggests that we educators could use twitter with our colleagues or students.
25 Twitter Tips for College Students.
You might also like to check out sirexkat's Adventures in Microblogging which she created in flowgram. Very interesting summing up of lots of different ways to microblog but at this stage I think I'll stick with Twitter. :)
PS Flowgram is still in beta, but you can request to try it out.

Learning sometimes comes unexpectedly

Last night was one of those unpredictable amazing events that came from one idea and ended up in the most amazing evening. It started as it so often does these days from a Twitter tweet which alerted me to a session called The Flat classrooms workshop that was being streamed live on UStream in St Louis in the US. The session was being run by Vicki Davis, coolcatteacher and Julie Lindsay, 123learning and I and about 30 others just happened to log in as they were about to begin their first morning session. Being able to watch and listen to their introductions and their plans for the two day workshop was fantastic. At one stage they skyped in Darren Kuropatwa a renowned maths teacher in Canada who does some amazing work with his students and blogging. But what was even more powerful was the back channel chat that was going on at the same time on Chatzy. Julie and Vicki used this chat to add to and discuss issues and ideas with the real life group and they also continued to chat and share with us online. Two hours later I finally dragged myself off to bed at 1.00am having spent two great hours watching and listening and most importantly learning. Here are a couple of cool links that came out of the chat that I will certainly be returning to.
The Education vodcasting site is a site run by two science teachers who create vodcast lectures for their students. This means that effectively they turn their classes on its head by sending the students away with the lectures to listen to and when in class the students spend time with the teachers on more practical experiments and ideas.

Susan Morgan shared her school website which lists fabulous examples of teachers using Web2 in the classroom http://www.fredericksburgacademy.org/page.cfm?p=1212

smadlliinger shared a polling site that can be used with mobile phones to create and complete polls online http://www.polleverywhere.com

Martha Bogart shared her site on Videoconferencing http://www2.csd.org/newlinks/newlinks.htm
and there were so many more but I lost track.

Sometimes it takes no more than an internet connection, a few hours spare time, a comfy chair in a cosy lounge room to experience some pretty powerful professional development.

How do we keep up with the learning

I've just been reading an article, Fast Learners in the Information Age that was posted to Twitter from one of my twitter friends. The article discusses changes that are taking place in Australian workforce in terms of the way we learn and collaborate with each other. The use of online applications particularly those that could fit under the umbrella of social networking are being considered in some sectors as almost essential tools for those groups that manage and train vast numbers of personnel. Unfortunately in the education sector, I don't think we are up to that stage yet although I think we should be. The percentage of teachers who maintain a sense of professional development via the web is increasing but sadly I don't believe that it's at the tipping point yet. A lot more work has to be done in terms of recognising the power and potential of these tools not so much at the change management level but at the practitioner level, the teacher level. Until that happens, I think all we can do is continue to sing the praises, the advantages, the power of this environment to our colleagues and hopefully that will contribute in some small way to the change that has to happen. For me the power of learning and improving my own professional practice comes through the use of social networking communities and tools such as Twitter, blogs, wiki, Ning, Diigo and so many more. But it takes a certain enthusiasm, commitment, dedication and faith in its value to keep participating, working and learning in and from this environment. I have no doubt that as time goes on we will embrace the power of this more and more. It's up to us who are immersed in it to continue to sing it's praises and spread the word.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

A safe site for kids

It is the first week of school holidays in Victoria at the moment and I should be lying on a beach somewhere warm or at the very least taking it easy on my couch at home watching Family Guy.
Instead I am filling in some time before 12 midnight when I meet with a group of other interested educators who are training to be mediators for SuperClubsPlus au.
SCP is a website designed especially for kids between the ages of 6 and 12. Kids can create their own home pages, participate in online forums, join webrings and email other members. To me it's very much like a kids version of a ning. A social networking site for kids.
But what makes this more effective than others? Well what is unique about this site is that whenever the site is open, it is always managed by a trained mediator. "All communication between members is filtered automatically to prevent inappropriate language and content, cyberbullying, unwanted flirting and grooming. "
All communications are also monitored by teachers and by highly-skilled, professional mediators. who supervise every email, every forum post, every image upload to ensure that it is appropriate and safe. Students are only able to join through a school so their identity is validated to ensure that there is no chance of an older person impersonating a child.
Check out what some teachers who are already using it say, http://www.superclubsplus.com.au/i/teacherssay
Tonight I'm looking forward to seeing and watching what students are doing in the UK when they are online.
Should be fun.

Studio 52- real life learning and it's fun

This evening as I sit here at the end of a really fabulous day spent with 5 teachers and 24 students from two country schools in North West Victoria I'm seeing something pretty amazing. These students have been chosen to come to Studio 52 in Collingwood Melbourne to record their own CD. Studio 52 is a real recording studio and the kids have been working with sound engineers and graphic artists to record and mix their music and then design and create their compilation of eclectic songs. Some are covers, some are original songs. Some students are beatboxing, others are playing in a 5 guitar ensemble, still others are playing bass and electric guitars with drums and singer. And some are pianists and soloists. What brings them all together is firstly Koolskools, the project that allows young people to record and produce their own music and participate in a state wide competion to find the best young performers and writers in the state. Also shared is an interest in music, in express themselves through songwriting and performance in some pretty cool and diverse ways and a shared goal of having their music published.
As I sit here at 11.00pm in the common room of the back packer hotel that we are staying in, I see a teacher from another school teaching a student from our school how to distort sound on an electric guitar, three girls practising their vocals for their track tomorrow, one teacher writing on her laptop, three boys playing their guitars practising their parts for their track tomorrow, two girls practising on their keyboards and generally having fun playing any song they can think of and other students sitting back enjoying the sound.
I am so thrilled to see some of our students who struggle at school in the mainstream context finding a way to impress and express their thoughts and ideas. We have one student who is an exceptionally talented beatbox artist. This afternoon at the studio he began to lay down his track and in the little recording Studio B there was myself, his music teacher and one other mate. At the end of two takes the studio had filled to capacity as other students heard or were told of something pretty amazing happening in the studio. When he came out of the recording booth he was greeted with clapping and congrats from students from both schools who may not have been beatbox fans but who recognised an awesome talent. I truly hope that one day our beatboxer will look back on these two days and recognise the wonderful opportunity he has had. But more importantly I hope he remembers the recognition by his peers of his talent and unique ability and dedication to his craft.

more on Cyber safety

I have written a few posts of late on the issue of cybersafety. Di, one of the participants in the Intel Thinking with Technology course that I am running pointed out this amazing site from the UK. It would have to be one of the most comprehensive sites I have seen on the subject of cybersafety, social networking and cyberbullying. As a teacher of students who are have a presence online the challenge for me is to stay abreast of what is out there as well as empower students with strategies that they can use themselves. This site warrents far more exploration and I hope to do more of that over the next few weeks.

Scratch-learning about programming

For the last few weeks my Year 8 students have been creating their own animations using Pivot Stickman, a very simple freely available animation software. They have created some really cool little animations. I'm going to up load some of them to this blog over the next few days to showcase them. Now it's time to move on and to me it seemed a logical step to introduce Scratch. Now I'm guessing that the purists will probably say that Scratch is not truly a programming language and I am willing to admit that I have such little idea of programming that I couldn't explain it or defend it at all. But to me and my students that doesn't matter. What does matter is exposing my students to a new learning experience that offers a way to manipulate, create, design and compute. According to the website Scratch is a new programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art . Yesterday in my Year 8 IT class we began our journey with Scratch. I'm really excited to see what they will achieve. At this stage we are in the 'sandpit' just playing around with it discovering just what it can do. Over the next few weeks we will use some of the tutorials that have been uploaded to Teachertube and we'll also look at many of the examples that are on the official Scratch website. Can't wait.