Tweet, Tweet, ... tweet?

From the blogosphere to the cover of Newsweek, you are bound to have at least heard of Twitter.  You may have even created a twitter account just to find yourself talking to .... yourself and really not understanding the twerrific tweet fascination.

Why are some people's Twitter experience totally different from others?

Let's start first where we ask our students to begin when posed with a question--research. Before you get started in twitterverse, shouldn't you know a bit about it?

I'm a teacher, so I wanted to find out how Twitter could be used in my classroom or to make me a more effective teacher.   I started simple enough by just creating an account and watching the twitterverse from the main Twitter page.  I must admit I wasn't instantly impressed.  There had to be more to the whole "Twitter Phenomenon". How were teachers using this when every other tweet wasn't appropriate for the classroom?

Surely Google could help me out with this one!  I started searching for educational uses for Twitter and realize that my use of Twitter was probably going to be more to build my effectiveness as a teacher and not necessarily as a classroom tool for students.  Now, there aren't any set rules for using Twitter, and this was just how I decided to use Twitter.

One great finding in my research was Twitter Groups.  I was able to easily join a variety of educational groups as well as groups that would help expand my resources for various units such as photography:) Day by day I started having people follow me from the various groups.  Day by day I read through great ideas and resources.  Day by day I continued to research.

One of the best suggestions came from @suewaters  One of her suggestions was to ask one of your favorite tweeters to ask his/her followers to follow you (not her exact words:).  Which also leads me to a great Twitter resource, Sue's Blog.

Twitter has become one of the best ways I have expanded my PLN.  Here are just a few ways I have use Twitter since my first tweet:

• Ask questions


• Hash Tag posts while posting on f2f workshop


• Save favorite tweets


• Attend various meet-ups and PD internationally


• Check out resources


• Answer questions


• Pretend I was attending NECC by following others NECC experience


• Post resources


• LOL


• Search for unit and class resources using "search"


• FOFL (usually @philhart or @johart )


• ReTweet and be ReTweeted


• COLLABORATE


• and my favorite....shared a pic of my boys and 81 yo grandfather climbing a "mountain" hunting for shark teeth in Kansas.  Who would have thought someone in my PLN was actually interested in visiting Kansas?!

So, are you wanting to become a more effective teacher?  Maybe you would like to save hours of searching for the right resources.  Jump into the Twitterverse!

Instruction Manual for the Classroom?

Most parents find themselves at some point wondering, "Why don't kids come with an instruction manual?" Isn't the same true in the classroom.  Imagine knowing before the school year starts:  If you need something addressed immediately,  you need to call Billy's grandfather.  Sara is having a difficult time since the passing of her grandmother, and John will harass her about it.  Jackie loves to draw so if she gets behind offer a class contract for 5 minutes of art at the end of class once her grades are up to a C.

One of the key components of high school reform is relationships.  By adding relationships through the personalization of the high school experience, not only will you decrease dropout, increase attendance, and increase successful course completion, you will also build a positive environment for student, teachers, and parents focused on success of students in real life.  

How do you personalize high school?  Create small school setting such as a Freshman Academy (school within school).  Incorporate Advisory programs where teacher keep the same kids until graduation giving them the opportunity to truly build a relationship with that group of kids.  Listen to the students and offer avenue for school involvement such as adding clubs or additional courses.  Of course the listen can go on and on.

The 2009 - 2010 school year embarks our "official" third year of High School Reform focused on Relationships - Relevance - Rigor. There is a common thread that runs through each conference, study tour, research avenues, speakers, and professional developments.  That common thread is to begin with relationships; It is the building block for all other reform.

Summer 2006 was our jump-start toward high school reform.  A group of thirteen of us traveled to the Model Schools Conference in Washington DC.  We had received a grant that suggested traveling to this conference using grant funds.  At first we were just going to send a small group and spend remaining funds elsewhere, but then we talked with another school who had attended the conference the summer prior.  We set out to take as many as possible and hoped to as much out of it as they did.

Did they give us an educational instruction manual? No, there will never be a one-size-fits-all magic potion that will transform every school.  But it did open our eyes to hundreds of successful practices around the nation and the common thread, relationships.  Of course not all high school reform "officially" falls under the 3R's of Rigor, Relevance, and Relationships.  But after several years of researching high school reform (even prior to summer 2006), it is easy to see that most any school reform can be sorted into these three categories, and the most successful practices are built first on relationships.  These relationships are not just teacher and student.  It is for everyone involved in education:  administration, teacher, students, parents, staff, community.

How have we started to build relationships at our school?

1)  Study Tours
2)  Conferences
3)  Advisory Program (TEAM Tider)
4)  Mentor Program (Minden's Most Wanted)
5)  Freshman Academy
6)  Positive Behavior Support (PBS)
7)  Freshman Orientation
8)  PTO 
9)  Added clubs according to student interest (Nature, Beta, JETS)
10)  Adding courses according to student interest (Mixed Martial Arts, Robotics, Graphic Design and Animation)

We are continuing to "tweak" our reform efforts, but have already had great success which is easily documented in our school data including dropout, referrals, attendance, and pass rates.  Though a lot of our focus has been building relationships, we have also targeted rigor and relevance.  For the 2009 - 2010 school year we are bridging the gap between us and our feeder schools as well as increasing rigor and relevance through project based learning.

Though there will never be a "fit-all" manual, we can build our own manual specific for our school.  What practices have had success outcomes for your school?

Sum-Sum-Summertime

How many summers have you looked back on to say to yourself, "Where did it go?" only to quickly answer yourself, "Work." ? Of course there is always some fun thrown into summer, but too many teachers' summers are gone before they began because this is the one time of year you can actually easily attend PD, catch up on projects from the previous year, and work on new projects for the upcoming year.

I am glad to announce:  Not this summer!  I started the summer leaving town for four days to visit family, vowing only to work on Tuesday's, and committed to finishing house projects before school projects.  I know a few of you are already chuckling and wondering, "So how's that working for you?"

Well upon returning from our trip to the beach (visiting daughter and son-in-law), I decided only Tuesdays wasn't too realistic with all the existing projects pending due dates.  So I quickly changed this to working the month of May and starting "Tuesday Only" in June. Today, Friday, June 5th I returned home from school after 4:00.  Ok, so that isn't working for me yet. But surely I've finished some home projects.  Well not unless you count bringing home paint swatches and purchasing a chair from a consignment shop.

I guess I should be pretty frustrated at this point seeing as I'm entering my third week of summer without sticking to any of my summer plans.  But I'm not. Why?  I'm a teacher, and teachers can't just turn work on and off because it's summertime.  

Sure I love going in late, working from home, and not working full weeks. I love planning for next year to be the best year ever!  I love creating new activities to stretch students' brains as far as they can possibly stretch.  And I love learning even more through my PLN and PD.  I love being a teacher because it is more than a job; it is one of society's vital organs!

Why Let Students Blog?

The ringing in of 2009 also marked my students true endeavor into the world of blogging. Though their first official post, Welcome, wasn't until late in the month of January, we began our blogging adventure several weeks prior.  To say that this adventure has been "everything I imagined" would be an understatement.  Instead this blogging adventure has become more than I could have ever imagined.

Why let students blog?  The list is infinite:  ownership of writing, connection to the world, motivation, authentic audience (not just teacher), multiple learning styles, prepare students for digital citizenship, gallery of class projects, students as teachers, parent connection,....

If you would like a true list of reasons for students to blog, it wouldn't take more that an afternoon of reading blogs to run across everything from the top 20 reasonsto winning a T-shirt:) You can even hear about blogging straight from the mouth of students.  Why did my students start blogging?  I wanted them to be part of social technology outside of myspace.  I wanted them to actually see "outside of the box" outside of their town, their state, and their nation. I wanted them to take ownership in their education.  And I wanted my student from a town of less than 15,000 to see that they truly are part of this world and this world is open to them.  Any classroom can have a great journal with provoking higher order thinking questions, but that journal can't interact with the students, it can't ask questions, and it can't expand students view and knowledge.

Over the last few months, my students have connected with other teachers and students around our nation and around the world.  After earning their blog, they were first introduced to Ann Michaelsen's blog as well as her students. This helped us to start small and "straighten out the kinks" such as internet filters.  This collaboration has earned a post of it's own on a later date, but basically we started with both of our classes posting about their hometown.  The students visited each other's blogs and commented including many questions.  Ms Michelsen's class was learning about American government so my students' next posts were on our government including more detail about levels and branches of government. It has been GREAT! Both of our classes are now participating in Challenge 09, in which we complete various challenges each week.There are over 1000 students from all over the world participating in this challenge.

This post actually is leading up to the week 5 challenge to teachers.Ms. Wyatt is presenting at a conference in July, Blogging Safely in the Big Wide World".  She asked teacher's involved in the challenge to answer the following questions.  I have been wanting to post on blogging for quite some time, and felt it perfect timing to incorporate these questions and responses:

• Why did you choose the blogging platform you are using? I choose Edublogs for our class blogging platform for several reasons.  First would definitely be the fact that everyone on Edublogs seems to be focused on education is some fashion.  I wasn't able to find any blogs on topics that were inappropriate for my students.  Another great safety feature is that there are different levels of blogging.  This gave my students the freedom to create their blogs yet I receive copies of all comments and posts. I also like the gmail shortcut in which I could use my own email address and add a "+#" to the end.  That way none of my student's email addresses were attached to their blog. Our technology coordinator also approved of the site and unblocked it for our freedom of use during school hours.  Last but certainly not least, would be the fact that Edublogs has a tremendously helpful group of people:  James, Dr. Mike, and Sue Waters.  James and Dr. Mike answer all you technical issues and keep everything running smooth.  Oh and fix thing that you mess up;)  Sue is the Edublog educator geru! Her blog is filled with tips, tutorials, and tons of ideas!  No matter which platform you choose, you will find Sue's blog helpful.


• What have you found most easy or difficult in blogging with students? The two hardest things for me would be internet filtering and letting go of perfection.  When we paired up with Ann's class it took alittle over a week to get her blog unblocked.  Then each one of the student blogs had to be individually unblocked (another week).  We thought we were "good to go" until a student tried to post a comment and we found that all the comment pages for each student had to be unblocked:) The other difficulty for me was letting go of perfection.  It was hard to have students post without me correcting their writing.  But I wanted the post to be their writing NOT mine.  So we stuck to the original plan:  They write a post and have a peer check.  If at anytime they have a question or want an opinion, they can ask me.  Otherwise I just hold mini writing workshops at the beginning of "blogging time."  Their writing has improved tremendously over the last few months!  Especially their attention to editing.


• What have you done to make sure your students are blogging safely? We have had several mini workshops on digital citizenship. Students have posted and commented on social and ethical technology issues. One great resource is iSafe. Students post first name last initial only. All accounts were created using teacher email.  Copies of all posts and comments are sent to teacher.


• What do you think students get out of blogging? confidence, digital citizenship, global connection, writing ownership, education ownership, collaboration, .....


• How do you find ways for students to get their global audience? There are thousands of ways to get a global audience.  I choose to stay more within an area I already knew, Sue Water's Blog. She posted a list of classes wishing to connect.  Another thing I feel helped grow our audience was getting involved with twitter.  Several of my "twitter friends" have taken the time to stop by student blogs and comment. Check out our class ClusterMap of global visitors!


• What recommendations would you give to new teachers to blogging? 1)  Get involved in blogging yourself.  2)  Look at numerous teacher and student blogs for ideas. 3)  Have a detailed plan.  Here's my class about blogging info. Ill be adding a page on this during the summer. 4)  Get involved building your own PLN through twitter, nings, etc. 5) Start small

It's hard to put into words the benefits of blogging in my classroom.  The writing element itself is enough to win over an educator.  Just take a look at any student blog and compare their first post to one of their more recent posts.  The same is true about the comments they leave on other blogs.  It has been so easy incorporating other subject matter into my class through the incorporation of blogging.  The students connection to the world would be one of the greatest advantages!

Why did you choose for your students to blog?  What benefits have you seen in your class?

Techie Tuesday: 31 Day Challenge Days 20 - 23

Anyone up to a challenge?  How about two?

I've been slowly working my way through the original 31 Day Challenge by Darren Rowse. It is hard to believe there are only 7 more challenges remaining.  As you read in my last post, my class and I joined another challenge - 2009 Blogging Challenge.  This post is actually a reflection on my 31 Day Challenge, but if you are looking for some blogging fun or maybe you would like to just improve your skills, there is still time to join both challenges. 

My last post actually summarizes and reflects on my reader survey for day 20. Throughout this challenge Ive been discussion various things with my PLN. Some of those are readers. The 31 day challenge has been a great kick start to getting readers:) For day 20,  I revisited a survey I conducted awhile back on web 2.0 and wrote a post on the results last week. I will definitely come back to this at a later date and run more surveys. I used poll daddy and it was very quick and easy.  Day 21's challenge asked us to make someone famous, like I have that ability :) lol.  I did include @ccroad in my last post and asked readers to add her to their twitter.  

I really enjoyed day 22's challenge to make readers aware of my blog basics.  There were several topic to choose from and I basically choose to cover the creation of my blog and it's purpose.  This is a great reflection to do regularly!  I am actually still working on day 23 in which we were suppose to go on a dead links hunt. I used the one Sue suggested, W3C link checker. I am still checking links. It did find categories that I had made when creating the blog, but didn't actually use.  This is a great resource.  After I finish the blog, I will be checking out our school website for deadlinks!

So are you ready for a challenge?  If so, here are two for you to consider:

1)  31 Day Challenge  

wiki:  http://31daychallenge.wikispaces.com
contact:  Mrs. D  tidertechie@gmail.com

2)  2009 Challenge

blog:   http://wyatt67.edublogs.org/2009-all-the-challenges-in-one-spot/
contact: Miss Wyatt  tasteach56@gmail.com

Reflecting About Tidertechie

My students and I are working through the 2009 Blogging Challenge.  Last week's challenge was to work on our "about page."  I'm sure this gives a few of my readers chuckles as I am also working through the 31 Day Challenge with several of my PLN friends and have already completed this task once.  Isn't it funny that you can be given the same task in a short amount of time and still find needed improvements? The experience was especially fun with all the students' inputs.  Actually as I write this I keep thinking of a couple "about page" changes I haven't yet completed.

 

Last week's class challenge along with day 22 in the 31 day challenge has me reflecting on my overall blog. I started this blog as an extension of my classroom website to bring in more interactive elements.  The process seemed grueling at first not because of the blog itself, but instead the red tape to get the site unblocked for use at school.  I can honestly say I had an entirely different outlook trying to add this element back in November versus in years past.  In the past after one (or maybe two) attempts to get something unblocked I would move on to another avenue that would be "good enough".  This time was different.  If they wouldn't unblock it, I would just give my students a weekly blog assignment.            

 

Yes, I realize that many students don't have computers at home, but this would give them 7 days in which to complete the relatively short weekly assignment.  We are in a small town with a community center and library within walking distance of many homes.  I also talked my husband into my "much needed" iphone. Thus if a student couldn't use the resources, they could just use my phone internet to read and post comments.  During January and February, the phone actually came in handy with our connection to Ms. Michaelson's Norway class.  It took over a month to get the class as well as the individual student's blogs unblocked.  Then I had to request the comment page for each student:)

 

Why a new attitude?  First was my "get out of the box" moment when I decided to  get involved with web 2.0 elements even if I couldn't incorporate them into my class because of internet filter limits.  Next, as I became more involved in web 2.0 elements such as twitter and meet up sessions with people from around the globe, I truly understood that my student's were being left behind.  

 

When I first started to design the blog, I had trouble deciding what to include.  I wanted the blog to be just that, a blog.  So I started by revamping our class website.  I striped it down to the basics.  Then I started on the blog.  I decided to record the process through "creating a class blog" posts. Ok, this posting thing is pretty cool, so I quickly decided I would not only use posting for my student information but also for various personal interest in education.  My personal posts (as well as many others) have become great post examples for my students.  Though I don't post as often as I would like, I know this will change during the summer!  

 

 The students started by learning about blogs We used the blog daily for assignments.  Then, they each had the opportunity to earn their own blog. The addition of student blogs was definately a highlight to our class blog. We actually change to a Web Design course this week, so I hope we will even have more time for the blogs in the upcoming two weeks.

 

If you would like to follow our blogging adventure, click the apple rss feed icon on the top right of the page.  To learn more about rss feeds, including setting up your own igoogle page, see Sue Water's post.

Techie Tuesday: All Aboard? Survey Results

Towards the end of January, I wrote an All Aboard? post asking for opinions on helping other teachers "see the power" of learning more about web 2.0 and creating their own PLN.  This post included a Poll Daddy survey of the following:

• Where would you suggest a teacher get involved first?


• What is your favorite PLN or Web 2.0 website for newcomers?


• What web 2.0 tools should a teacher not be without?


• List an activity you would include in a workshop for teachers.

Are you ready for the results?

Some interesting facts about this survey include the fact that all of the respondents took a little over 6 minutes to complete the survey and represented at least 5-8 countries.  The exact number of countries can't be determined because three respondents were listed as an unknown location.

Here is the breakdown of the results:

• Where would you suggest a teacher get involved first?
  
  
  
  • Workshop x 3
  
  
  • Twitter x3
  
  
  • Other x 4
  
  
  • Blog
  
  
  • Forum
  
  
  
  


• What is your favorite PLN or Web 2.0 website for newcomers?
  
  
  
  • Del.icio.us
  
  
  • Classroom 2.0 x 3
  
  
  • Wordle
  
  
  • Sue Waters PLN sites x 5 Edublogger Personal Blog PLN Wiki Mobile Technology in TAFE
  
  
  • Don't have one- difference for different participants
  
  
  • Michele Martin
  
  
  • Tech4Learning Connect
  
  
  
  


• What web 2.0 tools should a teacher not be without?
  
  
  
  • Del.icio.us
  
  
  • Diigo
  
  
  • Twitter
  
  
  • Digital Camera
  
  
  • Blogs:  example - Edublogs
  
  
  • Google:  igoogle, google docs, google earth, etc.
  
  
  • Voice Thread
  
  
  • Skype
  
  
  • Virtual Classroom:  example - DiscoverE
  
  
  • Wikis:  example - wikispaces
  
  
  • Forums
  
  
  • ask500people
  
  
  • Audacity
  
  
  • Notaland
  
  
  • Prezi
  
  
  • Photo storing and sharing:  example - flickr, animoto, bubblr
  
  
  • Podcasting:  example - audacity, podomatic
  
  
  • Wordpress
  
  
  • PBwiki
  
  
  • Screencasts
  
  
  • Ning
  
  
  • Facebook
  
  
  • YouTube
  
  
  • RSS reader:  example- google reader
  
  
  • Zoho
  
  
  
  


• List an activity you would include in a workshop for teachers. For these responses, I copied their ideas below.
  
  
  
  • Activity 1:  Pass out or take out your digital camera. Ask participants to form into small groups and give them a simple photography assignment. Give them fifteen minutes to go take the photos and then report back. I've done this, you can't get them back in the room! They laugh, they have fun, they run all over (we took over the hotel lobby where I was doing the workshop!) and they learn how energizing, interactive and useful it can be to use digital photography and visual literacy in the classroom.
  
  
  • Activity 2:  Voicethread...learn how to develop one and try it out with students. Share it with parents.
  
  
  • Activity 3:  Create and add to a collaborative wiki. (suggested by two survey participants)
  
  
  • Activity 4:  I have never done this, but I just think it is the greatest idea.  I can't remember where I learned it from- giving out your twitter name and mobilenumber and getting delegates to text your twitter account with instant feedback throughout the day.
  
  
  • Activity 5:  Start a blog with a local topic flavour.  Get them to begin posting and commenting before they leave. Then show them examples of educational blogs that are in use.
  
  
  • Activity 6:  Live interaction with others worldwide - eg through Twitter, Skype or virtual room
  
  
  • Activity 7:  Use blogs and wikis for teaching
  
  
  • Activity 8:  I would literally walk participants through setting up a blog and writing a post so that they could see how easy it is.
  
  
  • Activity 9:  Voicethread - find up to 3 images (use creative commons search if that doesn't make it too difficult) and use it to describe a belief that you have about how students learn. Include text and voice recording. Invite someone in the room to make a comment on your voicethread. (Or, a small group could create a joint Voicethread of their main beliefs.)
  
  
  • Activity 10:  Form small 'creative clusters' so that people join with a friend or two to practice something new like Delicious or Google Docs. The biggest impact activity we have done recently is to Skype in another educator to join the chat.
  
  
  • Activity 11:  Just Tweet:)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  What does this tell me?
  
  
  First, I want to visit some of these sites that I haven't incorporated.  I have checked out a few, and they were blocked by our Smartfilter:( Second, I should have found a way to incorporate "other" with a place to type the "other".  I wonder if those three people in question on were referring to the same great place, and I just missed out on it.
  
  
  I'm really glad that "workshop" was one of the desired methods to lure other teachers.  We have one this summer and I hope it is met with a great response. I'm trying to get a few twitters out of the faculty before school lets out.  We have one so far, @ccroad.  She hasn't had time to see it's full potential yet, so drop her a line or two, and a follow.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Lastly, I am extremely thrilled with the fact that the results show that I am on the right track with web 2.0 integration!  To think, this journey really just started in November.  The activity ideas are great, and will be implemented in same fashion.
  
  
  Was anyone surprised by del.icio.us ranking as one of the favorite web 2.0 site, but Diigo didn't?  I am a Diigo user, so I would like to know if I'm missing something by not using del.icio.us.