Twitter in the Classroom

Just recently introduced Twitter to my students. Today I tried something a little new to get them to use it a bit more. I posted a 'tweet' announcing extra credit points for anyone who would 'tweet' back by sharing the URL of a really good find/website from their delicious.com account. This, I thought, might get them to see how Twitter could be used to exchange really awesome finds between Twitter members. The second extra credit "tweet" revolved around items they love and covet -- their cell phones and mp3 players. I offered extra credit if anyone wanted to go to ihoundsoftware.com , read up on it, and 'tweet' back on what they thought of this service. Several students took me up on the extra credit! Am looking for others ways to authentically use Twitter. Have also thought about using it as a 'clicker system' of sorts to check student understanding. Would really love any other ideas on how to use this to promote learning. :)

Access to Online Storage

I've noticed lately that our school district blocks many sites that offer free data storage -- and frustratingly so. True. Maintaining a school district Internet filter would not be my idea of fun and I realize it's hard to determine day to day what should and should not be filtered (example - I scratched my head when teachertube.com was initially blocked four months ago, but it finally became accessible recently). Bottom line, I really want to share this trend of online storage with my students because this is where the web is moving. Today, I just read that Google is getting geared up to make their stand in this area of online storage. Hope we get access when this comes along in a few months... I know there are pros and cons of storing things online and no business, corporation or organization wants sensitive or even proprietary info compromised, but I've got plenty of docs that don't fall into this category and that I'd love to have access to. True. Not everything we digitally create should be stored online. But it is this very idea of "selective storage" that is important to teach our students -- for their personal lives and as they prepare to become members of tomorrow's ever increasingly digital workforce.

Introducing Twitter!

Introduced my high school students to Twitter today. Interestingly enough, none had heard of it. Here's what I did. At the start of the hour I went over what our learning goals were for the hour (to create/record introductions for their podcast using established recording stations). I told them we would start in just a minute -- hold that thought. Quickly, I then took them to Twitter.com. I created an account/username - for example, let's say I used pd6. Then I had students create an account using "pd6" and then their first names only (example - pd6jane). I had them "follow me", but the cool thing was, when they looked me up to "follow me" as pd6, it brought up everyone who had pd6 at the start of his/her user name! The kids then followed every other user from our class -- the list was right there ready to go! This allowed us to quickly set up a twitter group. I started informally by asking them to give a "tweet" about one great thing that happened over Thanksgiving break, and one not so good thing. Next, I asked them to post a "tweet" about what they really wanted for "Christmas. I had them refresh to see what others responded with. By this point, all the kids seemed to get what Twitter was all about and we discussed how you could use this tool, stressing that it really didn't have to be a place for posting the mundane minute by minute account of one's life. Then, I told them their third tweet. I told them this one would be more "academic". I said, "send a tweet explaining what our major learning goal is for class today as I explained at the start of class". This was great -- it gave me immediate feedback as to if they had even got the objective when I presented it. I had them refresh their screens and see if their personal answer was similar to other classmates (instant feedback for them). Thought tomorrow I'd like to use Twitter as a "clicker" system, of sorts - ask a question as review, tell them to tweet their responses, and get a feel for what kind of retention/learning is happening. :)

Gasping -- In a Good Way

I go in spurts, spurts of immersing myself in what's new in web 2.0 (you know, that balance of learning new stuff and then taking time to apply it). After a few days of it I have to come back up for air, take a big gulp, and head back down for more exploration. Have been looking lately at the concept of mashups and started sharing what these are with my students. Showed them amaztype.com, then SmartEditor as some of the newest mashups on the block. While looking at a few other mashups, I came up with an idea that I'd love to implement in my web 2.0 class -- have the students make a class wiki on homeless shelters/food banks in the local area and use Google maps to mashup the locations to display precise geographical locations in the wiki. When someone goes to the wiki, they get a map of nearby places to volunteer or give donations to, along with information on each place. I think it'd be good for the kids and good for the community. It all starts with awareness and I like the idea of how a mashup could be used for visual awareness.

Best Find in a LONG....LONG....Time!!!

Jing! I love Jing. What can you do with it? Check it out! This little puppy is awesome. Of course, I am a huge fan of TechSmith's Camtasia and use it all the time, but this really saves me time and space on my own server. Tech Smith hosts the resulting movie (.swf)!! All I have to do is don some headphones and record!!! I can save the .swf or I can "share" it which means it will go on their server and I can paste the hyperlink in my blog, website or an email. THIS IS A WINNER!!!!!! Every teacher can now make online tutorials without much indepth training on compression, file format, etc. Nice job, Tech Smith (which by the way, is one of the best service-oriented software companies I've yet to deal with). :) Here is another demo I made in about two minutes this morning for my Flash animation students to remind them to use a particular technique when working on their projects.

Stoke the Fire!

Found yet another gem yesterday, of course, through Webware.com. It's even better than Splashup.com, mentioned in my last post. It's called Fotoflexer.com. Today I'm going to have my students try making a podcast button in each to see which one they feel is the more intuitive photo editing webware. I'll let you know what they think. Layers are a new concept for many of them, so it'll be interesting.

Okay, so my students are learning to link to podcasts today. Next, I hope to show them how to make podcasts, but I'm looking at using Gabcast.com. While I don't exactly have the setup to have a podcast studio, I know that many of them do have cell phones and Gabcast really capitalizes on these. In that sense, they can think of their cell phones as portable microphones and be out on the beat somewhere.

I have been amazed at how much the kids love looking at their blog stats. Several have set up accounts at statcounter.com, feedburner.com and amung.us. They are getting the idea of widgets and how to make them quickly in Blogger. The coding aspect is not scaring them, and they've proven quite tenacious. It's really amazing to see these students now vs. when they first came in. Creating a Yahoo and Google account about tripped up many of during the first week. They are pros now and can whip out a new account in seconds and start learning what webware offers what now. I'm proud of them.

Many days later...

I haven't posted for some time -- actually since August. There are a few reasons, I suppose. First and foremost, I've been really busy trying to restructure one of my classes so that it revolves around web 2.0 tools and digital literacy. What a rough start....it's going quite well now, but I wanted to throw in the towel a few times. Any time you try something new, problems are bound to surface, but as I mentioned in one of my last posts, I thought it would be bandwidth. Nope. Turned out that my greatest nemesis would be our district filter. It wouldn't let my kids see immediate updates of their blogs. After many emails later to people at all levels, the issue was finally resolved. I no longer have to put in no cache coding, nor do my students, when they wish to see immediate updates to their blogs or web pages.

We've done lots, but right now I'm not really sure about how I feel about my curriculum shift. I'm too close to it right now, "can't see the forest because of the trees" type of thing. Am feeling like this is so important, but feel very isolated while blazing the trail. I desperately need others to collaborate with, others who really get the importance of getting kids ready for the 21st century using 21st century tools. I'm a bit weary, and a bit disillusioned. I need to be sparked by others who "get it" and want to use it. Feelin' like a solo flight over the ocean right now.

Also, have just recently moved this blog from edublogs.org. Blogger gets it all done for me and quickly. There's a huge speed problem with edublogs -- takes forever to navigate, update, etc.

Today's find -- splashup.com. It's what many of us have been waiting for in terms of online picture editing. Even supports layers. Woo-hoo. :) I wonder what my kids will think of it after testing out picnik.com and resizr.com? Adobe Photoshop should be shaking in their boots....here comes the young upstarts.