Twimpact: Twitter's impact on my week

By Noah Geisel

I still hear people asking, often in a disgusted tone of voice, “Why would you use Twitter?” They say it’s just for people to see what celebrities are saying. They say it’s just a way for people attracted to the Me Generation ethos to transmit their self-centered Facebook musings to a wider audience. They say what they believe and I respect that, for them, it is the truth about Twitter. For me, Twitter is another story altogether.

The last 7 days have served as a shining example of how Twitter significantly impacts my teaching, learning and professional development. A sampling my week’s Twimpact:

• I attended an inspiring TED Talks salon event that I found out about via Twitter. Had I managed to learn about it through other means, it would have been after the tickets were sold out.


• I read dozens of articles and blog posts that were shared by the people I follow, 22 of which were helpful enough that I bookmarked them for future use. I copied the links and shared via email 3 of these articles with certain teachers and administrators in my building.


• I read 12 tweets that I thought could be valuable to others and were worth Re-tweeting (sharing) to my followers.


• I learned about 2 apps that I downloaded to my iPad and believe will be very helpful.


• I learned a new trick for the Promethean Board that I never would have known was possible.


• I reconnected with a teacher friend and brilliant education mind with whom I had not spoken in 18 months. It led to a phone call and awesome conversation that I already know will impact a lesson for my students later this week.


• I had conversations with 16 other educators, many of whom I’ve never met in person.


• I had two former students reach out to share with me what is going on in their lives.


• I found out about a webcast hosted by an MTV VJ in Mexico, from which I discovered two new bands whose music I could share with my students.


• I connected with the lead singer of one of said bands who has agreed to Skype with one of my classes about life in Lima, Peru.


• I connected with a Venezulean baseball reporter who has also committed to a Skype conversation in which he will provide a season preview of the Colorado Rockies and take my students’ questions about the team in Spanish.


• And, so as not to leave out the celebrities, I favorited 8 tweets by Spanish-speaking artists that used the same vocabulary that my students were studying so as to provide them with examples of Real World, in-context use of our target learning.

I get it that Twitter is not for everybody. In my teaching and learning however, it makes a huge difference. What is the #Twimpact for you?

EdTech Baltimore

by Andrew Coy

As part of the process of extending the digital conversation into the analog world, Shelly and I have been working to put together a local forum in Baltimore to discuss the future of education and technology. The first of the conversations will focus on using social networking to extend, enhance, and influence education.

I will be moderating the conversation with Dave Troy (CEO of 410Labs, creator of Shortmail.com and Twittervision.com), Tom Murdock (co-founder and chief-architect of Moodlerooms) and Shelly Blake-Plock (blogger-in-chief here at TeachPaperless and founder of GrowConnected) as the panelists. The event will be this upcoming Tuesday (the 20th of September) between 6 and 8pm at Digital Harbor High School. We are looking into live streaming the discussion and tweeting it as well. Think of it as an analog parallel of #edchat.

So this is my question to you:

• What questions would you ask? 
• What topics would you want to discuss? 
• What problems should they address?

Make a comment below, follow us on Twitter (@EdTechBaltimore), visit our website (http://www.edtechbaltimore.org), join our mailing list -- help spread the word from the digital to the analog and back again.

Twitter: The IV-drip of Professional Development

Today's required reading:

Does using Twitter make teachers smarter? by Dean Groom.

ISTE 2010: You Have Seen the Future

"You have seen the future!"

That's what came out of the presenter's mouth. He was presenting what he called the "most important" advance in education we've seen in a decade. The result of endless hours of research and development. An advance that would finally allow us to truly assess our students in a way that matters.

The advance?

The Promethean ActivExpression. Which for a cost of only $2,000 for a set of 32 of the 1990's cell-phone shaped device, will change education forever.

Because it does this thing that's absolutely incredible: it allows kids to text responses and through the exclusive Promethean software, it allows everybody to see those responses projected in real-time!

And for only $2,000+ change per classroom! Amazing! Earth shattering! I've seen the future of classroom communication!

Except that this kind of communication premiered in 2007. And it's free.

It's called Twitter.

And not only is there nothing that the Promethean ActivExpression shoe-phone can do that your kids can't do in class sending an SMS to Twitter and following the conversation with Hootsuite, it's also a closed system that only works on Promethean software (well, actually, you can run the thing without the software and use it as a glorified yes/no clicker).

For any admin even remotely considering purchasing the ActivExpression system to "engage students with formative learning", I strongly suggest you first spend the summer learning how Twitter works in the classroom. Here's a great resource for you to check out.

As for Promethean showing you the future, tell 'em you've already seen it... and it's not what they're selling.

ISTE 2010: Twitter for Education and Leadership Connections

Biggest "non-ballroom" crowd I've seen so far: @crafty184, @jonbecker, and @brueckj23 leading a not-dumbed-down introduction to Twitter for education and leadership.

a) I think there's something to be said for the fact that this was the most packed session I've seen so far.

b) Kudos to the trio for helping a lot of folks how to access that "other" conference going on via the Web simultaneously as the physical one here at the Denver Convention Center. Access to that meta-conference is priceless; it's where connections are being made that will long outlast anything said in these rooms -- connection both with people here in Denver and with folks around the world who are pushing education and leadership in new directions.

School Supplies: Pencil case, Calculator, Twitter...

This August, all of our incoming Freshmen will be picking up one tool for school that may not be as familiar as the pencils, pens, and calculators they've been accustomed to.

That's because we're requiring all incoming 9th graders to have a Twitter account.

We run an annual one day Tech Camp for all incoming students and this year we'll be demonstrating the many ways students can use Twitter in their educations. From following current events to backchanneling lectures and labs to connecting with experts to building community lifelines and collaborating with their peers in sharing hashtags of links, apps, observations, and ideas -- students will be getting a crash course in the utility of the social web.

Right now, our tech committee is planning this year's camp. Among things to discuss are the nuts-and-bolts of computing in a 1:1 environment, digital citizenship and social media, and using the resources of Web 2.0 to connect with the world of education beyond the classroom walls.

We'd love to hear your ideas on what should be addressed at a high school tech camp!

Looking for a Twitter Map

Hey PLN! Got a question for you.

@schickbob is looking for an app that maps Twitter followers sort of like ClustrMaps does for folks who drop by your webpage.

I've tried foller.me and the Yahoo Pipes maps, but found the first far too clunky and the latter limited in its usage to only 100 followers.

I'm looking for something more substantial.

And so my question is: Do you use or know of any quality Twitter map services?

(Eagerly awaiting responses).

Back to School: Ideas for Twitter in the Foreign Language Classroom

The first day back after break was tricky.

In addition to my Fine Arts classes, I'm teaching three Latin courses. They are whole-year courses and the Mid-Terms in each tend to be somewhat memorization-intensive.

I remember my own days of stultifying high school Spanish being led repetitively through endless vocab drills and suffering the wrath of a teacher who couldn't understand that every sentient being wasn't born with the ability to roll r's.

And so, I've tried to break things up a bit.

As all foreign language teachers know, rote memorization is just part of the game. You just can't learn a language without being immersed entirely in verb forms and noun declensions.

It's just the nature of the beast.

So, what I've been doing -- and what seems to be working pretty well -- is having students use Twitter for verb parsing review and translation practice. I first forayed into this pedagogical area maybe nine months ago and have since worked out a few 'tried and tested' techniques that I offer all language teachers. Here are the top three:

1. Twitter for verb parsing review: Have the students identify and parse verbs directly from a text into the hashtag of a Twitter feed. After ten or so minutes, stop and review the results in the feed. Incorrect parses are corrected and all correct and corrected items are saved to a second hashtag or to a wiki. In the future, I plan to make the second hashtag saved to FriendFeed for the archiving capabilities. Either way, this gives the students a collaboratively built verb study guide and is far more entertaining and engaging than sitting at a desk sounding out dozens of verb forms for what seems like hours on end.

2. Using Twitter as a 'lifeline' for translation exercises: Each student opens up the text, the Twitter feed, and a digital English/Latin dictionary in his or her browser. As each sentence is Tweeted, a virtual compendium of common mistakes inevitably is created. We then follow the system described in #1.

3. Twitter as formative assessment for foreign language translation: One of the nice things Twitter provides the foreign language teacher is a continuous, time-stamped record of posts searchable in real-time. I use this to gauge how individual students are progressing -- if I see students struggling in time or accuracy, it is a simple matter to gauge the problem and intervene as necessary.

These are just a few techniques that have worked well. I'd love to hear about things you all have worked out.

Twitter Lists: EducationPLN

I'm liking the new List feature on Twitter. Really makes it easy to follow different segments of your Twitter crowd.

I invite all of our TeachPaperless subscribers to join the EducationPLN List; I think it's really going to turn out to be a great resource for prof development, networking, and teacher camaraderie.

Join and Tweet!

best,
Shelly


ps -- Do note that @TheJLV -- a teacher, Yanks fan from NYC, and member of the list -- is currently live-blogging the MLB World Series... so there are quite a few Tweets describing pop-ups and line drives.

Just don't get yr hopes up thinking our list is all major league baseball all the time ; )

An EducationPLN Twitter List for You!

I've started an EducationPLN Twitter List and I invite you to join.

Lists are the new thing on Twitter; they give members the opportunity to set up interest-specific networks and I think they are going to prove rather helpful as we move forward in demonstrating the value of social networks to our admins and policy makers.

So join in, and welcome in advance!

(Note: these lists are still in beta form, so if you have any problem adding yourself to my list, please let me know and I'll add you).

The Five Minute Twitter Verb Crunch Drill

This is the outline of a five minute verb crunch drill I've been using with my Latin I, II, and III students. You and your kids will need to be comfortable using Diigo, Twitter, & Twitterfall, but the payoff has been great. My students practically beg to do the exercise and across the board I've seen kids' understanding of verb parsing go way up -- to the point now that much of the fear has been taking out of sight-reading (which is something every foreign language teacher will understand is hugely necessary).

I'll keep it simple; here's the drill:

1. Students open a passage or poem by whatever author you are working on. In my Latin III class, for example, the kids are going to be translating Horace's Satire 1.9. So they open up the text and open a Tweet feed.

2. Next, I assign each student five lines. They are responsible for highlighting each verb in their selection using Diigo.

3. Once the highlighting is complete, the students parse each verb (for example, in Latin the verb 'laudo' is parsed: 1st person singular present active indicative of 'laudare' meaning 'to praise'). The individual parsed verbs are Tweeted to our class hashtag.

4. As the students are parsing, I am running a live Twitterfall of their hashtag on the wall via LCD projector.

5. When time is up, (I'd say give 'em roughly a minute and a half per verb), we check the verbs as a class. Goodies (homework passes, free Internet roaming minutes, etc.) are given out to folks who either nailed all of their verbs or who improved from the previous day.

6. As we work, we reTweet correct verb parsings back to the feed. If we find mistakes, we fix them and Tweet the corrected versions back to the feed.

7. Finally, the students cut-and-paste the correct version of all of the verbs to their online notebooks (we use Google Docs).

This all takes about five minutes. By the end, the students have practiced their parsing, seen good examples and corrected errors, and have created a study list of all of the verbs in the selection that can be used to assist in translation.

Furthermore, they completed the drill using integrated collaborative real-time methods; thus instilled in the learning of the course content is the practical skill-building work of learning how to best use a network. And because this drill is done on a semi-daily basis, it doesn't feel like a 'tech lesson'; it just feels natural.

And in the end, each student has a copy of the original annotations in Diigo as well as a copy of the completed and corrected Tweets in their notebooks.

I'm sure this type of drill can easily be modified for other disciplines -- from vocab words in English class to major event chronologies in Social Studies to terms in Biology or formulas in Math and Chemistry.

A Young Teacher Reflects on Twitter in the Classroom

Been teaching a weekly course on Social Tech in Education, as many of you know.

Well, this evening I took a look at the blog of one of my students, a young teacher in Baltimore. Please, please, please read what he wrote yesterday about students' response to Twitter in the classroom and please comment on his blog.

I think it's a very powerful read.

And I think this is a great example of what students and teachers can do together when not hindered by the ridiculousness that is so much of our educational system.

A Challenge to Teachers: Mentor Young Teachers in Social Tech

There is something wrong here.

This picture (and please, if you are viewing this on a feed where the pic isn't showing up, please visit the main TeachPaperless page to see this) is unacceptable.

It is unacceptable on so many levels. But let me give some context.

This is a screen capture of a Tweet that reads: "I am scared of twitter". It was not written by a 35 year veteran fearing that social media is undermining his or her career. It was not written by an overburdened administrator fearing another lawsuit. It was not written by an overworked IT guy or gal nervous about whether the local network will be able to withstand the pounding social media has the potential to dish out.

This Tweet was written by a twenty-something new teacher in an ed school classroom.

My ed school classroom.

This is unacceptable.

What have we done? How have we allowed social media to become so seemingly monolithic that a young teacher would write this as his or her ONLY tweet?

We have to do better. This one's on us.

This is the result of scaring our kids into thinking predators were the de facto users of MySpace. This is the result of banning mobile devices in our classrooms. This is the result of teachers being threatened with termination for using social media and kids being blocked from using email at school.

This one's on us. We have to take responsibility for this. We have to turn this around.

Now, maybe I'm just overestimating this. After all, I'm sure it was just a joke, right?

Well, I would think that, and I'd appreciate the joke, if it weren't for the fact that in this first week of building our PLNs, this particular student had a total of four followers and one Tweet.

That's unacceptable.

But it's not just the student's fault for being unwilling to try out the network; it's also our fault for letting it come to this. Because the way most ed school programs are currently set up, there's no reason WHY any young teacher would think they'd be expected to have a professional working knowledge of social technology.

We've got to change that.

So here's what I'm calling on my fellow PLN members and ed school teachers to do: find three young teachers in your building, in your ed school, or through your PLN. Mentor those teachers. Teach them WHY they should build a PLN. Teach them what it means to participate as a professional. Don't worry about teaching them every little gimmick and gadget that comes down the pike; just teach them what it means to be part of a network, what it means to be connected, how to use a PLN to grow professionally as a teacher.

Furthermore, contact your local ed schools. Contact your alma mater. Tell those schools that as a teaching professional, you demand they include mandatory courses teaching and modeling the integration of social technology into classroom instruction; tell them that facility with social media should be a qualification for earning a degree.

We can't afford to let young teachers slip through ed school without a working knowledge of social technology and a foundational PLN. This begins with us. Serious or not, this is no joking matter.

Twitter Has Arrived (if you didn't notice...)

Today was the first day of the year for all faculty.

We've got a day of meetings with departments tomorrow followed by a day of tech camp for incoming Freshmen.

In exciting Twitter-related developments, I gave a short presentation based on what I delivered in Cambridge a couple weeks back and it went over gangbusters. Got several teachers on board both for using Twitter to build a PLN as well as to investigate applications of Twitter in the classroom.

Also, this past week saw our school open its own Twitter feed for the purpose of communicating info with parents and students. Our athletics, alumni, and campus ministry departments all started Tweeting as well.

This could be it. This could be a watershed moment in getting past the fear of social media. Folks are hungry for it; in all of my conversations today it was all people were talking about.

And what were the things that have seemed to put it over the top and haul it right into the mainstream?

Iran and TIME magazine.

That's the difference a summer makes.

Six years ago, we were talking about MySpace like it was a den of thieves just waiting to swallow up our children. Today, the principal is Tweeting and the Rugby team and Film Club have their own Facebook pages.

Now, we just got to get it right. Keep the ship on its course.

It's all about extending those 'right relationships' that teachers have been taught how to develop into the digital world. And it's all about modeling digital citizenship and healthy social media choices to our students.

And it's got to be an everyday thing. Social Tech should not be a 'special event'. It should be as common in schools as pens, pencils, desks, and chairs. It should be naturally integrated into the very fabric of school life.

I'm slated to give a presentation to our parent community in a few weeks. The topic is social technology in education. Because parent knowledge and parent involvement is the key. It's time to talk about social media directly to the folks who trust us with the education of their children.

Here's to the future. The future is now.

And if you can't tell, I'm extremely proud of the John Carroll School, a little independent Catholic high school that's jumped right to the forefront of the digital age.

Twitter in the Classroom Preso

Here's a public Google App preso of the slides from my presentation on 'Twitter in the Classroom' this morning at the Social Technology and Education conference at Harvard.

Follow along if you are here live, feel free to chat and mix it up!

Response to a Criticism about Using Twitter in the Classroom

As a teacher who uses Twitter on a daily basis with high school students, I've been asked by a handful of folks to respond to this article. The gist of the post is that Twitter can't work in a classroom.

I must say I am hesitant to write this response; I know that I can come across as pedantic at times, and that's really not what I want to do here.

Therefore, I will limit my comments and point readers in the direction of previous pieces I wrote concerning both the use of Twitter in class (although with my updated hashtags work, it's definitely time to update that post!) as well as student responses to using Twitter in class.

I do ask forgiveness from the original blogger for taking so much of the following chunk of text, but it's impossible to comment here in a way that would be most effective without actually presenting the example as originally posted.

Sometimes I think that folks dream of the following as being the kinds of conversations that students would have using twitter:

S1: In Bio listening to a great lecture on cell division. She ROCKS!
S2: Reading "Chapter 7" for Mr Wilson. Not my favorite so far but I'll get through it
S3: Great quote from Mr B: "History is written by the winners." He said it's not his original quote, tho'
S4: @S1 Mrs D is awesome! Looking forward to 5th period when I'll hear it, too
S4: @S2 Tell me about it. I've got to read it tonight. But I'm a fast reader.
S2: Anyone know a good website to help me to understand Chapter 7?
S1: @S3 Yeah, I heard that quote before, too. Hold on and I'll look it up for you.


Now, THIS is what would PROBABLY happen if students used twitter:

S1: wht's 4 lunch? I'm staving!
S2: NFW I'm readg that @#$ Chapter 7. Hes got 2 B Sh*ttin' me!
S3: "History is writn by th winners?" DUH!
S4: I get out of her class 5th period, dude! S*cks 2 B U!
S4: @S1 its only 9:30 dude! U cnt B hungry alrdy U pig!
S2: Any1 know if any of ths @#$% in Ch 7 will B on the test?
S1: @S3 No duh! Who ELSE wld write it. Hes so lame!

Actually, neither example has anything to do with the way we use Twitter in class.

While conversation is one use of Twitter, there are plenty of others.

As I've described before, my students use their feeds as lifelines on quizzes and tests, as a way to share links and organize collaborative assignments, as a tool for hashtagging collaborative reference bibliographies, and as a collaborative note-taking backchannel during lecture and class discussion. We also use Twitterfall as a discussion starter and I project our Twitter feed on the wall throughout all of our classes to remind students about the global ramifications of what we are doing by learning together in a classroom.

If your students aren't able to handle using Twitter like this, then you don't have a problem with Twitter; you have a problem with classroom management.

Will you get some of what was presented above in your feeds? Sure. But does that outweigh the benefit? No way; at least not from my own experience actually using Twitter everyday in class.

Social Media is not a monolith.

It doesn't tell you what to do. There are no rules.

There are countless ways to use Twitter; the key is that the use of the social media needs to be fully integrated into the teaching -- specifically for the purpose of teaching the content and skills of the course. So, the trick is to figure out how to do that for your course. And there's a good chance that a PLN model isn't gonna work for your kids.

As for WHY it's important for kids to take part in authentic social media (rather than the walled garden variety), I wrote a post yesterday where I tried to sort of lay out the framework of what we're looking at on the future grid of 21st century education. It's my attempt to argue what authenticity in education means now and for the future, and I'd welcome any criticism of it.

Anyway, Social Media is what you make it. It's yours to tinker with. So, use your imagination.

As for worries about how kids might abuse it? I really wouldn't worry about that so much, so long as you are incorporating ongoing discussions of digital citizenship into your lessons. After all, kids can write all kinds of nonsense on a sheet of paper and spread it around school, as well; they've been doing that for generations. Yet, I don't see too many teachers wondering whether we should allow them to write.

We're the teachers. We're the ones who need to model good citizenship in that classroom. We're the ones who have to model the effective use of Twitter and social media in our classrooms. It comes down to us, not to the technology.

Twitter as an Assessment Tool: NECC 2.0 Session TODAY at 1PM EST

At 1PM EST today, I'm going to be leading a virtual session on the topic: 'Twitter as an Assessment Tool'.

This will take place in Virtual Room A in the NECC 2.0 Elluminate Rooms. To take part, follow this link and scroll down to the sessions.

Click on 'Virtual Room A' and sign into the room.

If you have not used Elluminate before, you'll need to download the browser, but it's painless and well worth the time.

We'll be talking about using Twitter in assessment as a lifeline, for review sessions, as a collaborative bibliography tool, for collab assessment, using Twitterfall in open tests, and using Twitter to vet class Wikis.

Hope to see you there.

Real Tweeple

Every Friday on Twitter, folks pass around links to the Tweet feeds of folks they enjoy following. I'm gonna be posting my favorites throughout NECC right here.

First this evening is @jenwagner who got the Re-Fleetwooding story source; second is @deangroom who makes me laugh with his no b.s. Tweets, and third today is @AndrewBWatt who has a ton of great ideas.

Tweet away!

Summer Assignment for Teachers

Here's a list of 5 things you can do over the summer to prepare your paperless classroom for the new school year.

1. Start a blog. It doesn't matter who you are or what you do. You have something to say. So say it. Say more of it everyday. A blog is the hub around which a paperless classroom rotates. The more comfortable you are at blogging and reading blogs, the more comfortable you will be teaching in a paperless classroom.

2. Start a Diigo account. I've been following the Diigo-ing and Diigo-speak of many folks and finally decided to take the plunge myself. I plan on spending all summer learning everything I can about how to use social bookmarking. And in the fall, I am going to make it a mandatory practice for students in my classes.

3. Tweet, Tweet, Tweet. Forget what everybody has told you about Twitter. Forget everything you've read about it. Hype is hype is hype. Just sign up, follow some ed techies, and enter a new world. It will prove to be a Professional Development experience unlike any other. You will kick yourself for not having signed up earlier.

4. Follow the debates concerning traditional media and social media. As regular readers know, this is something which has very much been on my mind lately. My current thinking is this: the #IranElection feed changed everything. It didn't 'replace' mainstream media, rather it forced a critical eye onto the inherent problems within it. And -- most importantly -- in a way that took popular imagination by storm. Are professional journalists necessary? Absolutely. But are the top-down corporate organizations which provide them with jobs singularly necessary? That's the question that's up in the air. That's a question they are asking in Seattle. And in Boston. And in Chicago. And in Baltimore. What's the future of media? Well, I think the type of synergy we've seen in the last eight days between professional savvy and amateur ingenuity marks the way forward. Because the best thing that that synergy can create is a more engaged citizenry; and the more engaged the citizenry, the higher the quality of the output of social media. We have the opportunity here to organize and educate a more sophisticated and engaged society.

5. Prepare your talking points. There are two major obstacles to starting any paperless movement: blocking and access. The events of the last days, as well as the plethora of examples of Twitter in the classroom that have been popping up across the blogosphere, should aid in bolstering your arguments against the former. As for the latter, it is our duty as educators and citizens to advocate for free universal Wi-Fi and universal mobile hardware in all of our schools and public libraries. Movements in major cities such as Philadelphia and Minneapolis have demonstrated that universal Wi-Fi does not have to be a dream. The dropping of the prices of Netbooks and Smart Phones below the cost of textbooks has mooted the cost argument; now it's just a matter of the allocation of resources and the educating of teachers in how to best use this stuff.

Have a fun, safe, and productive summer. There's plenty to learn between now and the new school year.

Quick Change

Noam Cohen with a sober look at Twitter.

Political revolutions are often closely linked to communication tools. The American Revolution wasn’t caused by the proliferation of pamphlets, written to whip colonists into a frenzy against the British. But it sure helped.

Both reasonable in tone and revolutionary in the sense that this is hardly what we would have expected the Times to have said about social networking back in the silly days of MySpace.

A lot has changed over the past two years. Time to take it all in and process.