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Stevens, V. (2008). Trial by Twitter: The rise and slide of the year's most viral microblogging platform. TESL-EJ: Teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language, 12(1). This article did not focus just on Connectivism or just on communities of practice but provided a clear example of both after my previous readings. If you think about the basic fundamental of twitter it would be easy to discount at first whether or not it would be successful. I'm sure along the way some may have even felt that it was a fad destined to fail or fade. Who would want to be limited to only one hundred and fifty characters to get out a complete thought and why would anyone be interested. Well right now according to this article twitter is the most popular microblogging tool that has existed. I found it interesting if you have read my previous articles especially about linguistics in communities of practice that twitter type has made its way into our everyday vernacular, such as saying hash tag in actual dictation. Interesting that a change in our speech and actions are indicators of belonging to a certain community of practice, much like how some groups say 'lol' instead of actually laughing out loud. This article draws these dots that are easily linked together to show Connectivism. The author spends time explaining when he "got" twitter, or when it dawned on him this is an excellent tool. From there he uses some great analogies to describe the connected world twitter produces for millions of users a day. My favorite quote from his article "To 'get' twitter, you have to have your finger on the pulse of what is pumping lifeblood through the Internet, and that is the people on it and how they come together (Connectivism), connect, and relate to one another (communities of practice) in virtual learning networks". (Stevens,2008)

I didn't realize Twitter had been around as long as it has - I also didn't know it's origins. Lost most of the social media sites it's changed a lot since the beginning!

Great post and I was cracking up at "The Twitter Curve" image. It gave a good explanation to me about what makes Twitter so powerful and its benefits but am also glad it touched on things to be leery of.

This paper, by Ana Maria Marhan examines connectivism and social media. The author points out that because today's learning is a "messy, nebulous, informal, chaotic process, we need to rethink how we design our instruction. This hit home because I just moved to a new state and a new district, and they are very strict with, well, just about everything on the computer! I teach at a Title 1 high school, and these kids would truly benefit from instruction that wasn't so linear. These learners (like all learners) form their own pathways of knowledge, and I believe I could make a stronger impact on them if I could use more tools.

Marhan, A. M. (2006). Connectivism: Concepts and Principles for emerging Learning Networks. In The 1 st Conference on Virtual Learning. In this article author, Ana-Maria Marhan does a good job exploring the principals pushing forward Connectivism as a pedagogical helper. This becomes apparent right from her abstract "Connectivism views learning as a network creation process, and looks at how we might provide 'learning ecologies' to meet the learners' needs.". In her first section, she defines learning as "a persisting change in human performance or performance potential which must come about as a result of the learner's experience and interaction with the world." As soon as I read the last few words "interaction with the world", I began to connect the dots (no pun intended) to what I've read thus far about communities of practice. She spreads out on a handful of relevant and interesting subtopics to the overall theme of Connectivism. After she describes more about the new connected and growing world we live in she tackles the basics of Connectivism as a theory of learning and the principals behind it. Again like other articles she echoes many of the same sentiments George Siemens made when he originally proposed the learning theory. After the background on Siemens theory, she begins to draw everything together. One statement that I enjoyed was "Individual is the starting point of Connectivism: personal knowledge is comprised of a network, which feeds into communities, organizations or institutions, which in turn feed back into the network and then continue to provide learning to individual". She does a great job of supporting the use of technology not as the new power of learning but as a tool to unlock that power. "When knowledge, however, is needed but not known, the ability to plug into sources to meet the requirements becomes a vital skill".

I also appreciate how Marhan suggests that connected learning is cyclical: "Individual is the starting point of Connectivism: personal knowledge is comprised of a network, which feeds into communities, organizations or institutions, which in turn feed back into the network, and then continue to provide learning to individual."

Blog author Steve Wheeler summarizes several writings on connectivism in this blog post. He highlights the connectivist idea that learning occurs outside the individual via social networks and PLNs. He also points to the shift in knowledge acquisition from one of "knowing information (aka memorization)" to "knowing how to locate information." He suggests it's vital that students learn to develop their own networks and personalized learning tools.

I enjoyed the quote from Siemens where he says that students need to find a method to develop their own learning tools, environment, and communities to store their knowledge. As educators, it is more important for us to guide students to find the information they require. Then coach them as to how they can store and display the knowledge they have acquired.

I found his "nutshell" comment about how connectivism argues it's more important to know where to find knowledge than it is to internalise it to be very helpful.

5th grade students share horse safety advice suing Audiboo.fm as a social media tool to capture audio but also share it out to the larger community for comments and sharing. There's so much potential with this one!

Provides excellent examples from teachers, worldwide, on how they use social media tools in their classroom to enhance learning.

Lists over 100 ways that different social technologies (and tools) are being used by learning professionals worldwide - compiled from various educators.

I love discovering new sites and apps that combine cool functionality and great design, and Story Map is one of my favorites (along with Flipboard!). Also check out http://timeline.knightlab.com/ for a great timeline tool. I am planning on using one or the other to create a map of all the places I have lived and then share it with my family. Only downside is the lack of documentation or tutorials at this juncture, but it's pretty intuitive. The JS name (Java Script) implies that you might have to do some coding, but it's not the case. Check it out!

Great list of helpful teacher tools on the web.

Another great list of Web 2.0 tools. There are a few that should be added in the Augmented Reality section like Aurasma and Daqri 4D, but still lots of good resources. There are also several different choices for Productivity Software.

This is a great tool for students to create their own "multimedia scrapbooks" online by using the creation tools and templates on this website. Students can then share their work with others.

"backchan.nl is tool for involving audiences in presentations by letting them suggest questions and vote on each other's questions"

Microsoft DreamSpark contains free downloads for students. These are mainly software development tools, but educational techies may find some tools extremely useful.

This link is a slideshare. The slideshare begins by describing what a PLN is and the benefits of creating one including the facts that are flexible, personal and practical. It also talks about them happening in real time, allowing instant access to people and information and also giving access to expertise in any field. It goes on to describe the two types of PLN's collaborative tools and information gathering. The article then provides a list of possible tools and good resources to be included in your PLN.

I use this site for ideas on how to intergrate technology into my curriculum. I do not use this site only, however, it is a great place to start.

This is a great article with a bunch of ideas for how to integrate technology into our daily lessons with our students. This made me realize just recently in my own browsing that I came across a great resource I should share back with you. It's http://www.cnn.com/studentnews/index.html and it can help students read the news of the day, has video clips to watch as well as questions and topics for discussion. Another useful "daily" that can be done in the class. Thank you for sharing these great ways to integrate more tech into what we do!

Great ideas (and websites) to integrate technology in the classroom.

Use with Google Forms for easy grading and data analysis.

Flubaroo is a free tool that helps you quickly grade multiple-choice or fill-in-blank assignments. More than just a grading tool, Flubaroo also computes average assignment scores.

Another great alternative to powerpoint and slideshow presentations that can be a bit uninteresting. This is a free online tool that can be used to create exciting presentations. Instead of being based on slides, the presenter is able to create a concept-map of ideas/images/text/pdf docs/etc in order to visually engage his/her audience.

Presentations with zooming animations.

Engaging presentation tool that allows a close up view as well as animated transitions.

An eBook creator and social sharing tool that provides a lot of interesting illustrations that you can customize along with your original story. 

I love this site! I was just looking for something similar to Photostory on PCs. This isn't exactly it, since it doesn't allow audio voiceovers and student drawings (at least from what I can tell) but it is drop-dead gorgeous. Can't wait until they release an iPad app -- imagine this on the retina display :) I am definitely going to use this in class -- maybe even this week. I also love that it's a creative writing social networking tool that encourages best work, creativity, and collaboration. Thanks for posting!

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