"As I am on a Twitter adventure with our 4th and 5th graders and their teachers @teitelbaumsteph & @shellyzavon, I am breaking down steps to tweeting and the process of learning during Tweeting as a classroom. Ryan Bretag's post Twitter for Thinking Publicly echoed beautifully my thoughts about the "use of Twitter beyond the usual lower level posting assignments, message blasting, or basic discussion forum-like uses.""
"Twitter can be overwhelming, even for a seasoned Twitterer.
We use tools, such as Tweetdeck, to help us organize the tweets coming in
--we use #hashtags to filter and connect our conversations
--we @mention, we RT, we DM, we #FF
--we participate in #edchats
--we give credit where credit is due
--we take notes
--we disseminate interesting information to our network
--we amplify our voices to engage in conversation with people from around the world
Yes, it can be overwhelming to follow a conference Twitter hashtag such as #AASSA15 (Association of American Schools in South America Annual Educators Conference . (Day 1, Day 2, Day 3).
You will find a few sample sreenshots of Tweets from the AASSA conference in Curaçao. Unpacked and annotexted to make the value of Twitter as a Professional Development tool, a learning tool visible to the untrained eye."
"Last week at CMI2010, I had the opportunity to talk to presenters, as well as many participants about Twitter. I had the feeling that the teachers, administrators, and superintendents, I spoke with, were genuinely interested in learning about Twitter."
"Twitter, without a doubt, has become the social network for educators to take their professional development into their own hands. Twitter allows teachers to connect with other educators from around the world, join discussions related to their interests and have a steady stream of resources (to help them teach and learn) available to them whenever, whereever and however."
"I am still amazed at the amount of educators, who believe that Twitter holds NO VALUE for their professional learning. Many hold on to the belief that Twitter is a waste of time, used to follow celebrities, listen to gossip and bad hair day complaints.
If YOU were able to get past that initial Twitter reputation, diving into the Twittersphere can be scary, OVERWHELMING and participating in this global conversation platform does not necessarily come naturally to everybody."
"The #amplifiEDU Twitter chat from September 30th, was documented through the lens of a Twitter Newbie through a screencast of the chat- Becoming More Connected, commentated and individual components of the chat. On October 14th, the 3rd #ampliefiEDU Twitter Chat was held with the topic of Documenting FOR Learning. Amplifying learning sometimes means looking at information, filtering, evaluating that information and re-mixing that information, possibly through a different medium, to make that information more visible and accessible to a larger audience. Different people, documenting through their own lens of CURATION can tell the story of that information from different perspectives."
"After receiving so many positive comments and Re-Tweets of my previous Twitter Policy & Rationale, I am making a more visual pdf file available for download."
"Looking at the goals, I want to take a closer look at "getting more educators connected". I see Twitter profiles of educators every day who have "jumped on board" by joining "The Twitter". I wonder if these newbies are network literate? Where do they receive the support to grow? Who supports them?"
"So, what is a Hashtag?
First thing you need to know that is has to do with Twitter, the microblogging service, which is quickly becoming mainstream (even the local tire store, now advertises their Twitter username)."
"To keep our parents in the loop about Social Media use in the classroom, we have posted the following Twitter Policy and Rationale on the school's 21st Century Learning blog."
"My teachers and students at my current school have heard me talk about Twitter more than once (well… more than a hundred times would be more accurate). I have been the "middle(wo)man" between the students and their classroom teachers to make connections (For Skype calls around the World), ask for advice, disseminate a project or request feedback (CSI Twitter) . How do I move from being that sole connector and disseminator to preparing students for that role?"
"I wrote about the power of "The Network" in Personal Learning Network Thoughts. I would say that Twitter and my blog are the most important tools to the puzzle that make up my PLN.
It takes time and effort to build, grow, maintain and nurture my PLN. I get out of it what I put in it. The PEOPLE who make up my network are "IT"."
"I believe we are on our way of taking a modern classroom learning opportunity and upgrading assessment forms to match new skills and new literacies while not forgetting traditionally assessed ones.
We took a classroom Twitter feed (Part One) , looked at the conversation skills students exhibited during the Skype call (Part Two) and now are moving on to looking at "blog post writing" as assessment.
Keeping a previously created blogging rubric in mind, we took a closer look at the blog posts written by the 4th and 5th graders during the actual skype call and edited and formatted after the call had ended."
"In Part 1 of Literature Circle Discussions, I shared 6th Grade Humanities teacher, Emily Vallillo's well structured and organized Literature Circle lesson. In Part 2, I shared the upgrade of traditional lit circles to a new learnflow which included filming the discussion to annotexting the film with behavior's observed and metacognitive reflections on student blogfolios.
DUE to the sharing of their work on their blogfolios and the dissemination on Langwitches blog as well as via my network on Twitter the learnflow did not stop, a new learning opportunity arose, when Author, founder and co-director of Habits of Mind, Bena Kallick made contact.
Students and teachers are getting a taste of and are being reminded that learning in a connected world is never over… The simple fact of documenting and taking the time to publish "what we are doing in class"… is connecting us to a world of learning opportunities."
"In an attempt to bring new additions to your Blog reader, I am starting to feature guest posts on Langwitches. Be assured that these guest posts are from educational bloggers, I highly value and their voices contribute significantly to my own learning.
Today I am sharing a blog post and a newly published book by my friend, colleague and co-author Mike Fisher. Follow him on Twitter and add his blog to your RSS reader.
By Mike Fisher Originally blogged on MiddleWeb.com on December 8, 2013
Back in the early 90's, my grandmother taught me how to bake biscotti in a traditional way. She was a baker by trade and taught me about the precision of measuring ingredients to get a perfect dough consistency, how to lay out the initial loaf, cut on the diagonal and re-bake until the cookies reached their optimum crunch."
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#BLC14 Building Learning Communities: Sharing My Notes
July 20, 2014 - Conferences, Featured Carousel, Sketchnoting - no comments
Alan November's Building Learning Communities in Boston is one of my favorite conference. The sheer stimulation to my thinking and creativity, the networking with so many brilliant minds, the sharing of successes and failure and meeting so many new interesting educators is unparallelled.
I am sharing my notes in the spirit of enticing readers to dig further into the thoughts and material shared by keynoters and presenters. Show your information literacy by researching the #BLC14 Hashtag, scouting the presenters' individual blogs, Twitter and slideshare accounts, explore some of the links, or using keywords from my sketchnotes (ex. "participatory culture", "making learning visible", "Digital Dualism", etc.) to google further information."
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The What? Why? How? of Documenting4Learning
April 19, 2015 - Documenting4Learning, Featured Carousel - 1 comment
My work in formalizing Documenting4Learning is moving forward. In good old fashion, regarding practicing what one preaches, I am documenting my journey:
Learning to Document FOR Learning and Sharing
Copyright and Backchanneling in the Music Classroom
Unpacking a Twitter Conference Feed
Professional Development Model: Documenting4Learning
Tools that Facilitate Documenting
Documenting FOR Learning"
"his post if meant to be seen through the lens of Looking and Documenting FOR Learning from the perspective of administrators or staff in charge of supporting teachers' professional development and ongoing learning.
I worked with teachers and administrators this past week at the Bavarian International School in Munich, Germany. Rachel Jackson, teacher librarian (mostly on Twitter) & Kim House, Technology Coordinator (mostly in a TodaysMeet backchannel) did an incredible job in documenting the work over our 3 days together."
"Note taking is a big topic among educators. How do we teach it to our students? What are the best methods? Is digital note taking worse than taking your notes on a piece of paper?
I am a big advocate to "if I want to teach it, I have to experience it". Below, you will find my documentation of note taking methods I have used (at conferences) over the years (2003-2015). From solitary notes on paper to digital sketchnotes shared on Twitter and this blog."
"I have been enthralled watching the following TED Talk (Ideas worth Spreading)
How to Listen to Global Voices by Ethan Zuckerman:
Sure, the web connects the globe, but most of us end up hearing mainly from people just like ourselves. Blogger and technologist Ethan Zuckerman wants to help share the stories of the whole wide world. He talks about clever strategies to open up your Twitter world and read the news in languages you don't even know."