Another thing I like to do is share powerful collaborative projects. One I’m keen on right now is called The Longfellow Ten, which has middle school kids meeting across a distance to share stop-motion animations that illustrate language arts concepts. When teachers examine a project like this they get excited about the possibility of partnering with other schools and often ask, “How did those teachers find each other?”

How did you meet? How did they find each other? The answer to both is “Birds of a feather flock together… …and roost in the same trees.” If you’re looking to expand your professional circle start hanging out in the virtual “trees” where like-minded folks gather. Here are a few places I roost, and an idea of what happens there.

Skype: Skype is always running in the background on my computer. Just as I was writing about The Longfellow Ten project a Skype chat window popped up and Telannia Norfar asked “Could you meet with teachers at my school in five minutes?” I ran to get a hairbrush and the video call commenced. Get a free Skype account and start connecting with other teachers. (I’m jkrauss1989.)You’ll be surprised how many just-in-time opportunities arise.

Ning Networks: Classroom 2.0 and the ISTE Community Ning are professional social networks that use the Ning platform. I learned about The Longfellow Ten from George Mayo when we met in a Classroom 2.0 group. Join other educators in these networks and your professional life will be richer. If you’re looking for a school partnership check out the Collaboration Opportunities area of the discussion forum in Classroom 2.0.

Twitter: I’m not much of a planner so my favorite twitter feeds are the ones that announce events I can join RIGHT NOW. Some tweets come from people (@stevehargadon), some from event channels (@edtechtalk), and some are aggregated or “hash tagged” tweets of conference proceedings (this week’s ISTE-Singapore conference is #iCTLT2010). If you think Twitter is for the birds, try using it as a professional development events tracker.

Flickr: I started using Flickr photosharing to collect my travel photos in one place. I joined a few themed groups then started my own called Reinventing PBL. I met Terry Smith through the group when he posted photos of projects I had to learn more about. Visit the Reinventing PBL group to view projects and meet the 130 contributing members behind them.

These are just a few of the busy places I spend my time. I’m interested to hear how social web environments shape your professional life. Which “trees” do you find yourself returning to again and again?

* * *

Jane Krauss is a teacher, author, curriculum writer and professional development consultant who lives in Eugene, Oregon. Jane and colleague Suzie Boss are coauthors of the ISTE bestseller Reinventing Project-Based Learning. In February and March Jane and Suzie host a series of conversations about PBL implementation called PBL~Better with Practice.

I scrapped the lecture idea and instead spent the next five hours developing Twepardy – a Jeopardy-like activity that forced my students to sort through the reams of data populating the Web to find information on microblogging.

Lest my work go to waste, I uploaded Twepardy on to my favorite presentation sharing Web site, SlideShare. Please feel free to download to use and revise for whatever means fit your needs.

I had my students create Twitter accounts as homework, then at the start of class they signed in to a private chat group I created on TweetWorks. The students could then Tweet the answers to Twepardy questions without spamming their followers. One bag of mini-Snickers to pass out for correct answers, plus a ceramic, duck-shaped piggybank for the big winner, and we were off.

While using Jeopardy style games in education is certainly nothing new, I found the format extremely conducive to teaching the ins and outs of new technologies. It’s always difficult to teach new programs. My students have differing skill levels and preexisting knowledge of applications and I spend more time trouble-shooting than I do educating. Using techniques like online scavenger hunts, trivia contests, and research races makes the process of puzzling through new technologies much more enjoyable.

As you can see from the student Tweets below, Twepardy is sure to be the next big thing in EdTech.

I have two great loves in my life: my family and my career. I am passionate about both of them, but lately it seems like work has overshadowed my family. If I am being honest I would have to say that for the better part of the last year my family has taken a backseat to my career. I teach and develop online classes. Most of this is done at home on my own time due to the constant interruptions at school which occur even during my prep time.

I also have developed an amazing PLN that I love interacting with, but each minute I spend with them is a minute that I could (and should) be spending with my family. My family does not quite fully comprehend that I learn so much on Twitter. The other thing that they do not understand is that some of the friendships I have made on Twitter are very meaningful.

My husband made the awful mistake of giving in to my request and bought me a BlackBerry for Valentine’s Day this last year. I am now connected to all of my email accounts, Google chat, and Twitter around the clock. While I think this is great my family is not as thrilled. You see, I have not yet mastered the art of unplugging and taking a tech break. I enjoy the ability to connect to my network at any time from any place. My family is not impressed that I make myself so easily accessible to the world.

Last week I walked away for a few hours. I actually powered down my laptop and cell phone and I snuggled up with my husband in our favorite over-sized to watch a movie. When I had trouble remember the last time we did that I realized that I have been plugged in for way too long! It finally occurred to me that I need to find some balance. While I love working and I am not in danger of burning out; I am missing out on some very important things in my life. I am just not sure how an online teacher spend less time online, but I will figure it out.

Twitter, blogs and emails can wait, but my family can’t. I still have a lot of work to do online this summer, but I am going to turn off Twitter and I am going to purposefully neglect my reader. While I am online I need to focus on the task at hand. I need to learn to become more efficient when I work. I get tend to get sidetracked very easily! I am not quite sure how I will do this, but I need to find a balance.

I know other people have faced the same issues. How have you managed to strike a balance between work and family time? What are some of the suggestions you have for finding an adequate amount of time for each?

Twitter

The first thing you need to know about Twitter is the official hashtag, #NECC09. If you use a variation of that, #NECC, NECC, #NECC2009, you risk having your tweet mixed up in other unrelated streams. Here is how to leverage this hashtag to your advantage. The first thing to do is search Twitter for #NECC09 using http://search.twitter.com/. This is a straight-forward site; nothing more than a search engine plugged into Twitter. For those of you who want to watch the conversation happening live, check out www.twitterfall.com. There you will find a very neat web application that will show recent tweets, displayed using a waterfall effect based on trending topics. Be sure to run your own search for #NECC09 to have all of the NECC tweets pull into your Twitterfall.

If you are addicted to Twitter like me, then I highly recommend using an application like TweetDeck. This application will break Twitter into columns. For example, I have a “Replies” column, a “Direct Messages” column, a “Search for #NECC09″ column, and a “Search for ISTEConnects” column. This allows me to monitor several different streams all on one screen. There are other great Twitter App alternatives out there, so if you are not a fan of TweetDeck, just search around.

Click for Full Size

And as always you can find a list of Tweeps heading to NECC09 here. Follow as many as you can and learn about their NECC experience.

Flickr

Flickr is a great way to socialize the sharing of photos. Below you will find the official NECC 2009 Flickr Stream. If you have a Flickr account and want to share your photos of NECC with the rest of us, just tag your photo with “ISTE30″ and it will be added to this stream.

Blogs

Here is a running list of people at NECC that plan to produce NECC-related blog posts. If you want to add yourself to the list visit this post.

I’m sure many of you have Wikis and NECC Ning groups we should know about, so please leave links to them in your comments on this post. Also, any other tips you have for handling this social media blitz would be greatly appreciated. Don’t forget to visit ISTE Connects throughout NECC for real-time coverage of events, sessions, and impromptu interviews with NECC attendees.  I’ll see you all on the Livestream!

]]> http://www.isteconnects.org/2009/06/19/prepare-for-the-deluge-of-social-media/feed/ 0 http://www.isteconnects.org/2009/06/18/security-awareness-for-twitter-account-access/ http://www.isteconnects.org/2009/06/18/security-awareness-for-twitter-account-access/#comments Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:00:04 +0000 Wes Fryer http://www.isteconnects.org/?p=6674 When it comes to granting other people, applications or websites “access” to any online account you maintain, whether the account is on Facebook, Twitter, GMail, or any other site, my advice is to be cautious and proceed slowly. This evening Dean Shareski brought the website HelpIranElection.com to my attention via a tweet. The website exhorts Twitter users to click a link to turn their icons green in a show of support for Iranian democracy. The problem is, I have no idea if this “granting access” to my Twitter account is innocuous or potentially problematic from a security standpoint. I did change my Twitter icon to a green hue, but did so using Seashore rather than the website of Arik Fraimovich, the creator of HelpIranElection.com.

Arik describes himself as a “friendly web-geek and entrepreneur.” His Twitter profile indicates he’s from Israel. That information by itself doesn’t really help answer the security concern at hand, however.

A Technorati search for the website in question currently yields 14 blog results, and none of them appear to be crying “foul” over the site. Perhaps it can be trusted? I’m not sure.

Back in September of 2007, a rash of spam was unleashed when lots of folks clicked email links and provided their email credentials to the site Quechup. The website sent automated emails out to all of the contacts in a person’s webmail account IMMEDIATELY after login credentials were entered, WITHOUT asking permission. That Quechup situation was a heads-up indicating how important it can be to safeguard your login credentials for different websites, and be VERY careful whenever another site asks you to enter them or grant its application ACCESS to your account. Quite often, the fine print is too fine for most people to read so they don’t do it. The results can be dangerous.

Facebook announced last month it has plans to offer “verified applications” which ostensibly would be better security risks for people to use and try. Rogue Facebook applications received a bit of press this past spring.

Is there any harm in following what Doug Symington calls “herd behavior” and changing your Twitter icon green? No. Is there a potential harm if you change your icon color using the web link from helpiranelection.com? I’m not sure. To stay on the safe site, I’m not clicking it and authorizing access to my Twitter account to find out.

Technorati Tags:
twitter, iran, @helpiranelection, #iranelection

1. Share your interests.
2. Use Twitter to share links.

With so many outstanding ideas and links being shared daily, it is important to consider how these resources can be efficiently saved for future use.

To date, my primary ways of saving Twitter resources shared by others for later reference have been:

1. “Favoriting” the tweet by clicking the empty star by the tweet either on the website or in my favorite iPhone Twitter application, Twitterfon.
2. Retweeting the tweet so I can both share it with others and find it later in my own Twitter stream/feed.
3. Clicking the shared link and then using my social bookmarks (Diigo which cross-posts to Delicious) to save and tag the website for later use.

This evening I read that the Evernote web service has been updated to permit Twitter users to dynamically save Tweets to Evernote. After you follow EverNote’s MyEn account on Twitter and click the link EverNote sends as a direct twitter message, you can link up your EverNote and Twitter account by logging into the EverNote website. With that setup complete, simply include “@myen” in a Tweet to save it to EverNote. This is a new and innovative way to archive good ideas as well as links from Twitter friends.

How are you saving and sharing “good finds” from Twitter?

Another California educator, Ken Shelton, also tweeted a link to the iTouch/iPhone session he conducted at CUE last month, “iPhone/iPod Touch: The Ultimate Teaching and Learning Assistant.”

Uploaded on authorSTREAM by chocxtc

Tracey McGrath, a Philadelphia educator, tweeted a link to the Apple Learning Interchange article, “iPod touch. Touching student lives in the classroom: Creative Uses for iPod touch in Education.”

California educator Diane Darrow tweeted a link to “Calisphere iTouch History,” which is a project bringing California history resources (including primary source materials) onto the iTouch/iPhone platforms.

The December 2008 OEDb post, “Top 50 iPhone Apps for Educators,” is also worth checking out on this subject. I found it via Diigo’s top social bookmarks tagged “iTouch.”

Thank you learning network for sharing all these great resources! I hope I can tune into Tony Vincent’s live webcast on Wednesday to learn even more and ask him some questions! :-)

Monday, June 29, 2009 from 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM (ET)

Rocket Bar DC – 714 7th St. NW Washington, DC

It’s time to meet your fellow tweeps at the #NECC09 Tweet-up in Washington DC! If you haven’t been to a tweet-up before it’s really simple – just show up, grab a drink, meet your friends and makes sure to put your @twittername on your name tag. iStrategyLabs (the team that’s been helping ISTE with ISTEconnects.org) is going to put down a $1,000 bar tab, and secure a venue really close to the conference center where NECC will be held.

RSVP here so we can send you final details closer to the date. Oh and don’t forget, you can find a 200+ person list of other #NECC09 tweeps and their blogs here: “Calling all Twitter Users Going to NECC 2009!”

Click to tell your tweeps that you’re coming!

Last week, Oprah made news worldwide by getting onto Twitter for the first time. Oprah already has over 380,000 followers, and is following 10 people so far. No, sadly she’s not following ISTEconnects or me. YET. ;-)

I’ve noted on ISTEconnects previously that Oprah’s use of Skype as a regular part of her television program is raising awareness about the constructive value of videoconferencing software programs as communications platforms and not simply sources of malware for school networks or tools for Internet predation. (Sadly, school district IT departments frequently promote those views.) This same constructive role is being played by CNN currently. This is a photo of CNN’s use of Skype today in a news report, in which an “expert” was brought in to share ideas and answer questions.

How long will it be before more communications networks in our schools will be opened to permit videoconferencing and micro-blogging with tools like Skype and Twitter? I started the collaborative wiki project “Unmasking the Digital Truth” recently to address that very question. I don’t have a definitive answer to this question for all contexts, but I do think it is important we share and amplify the positive, constructive ways these tools are being used and can be used to support learning inside and outside the classroom if we want to change school policies on things like content filtering.

See Neil Stephenson’s guest post here in ISTEconnects, “The Many Roles of Skype in the Classroom” for more ideas and examples on how desktop videoconferencing can and is being used in schools today. Many of us may have been HBO (“Here before Oprah”) when it comes to both Skype and Twitter, but I’m not among those lamenting her noted arrival. The fact that Oprah as well as CNN are using and promoting tools like these can provide us (as educators and educational change agents) with more openings to discuss the constructive uses of these tools in our schools at PTA meetings, school board meetings, and other gatherings.

Positive, constructive, mainstream awareness of digital communication tools like Twitter and Skype is a good thing, on balance.

I am on a mission to raise awareness about the benefits of using tools such as Twitter to establish PLN’s. I recently began an experiment to see if Twitter could be used by educators to collaborate across time and space to reach a common goal. I decided to start a project called Send a Newbie to NECC. I picked one person from my PLN whom had never attended NECC, but whom I believed would benefit immensely from the experience. I wrote a blog post asking people from my PLN to show their support for Twitter and their PLN by donating to a fund to help send Richard Byrne (@rmbyrne on Twitter) to the National Educational Computing Conference .

I selected Richard because he has been such an integral part of my PLN. He takes the time to share valuable educational resources on a daily basis – often several times a day – ultimately saving busy educators valuable time. Richard’s blog recently won the Edublog’s Top Resource Sharing Blog for 2008. With 1600 followers on Twitter and 5000 people subscribing to his blog I think it is safe to say that he is an important part of many PLN’s.

The intent behind this project is to raise awareness about the positive side of social networking. Twitter, like other social networks, is not the problem – it is how people use it. It is difficult for some educators to see the benefits of networking with a group of strangers. Educators need to see examples of how Twitter can be of use to them before they will embrace it. Many fear networking because sites like MySpace and Facebook have received so much bad press recently. I am trying to make a difference by rallying my PLN to support this worthwhile cause. The success of this project rests in the hands of the people in my learning network. I am not only relying on them for monetary donations, but I also need them to help promote this project and gain more support from the people in their network. I hope you will consider participating in this unique project.