With a name like "Twitter" you think it would be simple.

I have resisted joining Twitter. I like to resist things that are popular, so this seemed to make sense. I really shouldn't resist things so much. After all, my husband and I, former high school friends, reconnected on Facebook and became engaged within 4 months. Good things can happen from social networking sites. Then Grey's Anatomy, one of my favourite shows, forced me to think that there may be ways to use Twitter to help with work. No, I'm not performing surgeries and saving lives but I am trying to learn and grow as an educator so that I can help the teachers and students in my school. If Twitter can help me to do that, maybe it is worth a look.

I've spent much of this year as a librarian reading back issues of Learning and Leading With Technology, School Librarian and Multimedia & Internet in Schools (now called Internet@Schools). I began to realize that the reason that I read those magazines was to learn about new ideas. These magazines constantly talk about establishing a Personal Learning Network, so I decided that I was going to use Twitter to do that very thing. It was going to help me learn, grow and develop as an educator (a lofty goal!).

I actually held my breath when I signed up for a Twitter account. I always swore that it would be the end of the world when I became another one of the Tweeple out there. I'm a little bit gullible (even for things that I make up myself) so I was nervous. But, good news, the world didn't end.

Using lists such as Best Education Tweeple (Barnes, n.d.), Building a PLN (Cybraryman, n.d.) and Twitter4Teachers Wiki allowed me to find other educators with similar interests to learn from. I focused on adding people who were librarians or technology educators since these are the topics that I am actively learning about in order to do my job better. 

Once I started "reading" the Tweets I was so confused. Thankfully I found Mom, This is How Twitter Works (Hische, 2010)! I finally understood why people kept throwing the @ symbol around like it was going out of style. I also understood how the placement of the @(user name indicator) in the tweet controls who will see it and how it will be traced on mentions. Retweeting was easy to understand - and easy to do! That was how I first managed to break into some Twitter conversations. Hashtags stumped me for awhile longer. They work kind of like a file folder, grouping tweets about the same topic together. Cybraryman (n.d.) has a list of all of the educational hashtags out there so that it is easy to find and join conversations (www.cybraryman.com/chats.html).

(Can I quickly mention that I feel like a little blue bird has kicked my cyberbutt this week?!)

One thing that I found difficult was having followers. I thought that this might be because the only thing that I posted regularly were my blog posts and that is just shameless self-promotion. For a week I decided to tweet at least 5 things a day. I retweeted great ideas, tweeted about blogs that had helpful information and posted useful links. Did that help me gain followers? Actually, yes! It also was a wonderful week because for the first time I felt like I wasn't just being a Twitter parasite. Now I was in a mutualistic symbiotic relationship with the tweeting blue bird. 

Why Tweet: A Personal Journey Through the Twitterverse (Via, 2011) is a laugh-out-loud explanation of how Twitter can be a beneficial addition to further learning for teachers, though, initially many educators resist it. 

After using Twitter for the past few months, I agreed with everything Via said. I felt that same resistance. I struggled to use Twitter effectively. But in the end I saw it's value. As Via succinctly states, "Whereas tools such as Diigo, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google Reader add depth to my personal learning network, Twitter adds breadth and allows me to participate in conversations that help me every single day."

When I log on Twitter I think, "Wouldn't it be great if I find something new or exciting for work?" and I'm rarely disappointed. I've found new blogs to follow, great project or lesson ideas, and some fabulous online tools to use.

Great things that I have found because of Twitter:

• makeuseof.com
• Google chart tool
• Popplet (an exciting discovery for a visual learner like me!)
• how great Glogster can be (because so far I have been unimpressed)
• new blogs like http://librariansquest.blogspot.com/
• the adorable bedside bookmark shown to the right (that I have to make as soon as possible!)

Some of the best resources that I have found to help educators learn about successfully using Twitter to expand their teaching practices are:

• 10 Steps for Educators New to Twitter by Justin Tarte
• How to Use Twitter for Social Learning by the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies
• My Twitter Resources Library by Angela Maiers

• Twitter Collaboration Stories
• Advanced searching on Twitter

I will admit that I still don't use Twitter as much as I probably should, but I think this will grow as I have more time to play on it and feel like I have more to contribute. After all of this, I am still a newbie on Twitter. I would like to create my own custom background and continue to use Twitter to learn about and share new ideas and resources. All that I know is, Twitter definitely isn't a tool that I will be dropping when this course is done!   

P.S. - Fake Tweet Builder would be a fun tool for teachers to use in class. Not as developed as FakeWall but still pretty cool!

References

Barnes, M. (n.d.). Best education tweeple. Retrieved on February 20, 2011 from http://socialmedia.editme.com/Best-Education-Tweeple

Cybraryman (n.d.). Building a PLN- My PLN stars. Retrieved on February 20, 2011 from http://cybraryman.com/plnstars.html

Cybraryman (n.d.). Educational chats on Twitter. Retrieved on March 3, 2011 from http://www.cybraryman.com/chats.html. 

Hische, J. (2010). Mom, this is how Twitter works. Retrieved on February 22, 2011 from http://www.jhische.com/twitter/.

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Via, S. (2011). Why tweet: A personal journey through the twitterverse. presented as part of Wicks, D., Via, S., & Rhode, J. (2011, January 27). Using Twitter for Teaching, Learning and Professional Development. Retrieved on March 10, 2011 from http://www.edupln.com/video/why-tweet-a-personal-journey.

Keep in touch, won't you?

I am constantly wary of Facebook. For example, I am wary of the time that it takes from my life, the way that it feels that it "owns" my personal pictures and the information that is shared each time you join a group or add an app or a game. Because of this I tend to limit the ways that I use Facebook. I simply skim through status updates, look at people's pictures and keep tabs on my sister who lives in California.

Richardson (2010) and much of the reading that I have been doing for this course over the past months (many random blog posts and articles) heralds the use of Facebook as being more than I am using it for.

There has to be a better way for me to use Facebook. As David Lee King (2008) suggests, there are many ways for a library to use Facebook. This week I decided to branch out and create a Facebook page for the library. This is a different option than a profile because Facebook pages don't have friends, they have fans. It was tricky to set up the page because the set up of a page for an organization is different than establishing one for a person. I called my brother to help me with some of my questions and the rest I learned through use. Even though I muddled my way through, in the end the McMath Library officially has a social networking presence!

My goal for the Facebook page is to help give the library more relevant, to inform students of new books and draw them in with YouTube book trailers, to give students updates about events in the library, and to provide them with Web 2.0 links that might interest them or help them in their classes. 

It was difficult for me to publicize our new Facebook page just because I have a fear of rejection. I am afraid that I will only have 3 people "liking" the library for the rest of the year. But in the end I put up a new window display to share our new Facebook page with the students. I will also be putting it into the announcements after Spring Break. I think that the most important part of making this work in the school is updating the page frequently with things that the kids are interested in. It will be important to keep my audience in mind as I'm thinking of my updates. Chris Bourg (2008) gives me hope that my Facebook page may become a relevant part of the school community but I know that it will take awhile. As of right now, I still only have 3. Sigh. 

Shelfari and LibraryThing are also helpful social networking tools for librarians. I have created accounts with both and primarily use Shelfari for personal use and LibraryThing for our school library blog. In LibraryThing you can create a widget for Blogger that is a rotating slideshow of book covers that you want to highlight. We use this to highlight new books that we have added to our collection. The best part is that under "Add Books" you can simply scan the ISBN and the system is able to locate the book to add the cover to your widget. The widget is directly linked to Blogger and the covers are updated automatically. Less work = Library love!


Another social networking platform is Ning.com where you can actually create your own social network around a topic.  In my exploration of Ning this week I joined Classroom20.com. It took a day to be approved (whereas my application for ArtSnack was approved within hours) but once it went through I was free to set up my page and start exploring. I also joined the TLNing for teacher librarians. This site has 5,656 members! I'm sure to find some great ideas there with that many people contributing.

I was searching for a way to make Ning something that I would be using long term and that meant finding some serious value in it. Since Ning is all about networking with others, it makes sense that I found that value on the forum page. The forum page of Classroom20.com is nicely organized by topic and I simply scrolled down to find a topic that interested me. While looking for more information about creating effective presentations, I found a thread with  information about successful Prezi presentations complete with links to YouTube videos, tips and suggestions for use. Perfect! I'm seeing value already. 

To get into Ning deeper I joined the Classroom 2.0 Beginner Group. After taking this course I don't know if I would consider myself a beginner anymore but this group has recent activity and quite a few members which promises a lot of conversation (most questions asked on the discussion board have more than 5 answers). People use the discussion board as a way to ask questions, answer questions or share resources. I am helping a friend develop a iPad program for 5 year olds for a summer teaching program at a fancy private school. I put out a call for iPad app suggestions on the discussion board and got three responses. Just to compare, I also put the question out on Twitter but I only got one response. The responses made on both platforms were unique and incredibly useful and will help me with program development.

I also joined TLNing and the groups High School Teacher Librarians and Web 2.0 in the Library World. These groups are modestly active and I got some good ideas for some contests that I can run towards the end of the year to get more books circulating. 

I think Ning is a good way to find a group of people with similar learning interests who are willing to help each other get better at what they do. This might be especially beneficial for new teachers who can use all the help and support that they can find in this new and often overwhelming job!

References

Bourg, C. (2008). Our library Facebook page. Retrieved on March 10, 2011 from http://chrisbourg.wordpress.com/2008/10/16/our-library-facebook-page/.

King, D. L. (2008). What can you do with a Facebook page? Retrieved on March 9, 2011 from http://www.davidleeking.com/2008/10/09/what-can-you-do-with-a-facebook-page/.

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Web 2.0 Presentation Tools

This week was all about playing. My guide this week was David Kapular's recently created Top 25 Web 2.0 Sites for Education (2011). Since there are so many Web 2.0 tools out there, it can be hard to know where to start. I had to go in with a plan.

My goal: to advertise for the library. 

My tools: Prezi and Glogster. 

My computer: busy.

I found Prezi earlier in the year and watched (open mouthed) my first ever Prezi presentation. I loved the dynamic, cohesive way that it was presented and it managed to keep my attention for the entire presentation (something that is difficult when Grey's Anatomy is on). I wiggled with excitement going into this week because I would finally have a reason to use this tool myself. (Insert squeal of delight here! I'm such a geek, but I love it!)

Prezi is quite simple to use (and, dare I say it, easier to use than powerpoint even). After a simple sign in, a new user is directed to a series of how to videos. I love a good how to video. Honestly, I only watched the first one and then assumed that I would now be a pro at using Prezi.

I guess they knew that many of us skip the how-to videos because they have a mini hands-on learning tutorial as soon as you sign in to create your Prezi. Many of the videos that I watched about creating Prezis stressed planning, so, even though this is a Web2.0 course, I pulled out my trusty side-kick, Mr. Pencil. I have missed him. Here is what he and I created together.

Making this plan on paper helped me to visualize what I wanted to include and how I wanted to link the components together. When I was faced with the white Prezi background I wasn't as overwhelmed as I would have been if I went in blind. I copied much of the information from my planning page onto the Prezi page and added YouTube book trailers for each book. Prezi makes this addition so simple! With the Insert bubble you can add files, YouTube videos and shapes. Changing the colours is easy too. One thing that would be nice is the ability to change individual fonts in the free Prezi download, but then there would be no incentive to buy Prezi Pro.

The most confusing part of creating my Prezi was trying to choose the path for the presentation to maximize its readability and impact. At the end, my paths looked like this:

My final presentation is great promotion for our school library that highlights some of our new books. One of my goals is to try to get book trailers to the students and this presentation allowed me to link them up with seven trailers in one place! This will be going on our new Facebook page asap! Here is the full presentation.

New Books in the Library March 2011 on Prezi

While reading about Twitter in my Google Reader feed, I came across a blog post that linked to this Prezi presentation below. (Did anyone else notice how 4 different Web2.0 platforms were totally interrelated there?!)

CHCS Tweets on Prezi

I found the use of an image as the backbone of a Prezi inspirational. That is something that is being filed away in my brain for future Prezis (this may be foreshadowing for my final project).

Prezi is searchable and it pointed me to some more Prezis created by the same author, Kelly Tenkely. Her Prezi, Breaking Free of Vanilla Education, is a stunning example of what Prezis can be. I can only dream of creating something that involved.

Breaking free of vanilla education on Prezi

I have already told quite a few students about Prezi. I can't wait to see what they create!

Prezi - I love it.

Now for Glogster EDU, an online poster creator for educators. I have seen quite a few student-created Glogs and I have generally been underwhelmed. Most of them are a busy background, a few different pictures copied from the web, a video and a few lines about the topic. This does not demonstrate new learning or critical thought.

My negative perception of Glogster began to change when I came across  Glogpedia: The Best of Glogster. These Glogs demonstrate the integration of multiple sources, focused writing for an audience and, critical thinking while teaching the viewer more about the topic.

In the end I couldn't hate Glogster anymore when my burning questions about QR codes were finally answered in this information-filled Glog.

I think that teachers need to ensure that there is learning happening as the Glogs are being created. Are the student's own thought being given? Are his or her opinions presented? Is there an argument? Is the material student-created? Does it show knowledge growth? While Glogster is an easy-to-use program with simple controls and a significant amount of content, there is still a significant amount of teaching that needs to go along with them. I think that I would use Glogster with students to demonstrate the outcome of critical thinking projects or other projects which don't simply allow for cut and paste from Googled sources.

The other way that I would use Glogster would be to create a visual compilation of information or quick links to YouTube videos, links and more. This would be an easy way to have all of those links in one place that can be easily accessed. Here is a Glog that I created to highlight the changes that have taken place this year in our high school library.

To learn how to make my own Glog, this quick video gave me a general overview of Glogster and then the rest I learned by just playing around. 

Glogster's ability to use the computer's webcam and microphone to capture video, audio and photos of the user and embed those into the poster make this a good tool for teachers who want to include instructions or directions for the poster's components or follow-up work. There are definitely lots of possibilities here!

My final assessment: I can't wait to use Prezi and Glogster again.... Soon!

Other fun sites to check out that can be used in conjunction with these tools:

• Blabberize
• Wordle
• LinkBun.ch (currently offline because it is being revamped)
• StripGenerator
• Popplet
• The Pursuit of Technology: Integrating Educational Technology has a long list of other Web 2.0 tools for educators. 

References

Kapular, D. (2011). Top 5 web 2.0 sites for education. Retrieved on March 6, 2011 from http://cyber-kap.blogspot.com/2011/01/top-25-web-20-sites-for-education.html.

Tenkely, K. (2011). Breaking free of vanilla education. Retrieved on March 9, 2011 from http://prezi.com/1bmvnznjhnbq/breaking-free-of-vanilla-education/.

Tenkely, K. (2011). CHCS tweets. Retrieved on March 9, 2011 from http://prezi.com/kgfokf9t3lds/chcs-tweets/.

Tenkely, K. (2011). Twitter in the classroom and Twitter posts. Retrieved on March 9, 2011 from http://ilearntechnology.com/?p=3738.

TheOhioBloke. (2011). QR codes in education. Retrieved on March 10, 2011 from http://theohiobloke.edu.glogster.com/qr-codes-in-education/

Zimmer557. (2011). Integrating educational technology. Retrieved on March 10, 2011 from http://www.edutechintegration.com/2011/03/integrating-educational-technology.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+edutechintegration%2FrBlN+%28The+Pursuit+of+Technology+Integration+Happiness%29

Wiki Me!

It's like Will Richardson (2010) sneaked inside my head and is reading my mind! I laughed out loud when I read, "Now, I know what you're thinking, something along the lines of 'Well, I can skip this chapter, 'cause this anyone-can-do-anything wiki thing will never work in my school.'" (p56). That was exactly what I was thinking! But he promised me that wikis are "amazing and versatile", so, in my brain (which he can read anyways so we apparently we can communicate like this), I said, "Fine. Show me what you've got."

My Wikipedia background is not extensive. I use the site to as a starting point to learn about topics that I have little or no knowledge about. The PSA that I work for has a wiki but I can't stand using it because I feel that it is too messy for me to even look at. Other than that, I have little to do with wikis.

I tried searching for wikis in education and I ran into many of the same issues that I have had in the past - they are messy, messy, messy! To solve my problem and try to see the potential that Richardson (2010) promised to me, I defaulted to one of my personal favourite lists of teacher-created Web 2.0 materials - the Edublog Award List. One of the award categories last year was the Best Educational Wikis.

When I found Celebr8UandMeDigitally I finally saw the fabulous collaboration that Richardson swore I could experience. This wiki is a collection of student work across countries that explains how students across the world celebrate different holidays in their homeland. What a great idea! The students have submitted their work using Glogster, AnimateMe, GoAnimate, Vocaroo, YouTube, Wallwisher and Toondoo. Being a blogger who is sometimes frustrated by trying to ensure that every program I use is compatible with my blog, the freedom to share work created with so many different programs is like a breath of fresh air. This proves to me that wikis are something to seriously consider to encourage the inclusion of multiple intelligences in technology projects. Visual learners may choose to use Glogster, while kinesthetic learners may act out the holiday in a YouTube video. Auditory or musical learners could create a radio program or song to upload as an audio file. I love that this is a Web 2.0 tool that allows for all the different learning styles!

To learn how to use a wiki in teaching I used the wiki Technology4Kids (Terrell, 2010) as a resource. As an overview of setting up, maintaining, editing and using a wiki in education, I cannot recommend this resource enough. It is a perfect starting place for teachers who are looking for information about wikis in the classroom. 

Finally, after a lot of reading, I was ready. I created my own wiki at aarneilllearning.wikispaces.com. Watching their Wiki Tour videos helped me learn a little bit about how to use my brand new wiki, but, of course, I actually learned far more from playing with my new wiki.

Since I'm not in a classroom right now and I want my wiki to be something that is actually beneficial, I decided to use the wiki as a platform to share some of the classroom resources that I have created. I've had some of these published in our PSA publication but I don't necessarily want to put all of my hard work out on the internet for everyone to use. With an educational wiki not sharing my work with the world isn't a problem since only people that I have invited can view and post on my wiki.

I think that the privacy of an educational wiki is one of the things that makes it a great Web 2.0 tool for the classroom! With a blog, once someone has the URL they are able to access it and view the work that is posted there. With an educational wiki, users need to be invited and login each time they want to view it and this could help to minimize privacy concerns. 

One thing that I found easy to do with my wiki was delete things (oops!). This wasn`t necessarily a good thing as many of the items that I deleted should not have been. Apparently, my learning curve for using the wiki controls without deleting items is not steep because this happened over and over again. Thankfully, with a class wiki, the wiki controls allow the wiki page to be restored to an older form and deleted items magically reappear. As the moderator of a wiki, you can be alerted to changes and keep an eye on everything that is added (...or deleted) (Crane, 2009).  Richardson (2010) points out the importance of giving some of the moderator control and management to students as increased control is correlated with increased responsibility and ownership of a wiki's contents. While a teacher may initially want to hold most of the control, as a wiki progresses control could slowly be given to the students. This is not unlike the way things naturally progress  throughout the year in a classroom anyways. Our goal is to always teach a skill, have the students practice the skill with our assistance, and then learn to use the skill themselves. 

My favourite inspirational collection of ideas for wiki use is the teacher collaboration document titled 17 Interesting Ways to Use a Wiki in the Classroom. It had so many ideas that it got my mind spinning!. I could see myself using wikis as a way to show off student work as a class, create student learning portfolios, or share teaching techniques among the staff (Barrett, n.d.). 

As with all Web 2.0 tools, one of the most important things is to continue to use a wiki in new and creative ways over an extended period of time. As Dossiers technopédagogiques (2005) outlines in their list of key wiki guidelines for teachers, there are ways to begin  and finish using a wiki.

"How to begin

• Begin with a period of open use (i.e. a sandbox).

• Use introductory activities (e.g. "who’s who", movie reviews) and other not-required-but-useful activities to convince students of the utility of the exercise by generating discussions.

• Get students to post questions and requests for other students to answer; people are happy to help when someone actually seems to want the help.

• Plan what will be covered in future class meetings.

Where to end

• Don’t."

                                         (from http://www.profetic.org/dossiers/dossier_imprimer.php3?id_rubrique=110)

References

Barrett, T. (n.d.). 17 interesting ways to use wikis in the classroom. Retrieved on March 3, 2011 from https://docs.google.com/present/view?id=dhn2vcv5_164hj4tw6gf.

Crane, B. E. (2009). Using Web 2.0 Tools in the K-12 Classroom. New York: Neal-Schuman Publishers Inc.

Dossiers technopédagogiques. (2005). Pedagogical potential. Retrieved on February 29, 2011 from http://www.profetic.org/dossiers/article.php3?id_article=970

Edublog. (2011). Celebrating blogging and social media in education: The Edublog 2010 awards. Retrieved on February 27, 2011 from http://edublogawards.com/.

Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.

Terrell, S. (2010). Technology4kids: Wikis. Retrieved on February 27, 2011 from http://technology4kids.pbworks.com/w/page/24645238/Wikis.