Personalized PD: Twitter

Often as educators, we are called to a staff development and hear about the newest trend, data that pertains to a small group of people and very irrelevant to others.  Yes, learning about math data is important to the staff as a whole, but, if there was a way as a teacher we could grow personally and develop our own PD, I think we as a whole can become better educators.

There are many ways, as educators, we can personalize our staff development and these are the ways you can do it:

Twitter:
If you are not on twitter, you should be.  Twitter is by far one of the most powerful ways to learn and grow as a professional.  If you spend 10 minutes from time to time glancing and reading what people post, you will learn something new.  I had a teacher ask me for some insight to a topic.  I went to my twitter, posted a quick question and in a matter of five minutes, I had close to 10 responses with suggestions.   WOW!  Who would have thought five years ago that something that powerful would be available at our fingertips.  (For more information about personalizing PD with twitter, please check this link and read this material.)  Select a few hashtags (#) and watch them from time to time.  There are a lot of programs that allow you to follow the chat, some even allow for an archive so you can go back and see it later.

Here are some fantastic education chats and links to places you should visit to learn more about twitter for education:
The Cybraryman:   This site is a plethora of information for everyone in education.  The link here is for Twitter and it includes a lot of informational pieces for you.  He has established a schedule of all of the education chats out there and the times. (PLEASE DON'T BE OVERWHELMED) There are many of them, but only a few may pertain to your needs.

Here are the ones I personally attend from time to time:
#edchat  (Tuesdays at 7pm)  Lots of fantastic ed topics.
#INeLearn (Thursdays at 8pm)  Directed by IN-DOE department of eLearning.  Excellent source of information.  Topics vary weekly. (Every state has their own, I follow Indiana's since I live in the Hoosier state.)
#edtechchat (Mondays at 8pm) Focus on educational technology.

Are you looking for some people to follow?  Everyone listed here are a good start of who should  be followed on Twitter.  As you follow these folks' posts, you will see more people to follow.  If you are looking for content specific people, ask it on Twitter, someone will help you.:
Jerry Blumengarten                                             edweb.net
ISTE                                                                 Kimberly Munoz
Edtechtalk                                                         Sara Hunter
Angela Maiers                                                   Larry Ferlazzo
Matt Miller                                                     
Michelle Green
George Couros
INeLearning
Chris Casal
Connected Educators Project
Shelly Terrell
Edudemic
Will Richardson
Kathy Schrock
Adam Bellow
Pam Moran
Richard Byrne
Erin Klein
SimpleK12
Vicki Davis

My time management is lacking

I have noticed of late that my time management skills are really bad.  I have fallen behind on my goal of posting twice a week to my blog.  I have been so occupied with my job and with all of the expectations this year, that I am failing as a blogger.   It isn't my intent, really, but, I am finding that my focus has changed a little.  I am only really "teaching" one class and we aren't using a lot of new tools so finding things to talk about has shifted a little. I think as the year comes to an end, I am becoming more of an LMS, helping with research, interviewing candidates for positions and working with administration for our tech upgrade over the summer.  My role as coach is on the back burner.  I have decided to dedicate two days a week this summer to blogging.  I am sure we will have a few rainy days where I am stuck at home, in my PJs, looking for some PD.

I also decided that next year, I am going to offer my staff a much stronger PD focus.  They need to have videos, trainings and tutorials, so I am going to spend time this summer making simple videos to help them better use the technology we offer.   I can't take all the credit, I have seen a few tech coaches in my cohort to become a certified tech trainer using the outside of school, google hangout approach to PD.  I am so interested in this.  I want to try it.  My Cohort partner Amy pointed out tonight in a short twitter chat we had: #itonlytakes1 .  WOW!  It really does.  If I can get ONE person to try it, see success and then share, more will come.  It reminds me of the movie Field of Dreams.  I have always LOVED that movie.  Everytime I see it, I have a warm and happy feeling inside.  "If you build it, they will come".  It's the same with tech and coaching.  It has to be built, one has to do it and see success and then... IT WILL COME!

Displays and social media in the library

It has been three long weeks since I have been at school so my brain function is way below the norm.

This post may be short but I thought it would be a good time to talk about our displays and use of social media to share things with our students.   We moved to the genre format three years back, but we found that there were still genre that were not being checked out so we put our heads together and started creating inventive ways to share our genre with the students.  We started developing bulletin board displays in the hallway and making a selection of books available to the students in the media center.  We pulled titles that don't circulate a lot, but would be well loved if they did and voilà, a great way to share with students our selection of the month.

A few months we have gone way overboard.  We joined forces with the Student Council/ Spirit Club and made our theme go along with their spirit week.  We had a Zombie themed October and the Spirit Club had a Zombie war the last week of the month.  Kids tried to turn each other into zombies.  It was awesome!  We even had a few kids show up wearing zombie makeup.  

No matter what we do to share our displays, we rely heavily on several social media platforms to present the information to as many as we can.  We have a twitter account (@hamiltoncommlib) that is linked to our YouTube account and our Facebook account.   We have a Pinterest account as well. I am also working on a Flickr account or Picasa to keep track of all of the images I take.  I feel sharing as much information as I can makes people more aware of what is out there for them. It makes me feel like I am doing something right for our students.   Each week, we make an animoto video with our new releases and put it on our school library blog/website. 

We have some hits and some people check them out.  All in all, I am pleased with the use of social media and how it is helping build PR for the library.

From the Archives: How I became a connected educator

The term connected educator has been hopping around the edusphere a lot lately.  Teachers of all grade levels, librarians and even professors are jumping on board and becoming connected.   What is it?  What does it look like to be a connected educator? It is what you make it!

Connected educators are open minded about using technology.  They collaborate, build a personal learning network (PLN) and attend conferences regarding tech.  They tweet, use social media, create blogs and do lessons with co-workers.  Connected educators are "CONNECTED" to the world around them through social media and technology; Period.   I am a connected educator, and here is how.

Several years ago, I was scared to tweet.  I was afraid of sounding stupid, looking like a fool and maybe appear unaware of things.  I started my first account and started following a few people a friend of mine recommended. I spent my first month on twitter stalking people.  I occasionally would say something, but not often.  After a bit, I got more daring.  I started attending a chat session. I chose #edchat by a fluke as one of the people I followed was doing it one day and I started joining in.  I felt so rewarded, seeing people in my profession have the same issues, concerns and questions I had.

I began to grow my PLN.  I started following librarians, edtech people, and authors. (I follow authors for book updates, information about what they are thinking and because some of them write the best tweets ever!)  After awhile, I started tweeting about all kinds of things: tools for web 2.0, ideas, book chats with librarians.  I have connected with some fantastic people and I have learned more from them than I will ever learn from a staff development and I am sure someone has learned something from me.

I started implementing tools into my classroom and the library.  I started organizing my thoughts on these products and started sharing the thoughts with others, that is how I started my blog. I started joining different sites that connect teachers and offer webinars and lessons. I have been asked by a few to do webinars and lessons (Due to my schedule, it hasn't worked, but I anticipate some of my lessons popping out into the net someday). I attend edcamps and tech conferences.  I chat with edtech people, and I have learned it's okay to ask questions.  I don't have to know everything.  I just have to make an attempt to try something new.

This school year, I am going to attempt to make some co-workers a little connected by offering Tech Tuesdays each week. I plan to teach twitter, google+, and Facebook.  I hope to show them the power these tools can have with them professionally. I also decided to do mini web lessons (the flipped model) for those who want to attend a Tech Tuesday but aren't available.

Hopefully, my attempts will encourage someone from my school to realize how awesome it is to be Connected.

A wrap up of 2013

So, as 2013 comes to a close, it's time to reflect upon the many tools and tricks I have found this year. There are many of them...  but, some of them stick out in my mind as my best tools of 2013.  I am only posting six, but believe you me, there are many many more.  These are my go to tools.

1.  YouTube I never really realized the power of a good video.  YouTube has changed the way I have taught a foreign language.  There are so many great videos out there, why reinvent the wheel?  I say, check there first and then expand as needed.  Kids will remember the videos and they will learn from them.  It doesn't take a lot of time to find the videos either.

2. Pinterest/ Learnist/ Educlipper  I have added all of these into one because they all accomplish similar things. They create a bulletin board for sites, images, and links.  I use all three of them and I have gotten so many ideas from them.  I spend a little time (maybe 10 minutes) a week scanning the three sites/apps to find ideas for the library.  It is amazing the things people in my PLN are doing. I have borrowed a lot of tools for my class via these sites.

3. Twitter  Need I say more?  The best PD in the world comes from Twitter.  I have found so many connections and so many people who share my experiences.  I am the only LMS in my school and I am the only tech coach in my district.  I have built a strong PLN and have learned more from people here than from any PD offered to me elsewhere. Every single teacher needs to be on twitter, even just to scan other people's posts.

4. OneNote  I have started inputting information left and right into OneNote.  I use it on the Skydrive and sync.  I love being able to work anywhere on my items and having access to it at all times.  Collaborating is also a great part of the program.

5. Google Forms I have built a lot of surveys using google forms.  I use them to establish tech tickets for kids, to log my personal hours doing tech (it helps the treasurer decide where to budget my salary) and I have forms for library surveys.  I have found that they are easy to make and easy to share and the instant results and graphs that can be built right on the site are easy ways to share data immediately.

6. Dropbox  Last, but certainly not least- Dropbox.  I use it daily.  I share folders with students, coworkers, family and friends.  I love having it on my phone, iPad and computer.  Everything I do is added instantly into one place.  I store photos, files and even whole ebooks there.  My assistant and I work on files together and Dropbox helps make that happen.

These six tools have been an integral part of my daily life.  I have used them often and honestly don't think I could live without them.

The next two weeks of my blog are archived stories.  I am taking a few weeks of much needed rest to read some books, watch some movies and spend time with the kiddos.  Maybe even go sledding a little. Have a safe and happy holiday season!

Tips for Twitter Newbies

One of my goals this school year is to get some of my co-workers to jump into the Twitter realm and try to build a PLN (Personal Learning Network).  I don't know if they realize how awesome it is to gain a plethora of information from so many people who are just like them.  I decided the best way to get them started it to share some quick and easy tips.

1).  Start off following a few people who have similar interests as you. (Ex: If you are a SS teacher, find a few social studies teachers and follow them, read profiles and look for subject matter similarities or interest similarities.) Look for tweeps who have more than a few hundred posts and scan some of the things they have posted.  If you notice most of their posts are super personal and don't focus on education, they may not be the person for you.  It's okay to follow someone and change your follow later if they really don't cater to what you are looking for.

2) Set up a diigo account and a pocket account because you will want to save some of the links people post. Diigo has a place in the settings where you can connect twitter to Diigo.  Once you favorite a post, it saves it as a Diigo bookmark for later reference.  Pocket does the same, but it is a visual bookmark. *I use both because sometimes so much gets saved in Diigo that I get behind.  With pocket, the visual helps me refer to what I need.

3) Don't tweet immediately unless you feel ready. Start off following feeds, get a feel.  Remember, 140 characters.  Keep it short and simple. Ask questions, people will help you. Don't be afraid to retweet something that interests you and don't be afraid to tweet something and join a conversation.  Some of your best learning experiences will be with people you don't know and you will find that eventually these people you meet will be some of your best motivators, idea bouncer-offers (yep, made up a word) and best encouragement.

4) NEVER open direct messages that tell you that someone said bad stuff about you.  Unless someone asks you a question dealing with your conversation, avoid the DM.  It seems like there are a lot of spammers out there.

5) Learn how to list and use hashtags.  Creating lists helps you develop connections with other people in your content.  You can add people and communicate and collaborate with them when you need to work on a project.  Using Hashtags (which is the # sign before a text) will help you follow a specific topic.  You can refer back to that topic or build a news feed of it (A Later lesson).

6) Finally, ask for help.  People on twitter will help guide you.  Don't be afraid to ask questions.

How I am and became a Connected Educator

The term connected educator has been hopping around the edusphere a lot lately.  Teachers of all grade levels, librarians and even professors are jumping on board and becoming connected.   What is it?  What does it look like to be a connected educator? It is what you make it!

Connected educators are open minded about using technology.  They collaborate, build a personal learning network (PLN) and attend conferences regarding tech.  They tweet, use social media, create blogs and do lessons with co-workers.  Connected educators are "CONNECTED" to the world around them through social media and technology; Period.   I am a connected educator, and here is how.

Several years ago, I was scared to tweet.  I was afraid of sounding stupid, looking like a fool and maybe appear unaware of things.  I started my first account and started following a few people a friend of mine recommended. I spent my first month on twitter stalking people.  I occasionally would say something, but not often.  After a bit, I got more daring.  I started attending a chat session. I chose #edchat by a fluke as one of the people I followed was doing it one day and I started joining in.  I felt so rewarded, seeing people in my profession have the same issues, concerns and questions I had.

I began to grow my PLN.  I started following librarians, edtech people, and authors. (I follow authors for book updates, information about what they are thinking and because some of them write the best tweets ever!)  After awhile, I started tweeting about all kinds of things: tools for web 2.0, ideas, book chats with librarians.  I have connected with some fantastic people and I have learned more from them than I will ever learn from a staff development and I am sure someone has learned something from me.

I started implementing tools into my classroom and the library.  I started organizing my thoughts on these products and started sharing the thoughts with others, that is how I started my blog. I started joining different sites that connect teachers and offer webinars and lessons. I have been asked by a few to do webinars and lessons (Due to my schedule, it hasn't worked, but I anticipate some of my lessons popping out into the net someday). I attend edcamps and tech conferences.  I chat with edtech people, and I have learned it's okay to ask questions.  I don't have to know everything.  I just have to make an attempt to try something new.

This school year, I am going to attempt to make some co-workers a little connected by offering Tech Tuesdays each week. I plan to teach twitter, google+, and Facebook.  I hope to show them the power these tools can have with them professionally. I also decided to do mini web lessons (the flipped model) for those who want to attend a Tech Tuesday but aren't available.

Hopefully, my attempts will encourage someone from my school to realize how awesome it is to be Connected.

Why twitter is a good form of PD

For the last few years, I have heard numerous colleagues mention that twitter is the new PD.  It got me thinking about the reality of this and much fact can be found in the statement.  Twitter is the best form of Professional Development in so many ways.

I have quickly become a twitter-a-holic checking the stream several times a day, finding articles of interest, adding them to pocket or flipboard and referring to them for my blog posts, my staff trainings as well as my personal training.  I have learned so much from the PLN and others who are out there joining in the chats.  The professional development I have gained exceeds what I have paid for.  I attend a lot of conferences and PD.  Our school has a weekly PD where we cover various topics necessary for our classrooms.  While it is a good way to learn from our co-workers, I think learning from others in other places is also a great help. It shows us we are not alone.  I am the only French teacher in my school. Often, I don't have someone with whom I can collaborate and share ideas.  My French PLN is like PD everyday.  I am also the only librarian in my school and while I have a lot of local librarian colleagues, chatting via twitter with others is a great learning experience.  I have met so many wonderful people dealing with similar situations as me.  

Twitter as a PD is a tool everyone in education should try.  I recommended to some of my colleagues to join twitter just to learn from others.  I told them they don't have to tweet, they can just follow. A few have started and have reported back the cool things they are learning.   I have managed to learn about content, commom core, web 2.0 tools, authors, books, library science, my library software, screencasting, flipping a class, just to name a few.  It doesn't take much time.  Just a few minutes a day can provide anyone with a plethora of information that can benefit the educational environment. 

 I LOVE twitter and if we could convince every educator, administrator and school board member to take a peek, I think our educational world would be a very different place.

Attending a Conference, without Attending a Conference

I adore conferences.  I live for them, but often, I can't find the time or the money to attend.  Sometimes, it's hard to leave my kids.  Sometimes it's hard to do the sub plans for two days.  (Face it, as teachers we know it's easier to come to work sick than to do the planning and followup-  the same thing goes with a planned day or two off.)   Still, conferences are my passion.  I love to attend, I love to learn, I love finding new things and bringing them back.  I may have solved some of my conference woes via twitter.

Last week, the Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning (MACUL) hosted their annual conference in Detroit.   I'll be honest, I didn't know about it, but, the timing wouldn't lend for me to attend, either.  I came across the hashtag on several PLN tweets on twitter and started following it.  I had a blast following the conference.  I learned so many things interactively.   I saved about twenty sites (I didn't know before) to my pocket site, I retweeted some, I favorited a little and I even joined in some of the conversation.  It was fabulous.

The best approach to following a conference on twitter is use an app such as tweetdeck or hootsuite.  I prefer tweetdeck, myself.   It can be downloaded directly to your device or you can use it in a browser.  Chrome even has an app.   Pop it open, add a column for the hashtag and voilà, you are in business.   I also suggest you create an account at pocket. This is the new and improved version of read it later which was an innovative way to save links to refer to at a later time.   I do just that, I follow along, read the tweets, add the links of interest to my pocket.  I go back later and read them over, learn the site, check out the tool.

One of the gentlemen I follow on twitter named Tom Whitby (@tomwhitby) reminded me that one of the advantages of being a connected educator is virtual attendance at all the conferences.  Who said it has to be physical attendance?   I have attended conferences before the same way.  Sometimes I learn a lot, sometimes I learn very little.  It's defintely worth a shot, regardless.

What conferences are coming up that could be showing up on twitter?  There are a ton more if you visit the conference calendar website.

#ISTE2013
#NSTA2013
#ALA2013

Managing multiple social media feeds at once

I must admit, I am a social media junkie.  I love Twitter and Facebook.  I participate in many chats each week, sometimes multiples at once.  I am an all over the place social media freak.  Sometimes, especially when I am involved in multiple conversations,  I use different apps to help me.   Tweetdeck is my favorite.

Tweetdeck has several means to present your information.  You can download an app to your device (Computer, iPad, Android, etc) or you can work off of the internet browser directly.   The program lets you organize columns of information to follow.   For example, I have all of my interactions, #edchat, #tlchat #pblchat etc. set up to filter into tweetdeck. I can multitask, which in my line of work is key.  

If you are a google chrome user,tweetdec k is an actual app built into the browser.   I use it regularly to keep track of things I am working on.  It also lets you keep track of lists, favorites and messages.  You can also monitor your Facebook page as well.  I love the ease of use.

I have tried other programs to monitor and track social media, but I have foundtweetdec k is the easiest for my needs.   

A few words of caution:  If you have the actual app installed on your computer, beware, if you don't set it up right, you have a constantpin g as tweets come in. It gets to be a little of an annoying sound.  The alert isnice bu t if you are trying to do something, it gets distracting. 

Look it over if you are interested in organizing your social media into one place.

*Note: Thetweetdec k version you are seeing here is the versionfro m google chrome. 

How I use twitter in my classroom

http://chris-wallace.com/2009/01/02/tweeties-a-free-twitter-icon-set/

I have read a lot of posts by different educators about Twitter in the classroom.  I decided I would share some of the ways I use twitter or how I anticipate using it this year.

First of all, my school district has been very open minded about attempting to use social media in school.  If it is monitored by the teachers and used for a learning process, the administration has been all for it.  I am grateful for this.  I think allowing social media is a great tool and it's something different that kids will use.  I also think opening it up to them teaches them more social responsibility and more about digital citizenship.  If they see how it is being used in the real world, they are going to learn more about it and do it right.

I start off the school year having all of my students create a twitter account. We have set hashtags for each class.  Since I teach French, I use #hhsfrench1, #hhsfrench2, etc.  I have not seen those tags used any other time, so I am pretty fortunate to use them.  Since the group tweet program is running now, I will look into using that as well.  It can keep the kids tweets private and only I can see what they say.  I have a twitter account set up for my personal use as well as one for school.  My students are all instructed to follow my school account.  I follow them back.  I don't use my school account often.  I usually just access it when we are doing tasks on twitter. Some of my students also follow my personal account, but I think once they see how many things I tweet about education, they lose interest and unfollow me.

When it comes time to do things, I use twitter in a few different ways.  I have the kids tweet sentences to me about things we did in class.  I use it as an exit slip.  I have a few kids who prefer to submit their assignments via twitter and not on paper.  Works for me.  I set up my google reader account to follow that hashtag and I can refer to it later.

I have used twitter to have the kids connect with people from other countries. They ask questions of them or merely read their posts and summarize for me.  I give them names of famous people in Francophone places and a few newspapers and have them follow those.  They summarize what they read to me.

This year, we are making a few connections with other schools so they will hopefully have the opportunity to tweet with their new colleagues abroad.

On an additional note, I also have a twitter account set up for the school library and the yearbook.  When I need images, I tweet and kids send them to me.  I use the library account to announce new books we have added, contests we are doing and special events.  I have a good number of students who follow the library on twitter and use it to find out a lot of information.

I am a twitter freak.  My husband makes fun of me because of how many things I post on twitter.  He calls me a twitterer.  Oh well, I am proud to be a twitterer and excited to share it with my studens.