Dare I admit this in my blog? I think I am addicted to Twitter!
A day doesn’t go by without checking my Twitter updates. I haven’t quite put my finger on why it is so addictive. What possesses me to log on each morning to see what are people are doing, reading, saying or thinking? And why do I feel compelled to answer in 140 characters or less the question – What are you doing? Do people really care?
Today I am a panelists on KnowledgeBank for a follow up session of Steve Hargadon keynote – Web2.0 is the Future of Education. It is reading his paper on 10 Trends he believes have importance for education, that I started to make some connections with why I like Twitter.
Trend 1 – New Publishing Revolution – I can create content through micro-blogging and make links to other content.
Trend 2 – A Tidal Wave of Information – There is so much to learn from the Twitter community. You can always find new tools, find out about a project or some interesting research. You can even call on the Twittersphere for advice – see Jess McCulloch’s post.
Trend 3 – Everything is Becoming Participative – Twitter allows for opinions, reflections and comments. Dialogue can be generated out of a link to a news story or a video.
Trend 4 – The New Pro-Sumers - I can consume, produce and digest.
Trend 5 – The Age of the Collaborator – I can find new ideas and great experiences shared via Twitter. I can work on shared understandings and collaborate to create new knowledge – all through a tweet.
Trend 6 – An Explosion of Innovation – Many new ideas, projects have come about from communicating globally with other like minded, or not so like-minded people.
Trend 7 – The World Gets even Flatter and Faster – Twitter is anytime, anywhere! I can connect globally 24/7. Twitter does not close for the day.
Trend 8 – Social Learning Moves Towards Centre Stage – Much of my learning about Web2.0 most definitely has come through social online interaction. Twitter has been my ‘hallway’ for learning. It is that quick chat, the touch base with a colleague, the overhearing of the a little gem that for me, is the most addictive thing about Twitter.
Trend 9 – The Long Tail – The more I learn about Web2.0 on Twitter the more I want to learn. I have a passion to learn and am active in my pursuit.
Trend 10 – Social Networking Really Opens Up the Party – and wow what a party it’s been so far.
So what do others think?
July 22nd, 2008
I don’t know why I have taken so long to explore Second Life. It has been over a year since I first heard about it. I have read people’s blogs, joined groups on Classroom 2.o but not actually gone in to investigate further.
Well, in the last 24 hours I have mustered up the courage to delve into a whole new virtual world that is exciting and fresh and offers huge potential for interaction and learning.
To begin with I needed to download the application (about 72mb) and then had to register with a user name and a password. I used my own first name but needed to choose another second name – I became Helen Moonite. Pretty cool sounding name I think!My next step was to choose an avatar that I could later modify.
Upon entering Second Life I was run through a series of tutorials that help you to communicate, travel, and modify appearance. In this area I was supported by other newbies who were just one step ahead of me.
Today I went into Jokaydia, a region created by Jo Kay from Wollongong. Here a number of OZ/NZ educators met the night before. Unfortunately I was late in last night so decided to go and explore tonight. I found a few twitter friends there, including barbs1, Laurenogrady, heymilly, efreeman and jokay. Jokay was amazingly helpful to the newbies and made you feel very comfortable even after the many mishaps that can happen when you are still learning to walk, fly and even get dressed.
This is a screen shot of me as Helen Moonite standing in front of the Edublogs sign.
As I said the possibilities for learning and interacting are many and in the next few weeks I will explore these further. Please feel to add how you use Second Life in your educational setting.
May 20th, 2008
Where are you now? Oh, I see you. On the couch reading. Feet up. Using your laptop with a small snack by your side. Lights low. Music going, telly in the background. Did I just see you get up to get a drink?
With Information and Communication Technology (ICT) becoming more prominent in classrooms since I was in school (and most parents of our students these days) the physical layout has had to change somewhat to accommodate computers. In my experience I have seen a variety of ways that teachers and administrators have decided to arrange the technology in the classroom.
When I returned to teaching in 2000, computers were neatly positioned at the side of the classroom and students would sit facing the wall to do their work independently as part of rotations.
Then as a school we moved to positioning the computers at each table cluster. There was normally 4 table clusters in a room. This meant the students would have a computer at their table without having to leave. They often worked in pairs or in groups.
In my last classroom in this school I was lucky enough to be part of the pilot for laptops in a classroom. We had four laptops in my room and they no longer needed to be neatly set up against a wall or positioned at a table. They were free to roam around for learning to take place anytime anywhere! And boy did it!
I would have to say that when we moved from computers fixed to walls to becoming mobile units that could be used anywhere in the room to anywhere in the yard, then this was the time learning took off in my classroom. My Grade 5 students would pick up a laptop just like they would pick up a pen or a book. If they needed to research, look up a word, publish or even create a music piece the laptop 
joined them wherever they were.![]()
So that’s where the computers are!
April 13th, 2008
Today I listened to a broadcast of EdTechTalk with a topic on RSS. Still feeling very new to many Web2.0 technologies I have spent a lot of time these holidays becoming more aware of the vast range available these days.
I had heard about RSS feeds mid year in 2007 but really didn’t get it at that time – at all! It was only addressed briefly as part of a blogs and wikis workshop and there was so much going around my head that I was unable to comprehend one more thing.
However, since then I have taken the time to explore and press those orange buttons to see what they do. I started subscribing to feeds mainly as widgets on my iGoogle home page. Then I pushed my boundaries and explored iGoogle Reader and viewed the explanation video. I learnt that RSS was a format for delivering regularly changing web content. Still I was not too sure what this all meant in the big picture of learning and teaching.
Today when I listened to EdTechTalk things started to fall into place. I heard how teachers use RSS feeds in their classrooms. Some of these were –
For Students -
To follow other classroom pages
To follow their interests
To follow teacher pages
As reading material to respond and comment on
To support collaborative projects with students subscribing to each other’s pages, such as in pageflakes
For Teachers -
For professional reading
To find appropriate classroom resources and content
For Parents -
To follow student and classroom pages
Now to explore and learn further. Thank goodness for holidays!
(Thanks to the team at EdTechTalk for the heads up on RSS)
January 16th, 2008
Welcome to my new blog about learning. Here is where I am hoping to reflect and gather some great ideas that support my philosophy of where our education should be going. To me learning is not just about knowing stuff, but being part of a global world and being able to communicate, think and solve problems independently and with others.
January 5th, 2008
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