Twitter as a learning tool

It was probably about a year ago that I signed up for my twitter account.  I knew what it was, and had somewhat of an idea of how it worked.  But, what I didn’t really understand was the educational value to this new communication medium.  It was about two weeks ago, I was found and followed.  (somewhat of twitters way of “friending” ) Come to find out my very  first follower  was a teacher from my district and, as the systems manager for the district, I decided I should probably start utilizing this tool.

My first question I had to figure out…Will I use the tool professionally or for personal use or a little of both?

So I went back to my dusty old account and immediately started to follow the “tweets” of some of the edtech bloggers I have enjoyed over the years!

The KEY to twitter is to program the application with your cell phone! (Remember standard text charges may be applied so be careful)  I was able to set my phone up to sent my first (via text messaging) tweets to my account! Note the image below “from the web” was a short message sent via the twitter website.  “from txt” was sent via my phone!

Tweets

You also can decide which of the people you follow (subscribe to), you would like to have sent to your phone.  To test this out, I chose Scott McLeod’s and waited.

Scott McLeod

Monday morning I received my first official tweet from Scott!  He was having George Siemens do a live blogging keynote.  First of all, I had no idea who George Siemens was nor did I understand what or how you could have a  live blogging conference.  I was amazed.   Obviously while George was up giving his keynote, Scott and other students/faculty were having a side discussion about the address!  The microblogs were all recorded and then posted on Scott’s blog.  I really wish I could have heard the keynote, because the conversations they were having were very interesting.

At any rate, I now had the ability to send and receive microblog’s (aka tweets) from virtually anywhere.  I did not need a computer with a  wifi hotspot to update or receive the latest information!  This was my “aha” moment.  Even with RSS feeds, there is some limitations with being on the computer, logged in, exc.  Twitter was instant.  If I had interest in the content (limited in 140 characters) I could follow up with my computer or smartphone and explore further.  I am only beginning to understand the educational opportunities this tool can have.  It has had, in the short 2 weeks I have used it, a profound affect on my learning!

So thanks to daytonflyer for finding me and waking me up to this new tool.  I look forward to the new learning journey that lies ahead!

Bubble.us – free concept mapping

Bubble.us is a great freebie that allows its users to visually collaborate and/or organize projects.  Below is a quick concept map that I created for past workshop I have taught.  I am thinking of how I can move some of my sessions online.  Each objective should list specific course materials (readings, resources and rubrics), high quality discussions that embed critical thinking skills, and assignments/projects as evidence of the user's newly developed podcasting skills.  As you look at my map - what else should I add?  Maybe quality feedback from the student to the instructor and visa versa?

You should be able to zoom in and out and move the map around to read it better!

Mobipocket and Feedbooks

I always knew that the SMART Phone was a fabulous tool and could be extremely useful in the classroom – but today really takes the cake!  Feedbooks is a web2.0 resource that allows users to dowload free books!  But what made this site extremely powerful was downloading the books to my mobipocket reader! Mobipocket is like the iTunes for books on mobile devices! You can use the mobipocket store to purchase, download, and syncronize books to your smart phone.  However, when using both feedbooks and mobipocket,  I can now synchronize literary works such as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, White Fang, or Hamlet onto my Palm Treo for FREE!  I also noted that mobipocket has free application called Mobipocket creator (home and pro) which enables users to create personal content like ebooks, photo albums, ect.. and then distribute via the SMART phone!  I think our teachers and students could be very creative when using tools like this in the classroom!  What do you think?

World Wide Telescope – Microsoft’s answer to google earth?

Microsoft Research recently released its free World Wide Telescope application. The WorldWide Telescope draws on more than 12 terabytes of imagery from several orbiting and land-based telescopes.  The desktop application downloads the images on demand and stitches them together to form an interactive, browsable universe supplemented with information from top astronomical databases.

It also allows the user to take “Guided Tours” that astronomers and others have put together.   I thought it was pretty cool!

You can check it out at: http://www.worldwidetelescope.org/