Blog Junkie

Bear with me, this is more than a cliche.

Last night we celebrated my daughter’s birthday with a BBQ for family and friends. I had the incredible pleasure of having an extended conversation with one of her friends, a young man 25 years old, who I have always liked, but could have never said why.  It was a teacher thing.  This young man has pulled himself out of the “hood” from a family with problems.  At the end of our conversation, I more than liked this young man, I admired and respected him. We talked about how some children come from troubled homes and hide their problems when at school so no one will know or see their pain and what that behavior looks like.

We talked about the school were he went for most of his elementary school years.  I know the school and it too has been pulled up by its bootstraps out of the gutter of gang fights, drugs, low academic standing etc… I have worked in several Category 2 inner city schools and struggled with my upper-middle class view points. I told him a story of a young boy in one of my classes who I had tried very hard to reach all year. He also came from a family in crisis.  One afternoon, during an art class, I sent him to get some more paper as we had run out. He had to leave the building, cross a small parking lot to the second school building where the office was. This was not an issue, we did this with the students all the time, out of necessity. The day I sent my student, the door, unknown to me, was locked. He was gone for a longer time than he should have and I sent a student to find him. When he came in he was very, very upset. The look on his face was one I could not complete decipher at first. He was upset and angry and I got that, but there was more that I couldn’t figure out. When I asked him why he didn’t bang on the door or come to the class window he began to get more upset and shut down. It was the look in those deep, dark brown eyes that drilled through me and impaled me to the wall. It took me days to figure it out. I had to shift my point of view from myself to him. He had been in the one place where he would be safe with the one person in his life he knew cared and he trusted. The look in his eyes was betrayal.  I had accidentally, over a locked door, betrayed his trust.  Whatever happened at home to cause this reaction, I had managed to repeat at school.

This story opened the young man at my home to tell me his story. This is why we get up each morning, unlock our classroom doors while balancing the mug of ever present java on top of a pile of marked papers to begin the day, fresh and new from yesterday. He told me of his grade 7 teacher at the school we had been discussing. This teacher took a vested interested in this young man. He had him do small projects on the computers at recesses, had him help build the ice rink outside and give out the skates at recess. He kept him out of the gangs and got him to stop fighting. I quote, verbatim: “He saved my life.”

After viewing this YouTube video by Joshua Bloom, I was irritated, no offense to Mr. Bloom, it’s a personal irritation.

So to “teach” is to:

• explain
• accept fact
• give information or instruction
• cause someone to learn or understand
• induce by example or punishment to do or not to do something

A “teacher” is:

• one who teaches

To “educate” is to:

• enlighten
• illuminate
• empower

An “educator” is someone who:

• inspires intellectual, moral & social instructions
• mentor
• an experienced and trusted adviser/guide
• shows the way

I have two classes in Tapped In; and I have:

1. “given information or instruction” on how to log in, use the chats, discussion forum, reply to others…
2. “caused someone to learn or understand…” how to have an online presence, how to create a post either individually or via a group, how to collaborate via chat…
3. “induced by example or punishment not to do something…” by providing examples of appropriate replies and inappropriate replies, created 4 firm and fast rules about spamming, interfering with others chats, being totally off-topic in collaborative chats and consequences for breaking those rules.

I have:

1. “given moral and social instruction” in netiquette when posting in a discussion forum and using chat
2. “shown the way” to using an online learning environment, including all that instruction on how to…
3. “empowered” students to risk putting their thoughts out for others to read and reply to, and to read and reply to others, to collaborate

What irritates me about the video? The negative connotation about “teaching”. You need both! There is no one or the other. In order to “educate” my students, it took some “teaching”.

What have I learned?  What have the students learned?

It has been a very interesting week of discovery for both myself and my students.  We have learned how to flood our server and not flood our server!  We have learned how to flood a chat and to be far more careful in what we post on chat and in discussion boards, but most of all, we are learning to work collaboratively as a group.

The students are learning to take ownership for their online environment and work.  It is a slow process with one class slightly ahead of the other, but the second class will be the one to benefit most from this experience provided “teacher” here can keep her patience.

There seems to be a definite gender issue happening in both my classes.  In the first class (Class A) there is a large number of high achieving girls who are out performing the boys in almost all areas, especially academic ones.  In Class B there is a very large number of boys, over 3/4′s of the class, who are, for the most part, extremely immature and rowdy.  Each class having its own special and unique dynamic has provided me with some great learning experiences through the online classroom.

In Class A, I have noticed with great delight, one young fellow who is able to lead a chat discussion on a topic, stay on topic and keep his group mates, including other boys, on-task.  Seeing the word “think” aimed at one of his buddies was just amazing considering that not more than 20 minutes later, back in the face-to-face classroom, during a discussion about the online assignment, he was taking apart a hockey pencil and not engaging in the discussion at all.  Online he was leading a discussion and had relevant ideas to contribute. He took ownership for his work and his group.  He was also the one to show his classmates how to open 3 chat boxes simultaneous on their screens and assisted those who were confused.  It was awesome to see the playing field levelled, even for a short 35 minute time frame.

Class B – Well here we have some significant teaching challenges.  We have learned to flood the server, fix the server, flood the chat with spamming or face-rolling if you’re a gamer. We have had the use of several minor inappropriate texting shorts, some very insignificant assignment work being done, and unfortunately, they have all but squashed the girls right out of the chat.  But, all in all, some really good learning came out of this chaos.

The students in Class B have discovered that I can find those inappropriate shorts, highlight them and print them in less than 1 minute.  That I know exactly what those shorts mean and I have laid out some very hard and fast rules based on our first two classes of “play” time.

The class managed quite well overall.  Everyone had a chance to get their ideas out, and carry out a discussion with others.  There were the same surprising leadership showing up here as there was in Class A.  I had a student, who in the face-to-face classroom would make you wonder if you’d chosen the right career path, keep his group on-task, keep the discussion going, if rather superficially, and surprise me to death. He took ownership for his work and online presence.  It was wonderful.

What did I learn as a teacher?  To let go of the control to see where the students would go.  Class A can handle that lessening of control and a more open-ended assignment, Class B cannot and needs very clear boundaries, rules and expectations. Even though I did exert a fair amount of control back over Class B, they still shared, discussed and worked collaboratively, which they could not do before. I learned that if I used the errors made as learning experiences, even with Class B, the students will continue to take a risk and give their ideas in the chat. I learned that the students will rise above and beyond what you may expect.  They are very engaged with the assignment in an online environment, whereas if I attempted this unit in a face-to-face classroom, Class B would not engage at all, and only some of Class A would engage.

I also learned a few technical things like how not to flood our server, how to get multiple private chat boxes up, what spamming/face-rolling is, and how to find it in the chat.  I have to thank my gaming crazed son for all his help.  I also learned how far I can let go with which class and that my Class B will need more of my guidance (“sage on the stage”) than Class A for now and that’s OK. When Class B arrives where it is going, it will have been a tremendous and wonderful journey for the students and for me. (I may need a couple dozen Hail Mary’s to get us there!)

OK, week 2 and I’m back in the lab.  Saved, of course at the final second by Super Techieman who fixed the computers.  But for some reason that neither Super Techieman nor TappedIn can figure out, the teacher computers cannot access the chat!  So we adapt.  Put one student computer on the LCD projector. HA!

The project that the students are working on within the virtual classroom is one of multicultural diversity. Something we do not have much of at our school. The students will work independently, then collaboratively and then co-operatively on various tasks. (They’ve been divided into 7 random groups of 4.) The research tasks will start with some independent work.  That work will be used to create a collaborative group discussion post.   Groups will reply to others discussion posts.  The groups will create and upload a short PowerPoint and then the groups will work co-operatively on an art project, creating a world flag to represent their group’s view of multicultural diversity.  Hopefully we can take digital pictures of the flags and upload them into the classroom.

With the assistance of two US teachers who passed information on to me through a Twitter companion I revamped the lesson.  Made it much simpler.  I posted the groups on the whiteboard in the virtual classroom and then posted the assignment.  Independently, the students were to write a post telling what their cultural background is, and what family traditions they have at home.  If they did not have any traditions related to their culture, they could write about any family tradition they had.  Then they had to respond to one or more classmates posts with a positive comment.  After that they were allowed to chat.  SUCCESS!  Thank you, Jeff, at TappedIn for this valuable chat advice – they have to earn the right to chat by completing their work – properly.

Problems?  Of course!  One student could not log on no matter what we did.  Why?  I didn’t figure it out until about 20 minutes after the class ended.  I had misspelled his name.  Jeez!  I logged him on as me so he could still join in.  Tech problems?  None.  Thanks Super Techieman.  Owe you some chocolate chip cookies!

What did I learn?  To keep the lesson simple.  I talked to the students after and asked what they liked about the lesson.  They really enjoyed reading about their classmates cultural backgrounds and traditions.  Several found they had almost the same traditions. I asked what they liked about the virtual classroom. They loved the idea of being able to post replies instantly as it was different than in class because in class you have to raise your hand and wait to be called on, have to listen to others talk too much.  They liked the idea of being heard right away.  A good thing? Well maybe a double-edged thing:  a sign of our high-speed Internet socializing and on-the-other-hand, shy students are willing to venture out and be heard, bouncy ADHD-type students don’t have to wait and lose interest.

We had one MAJOR learning experience that will be looked at next class.  One student replied with an inside joke that was something that should not have been posted. She regretted this and gave me a note to see if I could delete it, ASAP.  I checked the post reply.  It was not hurtful, rude or anything along those lines.  It was a play on words, the word being assassination. The context it was used in would be somewhat similar to jokingly making a bomb comment in an airport.  The other students told this particular student that the FBI would be contacting her and she became deeply upset.  I was unable to delete the comment.  I spoke to her after class and she was in tears over the whole thing.  Told her to ignore the other students, I’ll talk to them, but ask what she learned?  She learned an awful lot about choosing your online words carefully!  She gave permission to have the post put up on the projector and use it for a class discussion next class.  I just cannot believe what pulling back that “teacher power” can do for student learning.

The chat.  Needs more work.  They discussed how people just kept saying Hi when not needed as the chat says who just joined the group. They discussed how the chat moves too fast and how it is hard to get a conversation going with so many people joining in.  I need to show them some of the chat actions such as detatching it, increasing the text size and putting things on the pasteboard if they need to slow it down.  I think we need to have a topic to chat about so the conversation has a purpose.  This time it was just play.  They learned much by just playing!  Time to add a little structure to the play.

This is my last action research project for my Graduate Diploma.  I decided to explore how the use of technology could enhance collaborative learning and create a close, secure online environment where students can learn and explore with confidence.  I chose to use TappedIn as the site which would host my virtual classroom.

I chose TappedIn for a number of important reasons.  First: it is a totally secure environment to bring students into.  They are locked into the classroom and cannot leave to other areas of TappedIn without the teacher’s express permission.  No one can enter the classroom or view it without being invited by the teacher. There is a chat feature which is locked into the classroom so the students are only chatting with their own class.  This can be changed to allow the students to collaborate with other classes via teacher invitation.  All chats are recorded and sent to the teacher’s email, including private chats. This chat can be disabled until the teacher gives permission to use it. You can lock your classroom and students cannot access it from home. How much more secure can you possibly get.  Second: they have amazing support, both tech and teaching. They give scheduled tours of the site that are listed on the calendar so you can see the date/time of the tour.  There is a reception room where there is always someone online to answer your questions or help you join a group if you’re new.  The staff are incredibly welcoming and helpful. Third: They have an incredible array of free professional development on a wide range of topics.  I belong to 4 different professional groups, including one for gaming!  I may be a WoW convert yet!  Actually, I want to learn how to use Quest Atlantis!  Fourth: you can set up your own office space there and create and lead your own professional group if you wish.  Fifth: there is an area secured for students to go to with different “rooms” such as NASA, gaming, one for special ed students….and the list goes on. I cannot say enough about this site.  My tech is even impressed to death!  My principal is happy with everything!  Yeah, I’m afraid I’m raving about this place!

So what happened when I actually brought the students in?  Well of course things went wrong!  This is me in the lab we’re talking about!  (4 computers and 1 mouse died!) The first time there was some concern about the chat not being enabled.  My Super Techieman had problems getting the chat through the filters and thought it wasn’t working.  SURPRISE! It was (which is why he is Super Techieman) and the kids jumped all over that like bees on honey!  Had to disable it quick as we had not discussed that yet.  Also the lesson, which I thought was just fine, was too big and too overwhelming for the students in this environment. When I disabled the chat, they turned the whiteboard into one, just sort of naturally, not on purpose to disregard instructions.

The chat on the whiteboard was very, very interesting. These students have never been in an online environment like this and appear to have only limited experience with texting, MSN…They stuck to a given topic, wandered off, self-policed back on topic again. Was fascinating to read – too long to paste into this post.  One student posted a comment to which another replied that the comment was rude.  I held back with a rapid heart rate – keeping with my vow to stop controlling things with my “teacher power” (as I did with disabling the chat) and waited to see what would happen.  The student with the “rude” comment (it was somewhat rude) apologized stating he/she hadn’t meant to be rude.  The conversation carried on.  No teacher power needed or given.  Was awesome! But the lesson was still off.  I’m not used to teaching in this environment any more than the students are used to learning in it. With some discussion with the TappedIn folks and with some help from a PLN member from Twitter, I went back in and fixed things.  I also added the principal as a moderator so she could also log in and join in anytime she felt like it.  I liked that idea as both security in helping the kids understand the responsiblity they have been given and that she would experience this with us.  A great way to collaborate.

Last thing to go slightly south was the issue of off-school access to the site, thus the chat.  I was asked by a student if they could log in from home.  YIKES!  I had no answer so I hedged the question. TappedIn staff informed me that I could lock the class and the students would be denied access.  At 3:03pm the first student attempted to access the classroom, was denied and informed that I would be emailed.  I had the email in my inbox complete with student username, time of attempt.  I have no issue with them going in the classroom, except for one:  who is supervising them at home, if anyone?  So the room remains locked and we had a class discussion on the rules of use and I held up printed email copies of chat transcripts and access notifications.  Rules understood.

It was a great learning experience all way around.  We’ve earned each others trust.  I’ve learned some lessons on teaching online.  The students are learning some netiquette and how to learn online. Very cool.

What tools/sites do I use frequently, occasionally and which would I like to learn to use more proficiently?

I have “borrowed”, well stolen actually, this blog idea from Claire Thompson of Clarify Me.  I thought it was a great idea as a January reflection. Thanks Claire! Mimicking is the highest form of flattery! Really, a published Canadian author told me this!

I first heard about Web 2.0 one year ago, January 2008.  Betty, our Simon Fraser University Faculty Associate came up to give us TLITE students a workshop/introduction to Web 2.0.  I had to look up Web 2.0 in Wikipedia! After the workshop I got a little excited.  Prior to the workshop the tools I could/did use were:

• MS Word
• hotmail – I actually had to be shown how to add an attachment!
• tablet – some drawing on my daughter’s tablet
• Google Search – very, very basic

I never do things in a small way.  It’s the full monty or not at all!  See what happened in 12 months!

Now I frequently use these tools/sites for Social Networking

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Delicious
• Classroom 2.0

I frequently use these tools/sites on a regular basis:

• Google Reader
• Google Search
• iGoogle
• gmail
• MS Word
• MS PowerPoint
• Firefox
• Edublogs – learned how to put in one of my own pictures!
• Bibme – great online site for creating a bibliography
• hotmail
• Inspiration Software
• Booktagger

Tools/sites I have used occasionally:

• Elluminate
• WizIQ
• Yugma
• Blogger – I started my first PLE blog there, but moved over to Edublogs
• YouTube
• TeacherTube
• PBWiki
• Google Docs
• Google Presentation
• Google Calendar
• coComment
• Technorati
• LIveJournal

Some tools I would like to learn more about and use more proficiently are:

• Google Notebook
• SKype
• Diigo
• PBWiki
• Wink – a totally cool tutorial creating tool!

Some sites I use for Professional Development are:

• Classroom 2.0 – they have great on-line presentations using Elluminate
• TappedIn – absolutely LOVE this site.  I will be bringing my 2 upper intermediate classes here in a virtual classroom
• Knowschools – have taught me everything from tagging to blogging to wikis to Everything Google!

I also attempted to try the 31 Day Comment Challenge.  Crashed and burned. Failure.  I also gave up on the tablet thingy too as well as digital scrapbooking.  There definitely is something to be said about hands-on art!  I even joined Oprah’s book club for Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth, just to see what that was like. Don’t even ask!  There’s a limit even for flakey Liberal Arts folks. Yeesh.  Oh yes, I also managed to embed a YouTube video into a PowerPoint presentation with the direct help of my daughter’s friend and a techie from Future Shop! Haven’t a clue how we did that.  Something about using an FLV converter and Divx. Huh?  I even made a slide show for a school I was temporarily working at using an IMac! Ha, I hate Macs, but have you seen the whole Mac Goes Green thing!  I so want a new Mac!  Just saying…you know, putting it out there.

I figure the learning curve was pretty steep.  Learned a huge amount.  Also discovered the true meaning of “Information Overload”! Now I try to stick to learning ONE thing at a time!

In all seriousness, I pushed hard to come out of my comfort zone, stressed myself out, slid into a funk or two, all because of an absolute belief in the value of using technology to enhance curriculum.

So, what tools to you use?

I’ve never heard of a meme before.  It’s some sort of cultural thing that, at times, goes around the blogsphere.  I am to write 7 things about me that you do not know. I was tagged by Jan Smith who wrote 7 things about herself on her blog.  She sailed a boat around the world! Check out her 7 things.  They are fascinating.

So here goes:

1.  I was born and lived for 6 years in Churchill, Manitoba.  Churchill is home to the polar bears as it is directly in their migration route.  Yes, I’ve seen polar bears.  We used to be driven from house to house for Halloween because it was really cold and snowing and it was bear season!  I have worn sealskin mukaluks that were traditionally made by an Inuit elder who chewed the skin used for the bottom of the boots!  I’ve worn a real arctic parka, complete with fox fur around the hood and listened to iceburgs “explode” on the Hudson’s Bay.  They didn’t really explode, they just cracked apart and it sounded like they exploded.  I missed the sound of the fog horn for years after we moved.

2.  I love fishing and grew up in the outdoors camping and fishing.  I do not hunt and cannot kill anything except for a bug or two.  Our family did this because my father was a trapper before he was married, complete with dog teams!  I plan on writing his stories this summer.

3.  I have been chased by a sow black bear with cubs.  I had an Irish Setter dog who treed the cubs and when a very, very vexed sow came after him, he decided that hiding behind me was a grand idea!  I hold the record for the fastest .5mile on record!  I was 15 and was….fishing!

4.  I am an insomniac.

5.  I’ve travelled to Poland (Warsaw) and the Ukraine.  My grandfather left behind a family in the Ukraine and in the late 90′s a man who grew up with my mom, a retired teacher, was teaching technology in a small village when a hunched over old lady with a cane asked him if he knew my grandfather.  It turns out that old lady was my mom’s half-sister. Can you believe this!  What are the odds!  It was like an Oprah moment.  So we had to go over and meet all the cousins etc… It was like going through a time-warp back to the 1930′s or 40′s.  In the city they shut the water off between 10am and 6pm.  People fill buckets and bathtubs with water.  You’re lucky to find a place with a flush toilet!  Like camping!   I laughed a lot while I was there.  I would go back in a heartbeat.

6.  I love to cook and am a Food TV junkie.  I own tons of cookbooks.  I have lemons preserving on the counter that will be ready next week.  Moroccan cuisine is coming up – tagine to be sure.

7. I never learned to crawl.  My mom wouldn’t put me on the floor in Churchill because she thought it was too cold. Result: I have very underdeveloped bi-lateral co-ordination.  Means:  I’m the clumsiest person you’ve ever met.  I am not allowed to play baseball as my husband says I’m a 911 call.  I tripped over the mutt, landed in the open dishwasher and had to have my face glued back together in the ER. Good news:  I do not scar. The dog died 4 months later.  Karma?!

I tag:  Betty Gilgoff, Chris Lehmann, Kim Cofino and Phil Macoun.

Please link back to me so I can read your 7 things!  Can’t wait….

What was the value of four weeks of Twitter?  Will I continue with the Twitter network?

So here it is.  The 4th week of the Twitter challenge.  (It is actually the 5th week, but I had to stop for a week to focus on the 5 Days of Google course!) To continue or cease is the question.  I have not been really sure about the value of a Twitter network.  As the weeks progressed its value began to appear.  The biggest being the PLN it created for me and the sharing of ideas by other teachers.  That culminated itself yesterday.

I had not been very active on Twitter last week.  Until last night.  There were tweets that attracted my attention on unintentional gender bias.  I followed the tweets to David Truss’s blog and continued to follow along to Betty Gilgoff’s blog.  I also took a side trip to Dan Meyer’s blog.  These posting had nothing in common, except to me.  The connection between them made plain the power of my Twitter PLN.

Now, to humbly attempt to write this as well as Dan. I am a linear, logical thinker and I find the web is not a place for linear thinking.  I lose focus and get lost in info overload. Dan’s blog is my anchor. His ability to get to the point, to be linear and logical helps refocus my own very linear thinking.  Dan is at a place in his career where I am.  His post really hit home.  He’s looking for a challenge to keep him “lean and hungry” for the next 30 years to provide his needed level of job satisfaction.  Our difference is I have challenges, more than I can manage, which is causing job satisfaction in my current position to fast lose its lustre.  Dan listed his former challenges and that list is what I needed to “see”.  It helped me clarify what was causing my own lack of job satisfaction and now I know how to fix it.  He, as usual, helped me refocus and clarify.  I wish I could offer the same level of help back.  What does David and Betty’s gender bias discussion have to do with any of this?

One of the most important missing pieces in my former teaching position – the one that caused most of my lack of job satisfaction and caused me to leave – was lack of professional development and dialogue.  On Twitter and in the blogs came a marvelous dialogue on gender bias started by a man (David Truss) regarding biases against women.  The topic is one we all think about but do not speak about.  It was brought up and discussed by men and women from all over the North American and Australian continents with grace, tact and professionalism.  That is what made the power of the Twitter PLN so very, very clear. It was everything I have been looking for for the past 9 years. I now have a way to provide professional development, dialogue and a place to refocus which in turn provides me with a way to create/maintain the job satisfaction I have lost in the past or currently been losing.  All from a set of apparently disconnected posts and tweets on my own PLN. That has immense value to me.

Will I continue with Twitter?  Definitely.

I really like Google. Except for the ads now appearing on my blog!  I know I am not using it to near its potential so I took a Knowschools course on it to increase my Google knowledge.  It was an amazing 5 days of  learning in a well presented on-line course.  Sharon Betts did an amazing job.  (As I visited her site I was sidetracked into her blog on her solar home. For those interested in solar energy see here.)  As usual in these courses I ended up with a degree of information overload, but managed to pull back and figure out what was important for me.

1.  Google calendar - I almost managed to miss my registration for the final semester of TLITE!  Far too close for comfort.  This little tool should be very helpful since my 2 luddite day planners and 1 desk calendar do not seem to be doing the trick!

2.  Google search and custom search - I did not know how to search efficiently at all and I am holding a postion of a Teacher-Librarian.  This was actually the top of my list of reasons to take the course.  Not being proficient at this is not acceptable to me considering my new teaching position.  I learned to use things from quotation marks, to site searches.  This was incredibly valuable and should make searching for educational research papers much more effective than in the past.  I also added a custom search into my Book Bin Blog.  Custom searches limit the search for more exact topics, in the case of The Book Bin, books reviews and soon other great library blog sites.  I thought this search would be very valuable to use with my research groups at school.

3.  Google Docs – I have used this myself only once this past summer as part of a co-operative mini research project on cyberbullying.  It was an interesting experience, and Sharon’s activity gave me an idea for my last action research project – using Google Docs with one of my research classes.  Listening to other course participants discuss their classes using this was exciting.  Co-operative learning is a big part of my classroom teaching and finding a way back to it for prep relief teaching with technology was great.  The students are able to work on a research paper collaboratively and simultaneously, email it to each other, share their ideas/knowledge and really own their own learning.  I thought this was an incredibly powerful learning tool for teaching.  Explore:  http://googledocs.blogspot.com

4.  Google Notebook – I really saw the power in this for myself as I work through another action research project and another research readings summary.  This Google tool allows you to collect notes, browse, clip and organize information online.  A great way to organize my reading notes.  Also a great way to keep track of blogging posts that push me to write a post on.  This tool allows you to create, manage, tag, export, share and bookmark the notebook.  If this appeals to you here are some helpful links:

http://googlenotebookblog.blogspot.com

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=how+to+use+google+notebook&emb=0&aq=f#

http://michelemartin.typepad.com/thebambooprojectblog//2008/04/using-google-no.html

What did I learn this week?  Was the learning of any value?  Is it worth continuing with Twitter?

Three weeks ago when I began this challenge – Twitter for a month – I was not to sure that Twitter had any real value to be honest.  I have had my epiphany!

Twitter in Review:

I challenged myself to increase my tweets.  This was difficult, but I’m up to 48!  Still feels like butting into a conversation.  Stuck to safe topics: the weather, offered to send boxcars of snow to others.  Silly, safe.  No educational value at all. There are many technical tweets that I cannot follow as my technology skills are still at the “twit” level, but then …

Of value: Here’s what I learned on Twitter this week.

From mscofino I discovered TweetDeck.  I think I really like TweetDeck better than Whirl although I have not switched yet.

From bookminder a research paper on assessment for and as http://www.bctf.ca/uploadedFiles/Publications/TeacherInquirer/archive/2008-09/2008-10/Moore-Maps%20for%20Improvement-edited.pdf as well as this great site from Africa which has live video stream 24 hours a day from the African bush http://www.wildearth.tv/home – hmm won’t link. Sorry about that.

I just happen to be taking a course from Knowschools called 5 Days of Google and from Bryan Hughes:http://mashable.com/2008/12/07/how-to-use-google-reader/

From Coolcatteacher a teacher group at twittgroup.  That was really great and I found a few more people to follow.

From Dean Shareski the video of your students was wonderful.  It made me wish that TLITE had been structured in a similar manner. Keeping the mustache growing suggestion on the back burner!  Glad you went to Twilight! Now you need to read the series! I have a Facebook account for that very reason!

There were various pictures posted that people shared of family and that was really nice as you begin to know these people and begin to feel connected to them.

Finally, datruss had a blog post on the eddie nominations and from that I discovered some amazing library blogs, teacher blogs, and voted for my favorites.  If I hadn’t found this I would not have known who was nominated or would have voted.  Congratulations to the people I have run into either in Twitter or blogging on their nominations:  datruss, michelle martin, sue waters, dan meyers,  and jan smith.  You can see all the nominees and vote here.  Good luck to you all!

The epiphany?  This PLN community I have been building has provided amazing and unexpected support.  I can post a tweet about a new blog post and some people on my Twitter PLN will actually read it.  But more importantly they will leave a comment.  Through those comments they share their ideas, opinions and thoughts.  It does not matter if they agree with my ideas, reflections, opinions or thoughts.  What matters is that they have taken the time to share.  I appreciate and value those comments immensely as I continue on my technology journey of discovery and learning.  Thank you.

Is it worth continuing on Twitter?  Definitely, YES.