School 2.0 in SA

I am always looking for new ways to create backchannels or online meeting spaces. So this following little tool, Savor Chat,  quite intrigued me and I thought that we could try it out. I will leave the chat room open for now, just to see how it works.

Basically you can sign into the chat room with either your twitter username or your facebook e-mail address and password. You can also choose if you want your tweet/update to appear in yout twitter /Facebook home stream. You can access it on the Savor chat site or embed the chat into your blog/site using an iframe. It does however, have google ads on with links to chat rooms. This could be a calamity when using it with learners. The creators of the site are working on  a paid version where you can remove advertising and will be offered more advanced features.

Whenever someone post you get a direct message notefying you as well as a sound warning (if you have set it that way).

If you want to see how it works, come chat to me here: http://www.savorchat.com/chat/learn-with-maggie

Due to the incredible popularity of twitter globally, more guides are being written every day. I have had to update my teacher twitter learning object twice, due to the twitter interface changing. I also have not began to scratch the surface as far as handy twitter applications are concerned, but then I discovered this comprehensive guide to twitter from Makeuseof which always gives a down to earth perspective and look at tools and gadgets.

My current twitter tools that I am using are:

Hootsuite:

As I have various alter ego’s (@maggiev @schoollibrary @hogsback @mathslitteacher- The last 3 are collaborative), this web based tool is really very handy. You do not have to install a programme on your computer as it sits in your browser. You can keep track of all your personas and create separate streams which helps if you are following a great deal of interesting people. You can create a stream group by adding followers or hashtags. For instance, you can create a stream to follow the learners in your class. Another advantage is that you can keep track of your tweet stats with detailed graphs and stats (always very interesting from a maths point of view)

My Diigo auto- bookmarkmarklet to twitter

Where twitter is the mouth  of my online learning, Diigo is the heart and as it has an auto twitter tickbox, I can automatically post my bookmarks to twitter on the fly by just ticking the box. All you have to do is to install the diigo toolbar and click on bookmark. The rest is seamless. Very handy.

Twibes (www.twibes.com)

Is a grouping tool and comes in quite handy when you have meetings or workshops. Previously I swamped my poor following with workshop/meeting tweets. I am sure not all my social media and edtech followers are interested in mathematical literacy and the hassles we are having with assessment, so twibes makes it possible to create an interest group around a specific hashtag and use it as a seperate backchannel.

Backing up tweets (http://printyourtwitter.com/)

Tweets are only visible for a period of time and it is therefore very important to back it up/print it. I do this once a month and also back up my favourite tweople’s tweets! This makes for some great bedtime reading!

But let me introduce you to this great guide for a few more (very comprehensive) step by step pointers……..

The Complete Guide to Twitter

I am busy putting the finishing touches to my chapter on how social media tools help us to not to only communicate but become lifelong learners, when I was passed (via my twitter network) a link to a new platform that allows you to create blog communities called blog.mu. I went to investigate it as I am planning to start another one of my blogging drives for teachers. I also immediately bookmarked my “find”  for future reference using my  Diigo button, which also passed it on to my twitter network.

After a quick investigation (after all I have to finish my chapter by Wednesday) I discovered that it was run using a Wordpress engine and it reminded me a lot of my Edublog system (A blogging platform for teachers). I twittered this as I thought that it would give people more info on my “find”. As always, my network is listening in the background, and Sue Waters, who has always supported me on Edublogs, asked me if she could give me a live walkthrough (tutorial) on the spot, using Elluminate. Now how is that for on demand learning?

So using Twitter, we quickly organised a time and a place (6 hours time difference) to have an impromptu online workshop about blogging, and the difference between Edublogs Campus and the new tool Blog.mu. So basically, learning has become boundary-less and instantaneous on a global scale in a flat world! And then people still say that Twitter is a silly little hyped tool….Eaash!

So everybody is invited! Sue will be running it in Elluminate on thursday at 2pm South African time (8pm her time: GMT+8)  Mark your calenders and remember to tune in. If you will be joining us from your school, remember to check that you have access and that Elluminate is not blocked by school firewalls.

Here is a quick walk through on how to get in:

• Go to http://bit.ly/Wpwe6
• Enter your name and click on Login
• Tick “Open with Java…”  –> OK
• It will download and install the Elluminate application (Make sure that your school tech support is on standby or test it before the time)
• A security message will ask you if you want to run the application- choose RUN
• A little window will come up asking you about your connection speed
• Thee meeting room will apear with a little helpscreen on how to use the meeting room. But we will be there to guide and help you as well!!!
• You are welcome to log in before the time to give it a spin.

So see you there!!! And spread the news. Don’t forget to twitter it to your networks as well.

Every now and again a really special new tool comes to light which really gives you a WOW feeling and this morning I was introduced to such a tool by Jabiz Raisdana (intrepidteacher via my twitter network). The tool (in context) can be found at (http://etherpad.com/R4WrUC2bwX).  Jabiz used this tool to create a letter to parents regarding “taking his learners and their material online”. The idea is that anybody (and I mean anybody) can just jump in and help him to write the letter- real-time- with no fuss or registration.

The real magic for me is that apart from actually creating the document real-time with others, you can actually see people adding their 2c worth. For the first time I felt as if I am literally working next to someone, watching what they are doing as they are doing it, while working on the document simultaneously.  There is also a space to discuss what you are doing or make comments on what the other person is doing. This tool therefore makes working together really tangible and “connected”.

We have been working together on Wiki’s and Google docs (to name but a few), for some time now, but none of them had the real time power coupled with discussion as Etherpad does. If you think about Google docs, it is always a big process to get everybody onboard before they can contribute. It requires sending an email, and all collaborators must have a Google Docs account before they can contribute. Google Docs also does not highlight who typed what, which makes effortless tracking cumbersome. When I work with groups of people in a workshop/class situation, this process can become a real inhibiting factor to the actual outcome of your endeavour with the emphasis on the tool and not the learning process.

So to summarise the advantages of using Etherpad:

• Documents are created on the fly (No registration needed) – the Url becomes the entry point
• Documents are edited on the fly (No registration needed)
• You can actually see edits being done and by whom as
• Every collaborator’s input is highlighted in a different colour
• Discussion facility
• Instantaneous (real-time)
• Supports infinite undos and ensures that every operation is forever undo-able, even in the presence of other editors.

Cons:

• New free service- might become paid for later
• Security: No choice of private or public pad. The url is the only point of entry. There are (/will be) self hosting/paid for hosted private “pads” available in future.
• Does not support rich text or embedding widgets or html. Only text based

How can we use it for teaching and learning?

I can think of so many ways, I can barely breathe…..

• Creating standardised letters as Jabiz has done: Letter to ask parents’ permission to engage them in social media tools http://etherpad.com/R4WrUC2bwX
• Having a brainstorming session online
• For online meetings
• Creating policy documents
• To see more examples of how people are using it, click here

I am definitely going to start creating standardised letters and material for my teachers to participate in and will give feedback on how it went. Maybe I should hold our next Maths literacy meeting in Etherpad??

As I am busy editing some of my learning objects, I will dump some of them here to organise later. The object of this learning object (!!) is to give a quick overview of the new features of Outlook 2007.

The powerpoint can be downloaded here

Using this ‘Twitter for Gmail’ gadget, you can easily tweet from your Gmail inbox without having the hassle to log into Twitter each and every time. The best part is that, unlike some other Twitter applications and gadgets, apart from having the ability to send messages (tweets) a user can also view the tweets by his friends and followers from within Gmail inbox itself. (Source)

How to:

• Go to your gmail account (http://www.gmail.com)

• Click on Settings (top right)

• Click on the Labs tab

• Scroll down to the bottom and enable “Add any gadget by URL“

• Save changes

• Now click on Setting–>Gadgets in your Gmail window

• Paste in the following url: http://www.twittergadget.com/gadget_gmail.xml

• Your Gmail page will reload and you will see a blue widget on the left- fill in your twitter username and password

• Voila- now you can twitter straight from your gmail account!

I received a tweet from one of my twitter contacts (loisath) which told me that I have been tagged in her “7 things about me” meme. So the first thing I did was to go and see what it is all about by reading her blogpost about the topic. Basically you have to write a blogpost describing 7 things about yourself that people do not need to know about you. You then tag 7 others to do the same and then let them know. This results in everybody basically spreading the idea virally and it gets promulgated almost in the same way as a chain e-mail letter.

I then looked up what a MEME is (not the sound that sheep make apparently) and found a very good blogpost explaining it in a friendly non-scientific way from Gary LaPointe. According to him it is “lists of questions that you saw somewhere else and you decided to answer the questions. Then someone else sees them and does them and so on and so on”.  In essence it is:

• An idea that, like a gene, can replicate and evolve.
• A unit of cultural information that represents a basic idea that can be transferred from one individual to another, and subjected to mutation, crossover and adaptation.
• A cultural unit (an idea or value or pattern of behavior) that is passed from one generation to another by nongenetic means (as by imitation); “memes are the cultural counterpart of genes”.

So what is the point?

So let’s get back to the the question that formed the basis of this meme: “7 things about yourself that people do not need to know about you”. Why would anybody need to know this about me? Isn’t it an invasion of privacy and poses a security risk? Will it be a “cultural unit” as posed in the definitions stated above? Hardly. In a way it does resemble the sheep-like action of sheep following one another in a thoughtless manner. So what would encourage me to immitate this meme and behave like a sheep?

Firstly, I have always liked sheep- they are wooly and cuddly and cute. Secondly, my rule of thumb is to do something if it at all encourage learning and collaboration. So the question for me is did I learn something? The answer of cause is, yes. I learnt a new word (meme) and what it means in different scenarios and I learned about the person that asked me to partake in the meme. From her answer, I at first thought that she was local (from South Africa- especially the bit about her aiding and abetting the theft of a microwave) which made me very excited to encounter another blogging local teacher! But, alas she was not, which made me realise that we indeed live in a global village and have so much in common (especially the cannot-spell-admisssion)! So from a collaborative point of view, she has strengthened her networking with me with her invitation ( I will now keep an eye out for her as I feel I know here just that little bit better). Thirdly by asking people to extend this meme, you can get some exposure for your blog (good old marketing tactic)!

When I started thinking about 7 things that people will not know about me….I realised that I am definitely not shy (as opposed to private), leaving very little that people do not know about me. So here goes:

The Rules

Each player starts with seven random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to write on their own blog about their seven things, as well as these rules. You need to choose seven people to get tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them that they have been tagged and to read your blog!

7 things that you did not know about me… (definitely harder than it looks)

1. I get on with bees (found this out recently as the bees seems to be refusing to leave my washing room ceiling and it does not really bother me anymore)
2. I cannot seem to get plants to grow (so that is why I try to get communities to grow instead)- jip, no green fingers.
3. I hate cooked spinach (much to green), but can eat it in a salad.
4. I love reading forensic crime stories even from before CSI etc, made it fashionable
5. I love maths (everybody knows that) but struggle with doing calculations in my head and goes blank if older people ask me to calculate 1+1 (comes from when my primary school teacher hit me with a stick everytime she asked me a maths question- reminder to self-must go for therapy….;-) This resulted in me wanting to become a maths teacher as a way of learning to cope and making sure that others do not have to live with the same fear.
6. I cannot bake. Cook yes, bake no.
7. I am scared of heights (comes from when I did a bungi jump way back….another sheep-like activity that I regret I ever partook in…)

So how do you choose 7 people? Okay, as I have been trying to get local teachers to blog, I think it will be useful to give everybody a common topic to get us started for the year. Also this can be a good way of extending your network to include people who do not know you.

So here is my tagees, with reasons why I chose them:

• Tateach (will be nice to get to know someone in Tasmania better!)
• Ronan7 (a local teacher and fellow web 2.0 enthusiast
• Melaniedebruyn (another local teacher and fellow web 2.0 enthusiast
• carbru (part of my blogging learning circle and a sweetie pie)
• moondancer (My sister and an avid blogger- would like to see if there is something I do not know about her…
• Ariellah (I hope she is not angry with me any more….)
• janenicholls (a random click from my tweeple network)

(I just love this new meme word and am definitely going to pronounce it mêêêê- mêêêêê (like the sound a sheep makes)

A lot of us have the problem that most web 2.0 tools, that can assist in learning and teaching, are blocked by our school/departmental firewalls. In the proccess of keeping systems safe, a lot of good learning is also being blocked in the process! So, we have started a debate on our wiki at http://saschools.wetpaint.com to see if we can motivate the realease and use of web 2.0 tools provided that we can adequately motivate the use of the tool in support of teaching and learning!

This morning my colleague has asked me to motivate the use of Twitter (and other tools) to be allowed through our firewall. With the help of my twitter network, I am planning to create a comprehensive motivational list to convince the “powers that be” to open up my favourite learning and sharing tool!

If you want to take part, read the listand

• Add your motivation by commenting
• Twitter it using the tag #twittermotivation or
  
• Reply to me @maggiev in twitter

So far we have:

• You can get instant Assistance and feedback, not only from your own network, but from a global constituency of practitioners in your field
• It can act as a way to stay up to date in your subject field (lifelong learner roll)
• It’s the ultimate resource for crowdsourced intelligence, opinions, and debate (from a twitter contact) (@woganmay)
  
• You can “learn over the shoulders” of experts and specialist in your field
• You can stay up to date on issues relating to your subject
• You get instant notifications of events, workshops and conferences in your field
• You are notified of the latest cutting edge resources and articles in your field

I will load my learning pathways as I create them. Here is a learning pathway to learn why and how to create a blog…..

What is a blog and why should we blog?
Define blogs and contexts for use. Provide some blogs ideas depending on what kind of blog you would like to create. Take you through an action plan to focus why you should blog.

To download the Powerpoint in order to see the animations, click here

The anatomy of a blog.
Looks at how a blog is structured in order to provide familiarity. You will also decide on where you should create your blog.
To download the Powerpoint in order to see the animations, click here

The anatomy of a blog: A tutorial

Creating a blog in Edublogs

This tutorial looks at the nitty gritty of creating a blog using Edublogs, registering for your blog, setting it up.

Next:Customizing your blog…

More resources:

• Check and join my blogging resource group on Diigo (updated regularly)
• Wordpress tutorials by topic

Wikipedia is a free multilingual encyclopedia with over 10 million articles that have been collaboratively written by volunteers from around the world, and almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone who can access the Wikipedia website (Source Wikipedia). For me however it provides a good place to kick off whatever research you want your leanrers to engage in. It is therefore a wonderful safe place to start your information journey (please, not as an end in itself!)

But did you know that you can get your learners with wap enabled cellphones to access all this information straight from their cellphones? The actual wikipedia website is not formatted for cellhone use and is difficult to read, but a wonderful cellphone version called Wapedia gives you a clear and simple version of wikipedia with a single column for easy reading. (Source )

I have a very cheap phone with wap (R299) and it works great even on GPRS! To set it up (on my phone….Menu…Applications…Wap browser….enter URL…type in….http://wapedia.mobi/en/ and save it as a bookmark) or give to a digital native to set up!