School 2.0 in SA

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 was pointed to this great little twitter visualisation tool that creates a photo mosaic of your twitter network by alanmills405. I have created one of the wonderful people, news feeds, teachers, librarians, mathematicians, social media experts, weather reports……

Get your twitter mosaic here.

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.

Quite a few of my teachers have asked me how I get it right to twitter, bookmark, chat, engage in social media and get my work done. I do not always get it right to juggle everything as effectively as I would have liked to, but I have devised a way to slip in all the things that I feel strongly about into my workday in a way that I do not even notice that I am doing it. So I thought I will share it with you.

My main daily communication and resource tools are Twitter (microblogging tool), Delicious and Diigo (bookmarking tools), Google reader (keeping track of new posts from my network and all over) as well as Skype/gtalk (for real-time chat and support)

I check my Twitter , say, every 1/2 and hour or so. Mainly to see if my network has anything valuable for me to look at and to see if there are any @replies or direct messages for me to respond to. Twitter is an instantaneous learning tool – it is not as intrusive as e-mail and it is quick to scan. If I am passed a great resource (and my network is really brilliant, so I always have!), I look at it (click through from the tweet) and immediately store it for later reference and use. I do this …

• Using my Diigo button (installed when I downloaded the Diigo toolbar), a little window then pops up where the
  • Web address is automatically captured as well as…
    Whatever I have highlighted as a description. I always try and insert something relevant there as it makes it easier when searching for resources.
  • I can then tag the resource at the same time. This step is very important as it will make it possible to find the resource again (and that is what it is ultimately all about in the end) So I make sure that I tag it using relevant tags familiar to me.
    • I also use tags that I have set up in Diigo to perform certain actions..
      • like creating a automatic weekly blog post of all my resources tagged with that word (eg see all the weekly bookmark posts- they have been tagged with the word “school2.0” which then make Diigo create a blogpost once a week)
      • also have specific RSS feeds set up that will look for all the resources tagged with a specific word and then send it to a feed located on a different blogpost (eg ML123 tagged resources go  to my mathsliteracy blog feed, and resources marked with “mathematics” go to my mathematics social network on NING)
      • I can also decide if I want to send the bookmark (resource) to a specific list or group (eg if it is a maths literacy resource, I post it to my ML123 group or if it is a general teacher resource I post it to my Educator group)
  • The window also has a little checkbox which, if ticked, will send my resource to twitter. I love this feature as it is a quick way to share resources on the fly with those interested in the same things I am (maths, social media, teacher stuff, ICT4teaching&learning) who are following me on Twitter (instant learning).
    • All my twitters automatically go to my Facebook update, which means that in the process I educate my kids, family and Facebook friends (advocacy ) They moan bitterly about this!!!
  • I have also set up my Diigo to automatically post all my bookmarks to my Delicious bookmarking system as well
    • Diigo is like a database of resources (a very good user friendly one) and depending on how well I tag my resources, I can find anything, drilling down to the last detail, in seconds.
    • I initially started off with Delicious which is also a bookmarking system, but has a far simpler interface (I have tried both with my teachers and Delicious has been more user friendly for new computer users) It is not as social and do not have annotation and discussion features. This means that I physically have to go to it to see what my network is up to (which I do once a month and the tag back to my system). (See my Delicious learning object for teachers here)
    • The reason why am using both systems simultaneously is
      • I actually find that Delicious is an easier search engine to use
      • I have an established network on Delicious that I value and support
      • My novice teachers are on Delicious and I need to support them as well.

I check my Google reader at least once a day. Google Reader is a RSS (real simple syndication) tool that downloads (automatically) all the feeds (from articles) that I have set up for it to fetch.

• When I open it (and I always keep it open) I can see when anyone in my network/blogs/websites have updated their blog etc.
• Scanning through the heading titles quickly brings me up to date with the latest news and Edtech skinner
• and If I find something that I would like to use in future I tag it using my
  Diigo button (see above) –> database–> delicious–>twitter–>twitter replies. So this is a vital part of my daily professional development

Skype/Gtalk is my personal contact with the world and I mostly use it to support my teachers and stay in direct contact with my kids. I can talk anybody through anything using Skype. It is almost like being in the same room. I always mark myself as “away” (even if I am there) in order for me to have the choice to engage or not. This way people do not have to feel bad about bothering me, as they know that I have a choice to talk to them.

I do  not use Google search much any more. I rather search through my database (Diigo and Delicious) or ask my Twitter network directly. I only go to Facebook once a week and get my friend updates in my Tweetdeck or via my Friendfeed. As I find Facebook to be very “slutty” it can be a mindless distraction and I limit it for myself.  In a next blogpost I will highlight all the other tools that I use on a daily basis.

As everybody know I have been having an on-off relationship with my Cell Phone for years. Cell phones do not like me. They break, grow legs, and mostly get alienated from their power cables. I have tried moving over to smart cell phones. They make matters even worse. They are power- hogging little devices out to cripple Eskom and I find myself (that is if I remembered to plug in /had a power cable) without any power by tea time! Also, my eyesight has now officially progressed past puberty and I am struggling to read which new reading glasses I should acquire. But I am digressing. Maybe I just want to mention that I do believe in cell phones as great learning devices and will use it more actively the moment I found my charger cable!

So how do you contact/get hold of me? As you have gathered by now, phoning me on my cell phone might not be a good way to go. In the past e-mail was a very effective way to get my attention. But since I have not been able to catch up on the 3000 e-mails that accumulated during my Christmas virtual break, I have funnelled my e-mail into folders and play eenie-meanie-minie-mo on which folder I will read every day. Those who know me, knows to mark their e-mail as high priority (I check that folder a few times a day)

So what is the best way? My current favourite way of communication is Twitter. I had to smile at my niece, who, on failure to contact me on my cell and landlines (Telkom took 2 weeks to fix it), resorted to see what I am up to on my twitter feed. Clever girl. Contacting me is as easy as sending me an @maggiev or direct message (d maggiev) at www.twitter.com/maggiev . And yes, it does get delivered to my cell phone via sms as well!

What actually inspired this blogpost is this cartoon:

• How ‘microblogging’ sites such as Twitter can be used in education

  Compare three mb sites (Twitter, edmodo and shoutem)

  tags: microblogging, twitter, edmodo, school2.0

• 7 Things You Should Know About Blogs

  A blog—shorthand for “Web log”—is an online collection of personal commentary and links. Blogs can be viewed as online journals to which others can respond that are as simple to use as e-mail. The simplicity of creating and maintaining blogs means they can rapidly lead to open discussions. Faculty are using blogs to express their opinions, promote dialogue in their disciplines, and support teaching and learning; students increasingly use blogs for personal expression and as course requirements. By carefully evaluating blogs’ strengths and weaknesses, educators are learning to set guidelines and expectations to maximize blogs’ instructional benefits. Structured exercises and clear goals are further enhancing the educational value of blogs. Put into practice with an understanding of their benefits and limitations, blogs are an increasingly accepted instructional technology tool.

  tags: blogging, school2.0

• 15 Free Tools for Web-based Collaboration – Annotated

  As part of assessment tasks the learners have to do projects. These tools lends themselve to great collaborative ideas which can also be incorporated into their portfolios.

  tags: collaboration, projectmanagement, projects, school2.0

  • bubbl.us
    • Excellent tool now (v 0.5.9) for either a private or collaborative mind map.
  • http://www.diigo.com

• Top 10 Web 2.0 Tools for Young Learners

  I actually would debate this list…

  tags: education, elementary, school2.0, primaryschool

• Can we be less prescriptive in our classrooms – and more successful with our students?

  “This model for learning mathematics may be quite different from what teachers experienced themselves in the past where classrooms were less interactive, filled with little activity and conversation. Teachers were generally in control, directing all aspects of what was to be learned; different points of view and approaches seldom brought to the surface new ideas and insights and a high degree of redundancy meant that everybody learned the exact same thing at the exact same time.

  tags: education, teaching, teachingandlearning, school2.0, Research, mathematics, science

• Top 100 Education Blogs | OEDb – Annotated

  tags: education, blogging, school2.0, lists

• Evolution of life

  Discover the principles of evolution through animations, movies and simulations

  tags: lifesciences, evolution, darwin, school2.0, biology

• Beyond blocking: Embracing the social web – A good list for reference

  A selection of web2.0 social and participatory resources (articles, essays, tools, tips) for school information officers.

  tags: school2.0, sociallearning

• Free workshop: eL4C25 5-day Online Workshop: June 15 – 19, 2009

  Learn how to use Wikieducator, design lesson plans, curriculum development, improve instruction and learning, and collaborate with educators around the world.

  tags: workshops, wshops, school2.0, wiki

• South Africa’s National Holidays :Holidays in South Africa Explained

  Ever wondered where our public holidays comes from again. Here is some history

  tags: school2.0, history, holidays

• Using Moodle book – MoodleDocs

  Using Moodle – Teaching with the Popular Open Source Course management System by Jason Cole and Helen Foster is published by O’Reilly as part of the Community Press series. It can be downloaded for free. Cool

  The first edition of the book, written by Jason Cole and released in July 2005, is based on Moodle 1.4. The second edition, released in November 2007, has been updated to cover all the features in Moodle 1.8, such as the new roles and permissions system, blogs, messaging and the database module.

  tags: moodle, tutorial, web2.0, opensource, school2.0, elearning, e-learning

• Twenty books to read for any age group

  tags: librarians, libraries, school2.0

• Guide to Wikipedia Tools & Resources – Everything You Wanted to Do With Wikipedia Encyclopedia – Annotated

  Soem FAQ’s with links to guide you through getting to use and contribute to Wikipedia

  tags: wikipedia, web2.0tools, guide, school2.0, wiki

  • I know Word and some basic HTML tags but find the Wiki syntax complex and confusing. Do you know of any Wikipedia editing tools?

    A: You can write a document inside Microsoft Word and this extension will convert that Word Document into a markup that Wikipedia can understand. Alternatively, you can use any HTML editor – like Dreamweaver or Live Writer – and then convert your HTML tags into Wiki markup using this tool.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

• Homeschooling in South Africa

  A very web 1 but clearly dedicated resource site for hoemschoolers in SOutH Africa

  tags: school2.0, homeschooling

• twitter4teachers

  Directory for global twit-teachers

  tags: twitter, education, twitter4teachers, wiki, teacher, school2.0

• National Library of South Africa

  The National Library of South Africa is the leading national library and information centre of excellence in Africa and the world.

  tags: library2.0, librarians, school2.0

• School districts to use twitter.

  The school district has plans to let people know what it is doing – everything from school board meetings and school plays to evening community-education programs.

  tags: twitter, education, school2.0, twitterintheclassroom

• Top ten twittering librarians

  Good starting point for network building for librarians. How I wish I could get a local list going!!!!

  tags: library2.0, librarians, school2.0

• Create A Graph the fun way! – Annotated

  Here you will find five different graphs and charts for you to consider. Not sure about which graph to use? Confused between bar graphs and pie charts?

  tags: LO2, web2tools, school2.0, ml, mathematics, graphs, graphing

• 100 Tips, Tools, and Resources for Librarians on Twitter

  Very practical list of tools tips and more

  tags: twitter, school2.0

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

• eBook readers, our rights and the library

  There are many technologies that are beginning have a go at replacing books. Most of them contain technologies that deprive you of rights that in many cases are contained in laws.

  tags: library2.0, library, ebooks, school2.0

• Teaching Reading Comprehension

  These reproducible items for school and classroom use are to be used in conjunction with Teaching Reading Comprehension.

  tags: subjects, langauge, school2.0, english, reading

• Educational games for addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, science and english

  Each game goes through important information for a certain subject matter for grades Kindergarten through 6th grade. The math games are great if you need to review your math facts for addition, subtraction , or division. Be sure to check out our new games for other subjects.

  tags: mathematics, school2.0, games

• OttoBib: Automatic Bibliography Generator

  OttoBib is a dead simple bibliography generator for book sources. Just enter ISBN codes of books separated by commas, select citation type (e.g. MLA, APA) and click “Get Citations”. Thats it!

  tags: librarians, library2.0, school2.0

• Free school readiness test -in Afrikaans and english

  Free school readiness test

  tags: foundationphase, education, school2.0

• Integrating Technology into Inquiry-Based Learning

  Have got downloads on how to research, bolean searches website evaluation and lots more. Very happy about this resource!

  tags: ict, education, school2.0, searching

• Co-ordinate interactive applet for learners

  tags: mathematics, school2.0

• 15 Open Source Content Management Systems

  I have not even heard of half of these! Will need to go and investigate….before I can vote for teh best one!

  tags: opensource, cms, school2.0

• Open Source Schools: share ionfo about free and open source software

  Open Source Schools is here to share information about open source software in schools. Our aim is to help you decide whether open source software might offer benefits for learning, teaching, engaging pupils and parents, managing information and resources, or school administration.

  tags: opensource, software, education, school2.0

• 101 Undiscovered Freebies

  tags: freeware, software, school2.0

• How To Provide Your Twitter Followers With Massive Value

  here are a few ways that you can provide your Twitter community with massive value 90% of the time. Of course, you should aim to provide your followers with value 100% of the time, but we’ll leave the remaining 10% of self-serving value until another time.

  tags: twitter, twittertips, school2.0

• Free Clipart for te4achers and learners

  Welcome to quality educational clipart. Every item comes with a choice of image size and format as well as complete source information for proper citations in school projects. No advertisement-filled pages with pop-up windows or inappropriate links here. A friendly license allows teachers and students to use up to 50 items in a single, non-commercial project without further permission.

  tags: clipart, graphics, school2.0

• Radical Learning ICT policy and AUP

  It does not include any reference to social networks or the use of web 2.0 tools and has been developed for use in Khanya schools.

  tags: policy, aup, school2.0, khanya

• Testdriving Ushahidi a Crowdsourcing Crisis Information (FOSS) tool

  is a free, open-source platform to crowdsource crisis information. It It allows anyone to submit information through SMS, email or web form, with each submission pinned to a map. The aggregate effect is a compelling visualisation of an event as it unfolds, told by citizen journalists. It has been used to report on the botched elections in Kenya, the DRC and the war in Gaza.

  tags: ushahidi, Mobile, sms, collboration, web2tools, school2.0, crises

• expanding_scope.jpg (JPEG Image, 1014×575 pixels) – Scaled (82%)

  A graphic depicting the shift in emphasis within the knowledge landscape

  tags: school2.0, comparisons

• ItrainOnline -loads of resources for trainers and ngo’s

  The ItrainOnline Multimedia Training Kit is a series of modular training materials for use in workshops developed by ItrainOnline partners and others. The materials share a common easy-to-use format, and are freely available for non-commercial use.

  tags: school2.0, nonprofit, itrainonline, ngo

• ICT AUP’s A great list for schools!

  Acceptable use kits for schools | Primary and Secondary School Internet and Mobile Acceptable Use Kit | Consent for publication forms | Student images, privacy and copyright | Website currency and quality assurance checklist | Parent/Guardian consent for using a student’s work | Copyright frequently asked questions |

  tags: school2.0, aup, policies, saschools

• A Week in the Life of a New Media Teacher Librarian

  Our capacity to ‘connect’ will strengthen or weaken depending on our social network awareness and our capacity to use Web 2.0 tools to harness and organize information and add value to the collective.

  tags: school2.0, librarian, library2.0

• 21c School Libraries Leading Learning

  a good powerpoint summarising the main point of 2st century learning and libraries role in accommodating it

  tags: school2.0, librarians, library2.0, 21stcenturylearning

• How To Easily Compress Video For Web With Movie Maker | MakeUseOf.com

  tags: makeuseof, school2.0, video, videotools

• TinEye: Find out how images are being used

  TinEye is a reverse image search engine. You can submit an image to TinEye to find out where it came from, how it is being used, if modified versions of the image exist, or to find higher resolution versions. TinEye is the first image search engine on the web to use image identification technology rather than keywords, metadata or watermarks.

  tags: images, photos, searchengine, school2.0

• Let’s get serious: Games for e-learning

  This Online Forum looks at different approaches for designing, developing, and implementing gaming strategies as part of your e-Learning initiatives. You will see examples of a wide variety of approaches for using games in learning, look at latest tools and technologies for building games, and hear about the skills needed to create serious games. Take this opportunity NOW to focus on serious games,

  tags: games, galsa, school2.0

• Twenty-One Interesting Ways to use Twitter in the Classroom

  tags: school2.0, education, twitter, classroom, social-media, socialmedia, teaching

• What Parents Should Know – Approaching mobile technologies with an open mind and demystifying the use of cellphones by teenagers.

  One point to remember is that the risks teens face when using cellphones are not really that different from those faced online or offline. It seems that those children who may be most at risk are those who engage in risky behaviour or are experiencing problems in other areas of their lives. Access to a cellphone simply exacerbates these risks.

  tags: school2.0, cellphones, cellphonesafety, saschools

• Test the speed of your connection

  I ahve alwasy thought that my connection is slow- now I know!

  tags: broadband, speedtest, bandwidth, speed, school2.0

• How To Cleanly Separate Personal and Work Social Media Personalities

  This is quite handy as I have been struggling to keep my work and pewrsonal interest seperate. SOme really practical advice

  tags: Twitter, indentities, web2.0, HowTo, school2.0, business

• Test and explanation for Multiple Intelligences

  tags: multiple_intelligences, learning, test, school2.0

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

• Sites to use to practice skills needed on the Algebra Gateway exam

  Lots of american resources and links for assessmet
  ( other subject areas as as well)

  tags: algebra, mathematics, school2.0

• Can we use Twitter for educational activities?

  Twitter is the most popular microblogging application, with almost one million users called twitterers, who can send and receive messages via the web, SMS, instant messaging clients, and by third party applications.

  tags: twitter, education, school2.0

• Mathematics: The only true universal language

  Do you speak maths???

  tags: mathematics, school2.0

• Twitter Professors: 18 People to Follow for a Real Time Education

  I have always marvelled at being able to follow real great minds realtime

  tags: school2.0, twitter, learning, education

• Next Generation User Skills

  Amid the rhetoric about the validity of concepts such as Digital Natives, GenY, Net Gen etc. an important issue is often overlooked – the need to address the development of skills and competencies required to work, learn and live online in the future. Too often this debate polarises people and disintegrates into arguments over skills vs integration etc.

  tags: school2.0, digitalnatives, 21stcenturyskills, 21stcenturylearning, digitalcitizenship

• Some notes about social networking, keeping kids safe in social networking, and what schools can do

  Schools need to recognise that social networking is not just something kids are doing in MySpace or Facebook.

  tags: SocialNetworking, school2.0, saschools, policy

• Women’s Adventures in Science- Great site woopeee!

  The Web site iWASwondering.org is a project of the National Academy of Sciences intended to showcase the accomplishments of contemporary women in science and to highlight for young people the varied and intriguing careers of some of today’s most prominent scientists. The site draws from and accompanies the publication of a ten-volume series of biographies entitled Women’s Adventures in Science, co-published by the Joseph Henry Press (an imprint of the National Academies Press) and Scholastic Library Publishing.

  tags: science, school2.0, woman

• Opening Up YouTube at School

  “The biggest challenge we’re presented with right now is how to take advantage of all the things the Internet has to offer without compromising our students’ security or giving them access to things that are inappropriate,”

  tags: school2.0, saschools, youtube, policy

  • “The biggest challenge we’re presented with right now is how to take advantage of all the things the Internet has to offer without compromising our students’ security or giving them access to things that are inappropriate,

• Closing the Gap Between Education and Technology

  During his recent talk at the FETC 2009 conference in Orlando, FL, Benno opened with an interesting factoid: “Nine out of 10 students don’t wear wristwatches,” he said. “And the one that does doesn’t use it as a timepiece; they use it to make a fashion statement.” So why does that matter? It matters, said Benno, because it speaks to the fact that kids use technology in very different ways from what most of us are used to. From cell phones to iPods to a wide array of Web-based tools, “kids today are very fluid and open about their use of technology,” Benno said. And if we are going to prepare them for a world that is constantly changing, he added, we need to rethink the ways we use and interact with these very same tools in the classroom.

  tags: school2.0, 21stcenturylearning

• Teaching How to Learn | blog of proximal development

  The safety of the self-contained classroom, one separated (by walls and firewalls) from the rest of the world – the world we are supposed to prepare our students for – goes against everything that surrounds young people today and prevents them from learning how to navigate the complex online world

  tags: school2.0, learning, education, 21stcenturylearning, pedagogy, teaching

• The Death of Web 2.0?

  Interesting semantic way of looking at the using the word Web 2.0

  tags: socialmedia, school2.0

• Twitter for Teachers: a collaborative effort to teach teachersd about twitter

  This site is trying to write a collaborative e-book about twitter for the use of teachers

  tags: school2.0, twitter, saschools, ebook

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are 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!