Category: Twitter

Just caught this headline as I was checking my Yahoo! mail this morning – and just loved the ‘snapshot’ of the article under the headline –

Going to the article to investigate further, it refers to the Rose Report’s recommendations about an increased use and understanding of technology for Primary school pupils, and a separate recommendation about history and the ability to opt to not teach World War 2 and the Victorians.

And Jim Knight is quoted as saying-

“Sir Jim Rose’s report has not been completed let alone published yet – but we are already getting stories about dropping this or removing that from the curriculum.

“The bottom line is that we are working with experts to free up the curriculum in a way that teachers have asked us to do but British history has, and always will be, a core part of education in this country.

“Of course pupils in primary school will learn about major periods including the Romans, the Tudors and the Victorians and will be taught to understand a broad chronology of major events in this country and the wider world.

So, Twitter isn’t replacing History – phew! However, I am pleased that it is being considered as a useful tool to be used in the Primary classroom. I’ve used it successfully a number of times, in RE and in Spanish and have always found the children to be very inquisitive about it and excited at the immediacy of the results. So would be good to have it ‘accepted’ rather than me using it ‘on the sly!’

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eTwinning conference Prague 2009, originally uploaded by lisibo.

I’ve been blogging all weekend from the European eTwinning Conference in Prague on the special blog set up for the event. I’ve also been tweeting our activities when I’ve had a chance.

Thought I’d put some of the posts on ¡Vámonos! as well! If you’re interested, there are many more posts by other delegates found on http://blog.eun.org/etwinningconference2009/

A rather amusing song about the progress of social networking! Rather tongue in cheek I feel!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYP-wBaqQAI&hl=en&fs=1]

You can check out the French translation and the lyrics by going to Ben Walker’s site.

NB I know it’s been around since August, but I’ve only just found it and it amused me in my bunged up state so indulge me 😉

Via my FriendFeed, I was asked by John Johnston (via Twitter!) what type of blog I had, linking to Typealyzer. Being a nosey, inquisitive soul, I decided to find out! And what I found was rather interesting.

I’m forever doing quizzes and surveys on Facebook like Which Sesame Street puppet are you? (Zoey) Which Heroes power do you have? (Peter Petrelli) and Which Scrubs character are you? (Elliot) and frankly, whilst amusing, they interest me for about 10 seconds before I move on to poking someone or finding out if I remember the 80s.

However, this captured my attention for much longer. I put in my URL as requested and was given the following analysis.

And apart from the bit about being impulsive (have to work at that!) and following things through (which I do!), I’d say it was rather accurate! especially the bit about sitting still and remaining inactive!

But even more interesting was the next bit which analysed my brain activity.

Made me think – why am I so low on feeling, intuition and imagination? I’d say I was that way inclined but my blog doesn’t. Perhaps it’s the way it’s analysed – not sure if it’s on the last post or on the whole thing. Perhaps I’ll have another go in a week or so and see if it tells me anything different.

If you’ve got a blog, I’d be interested to know what it says about you. I did check a few and discovered that Chris Fuller is a Doer like me, Joe Dale and Oscar Stringer are Guardians, Tim Rylands is a Mechanic, Tom Barrett is a Scientist and Jo Rhys Jones is a Duty Fulfiller.

Every time I have heard Drew Buddie speak, I have been amused, informed and challenged to go away and investigate – and this time was no exception. Drew aka @digitalmaverick delivered a session on Web2.0 tools in his own inimitable style, taking his inspiration from Alan Levine aka CogDogBlog / CogDogRoo and his 50 ways to tell a story. You can find a full list on the CogDogRoo wiki but we only had time to look a few of them including Bubbleshare, Ourstory.com, Animoto and Kerpoof.

With @pj23harry, @jokingswear @orunner and @lisibo tweeting proceedings, it was unsurprising that Twitter was explored in some depth with most of the session attendees signing up for accounts and starting to befriend one another. Drew encouraged us all to write our Twitter names on or name badges so that we would be able to recognise who had a Twitter profile and follow them. This fitted well with the big screen in the hall that displayed all tweets to @iowconference08, the conference Twitter account.

We also had a look at Voki and discussed how it might be used, and touched on Voicethread, before thinking about wikis and blogs. Drew showed people how to sign up for a Blogger blog, and also mentioned NING but as blogs and NING are blocked on IoW, that was something that people had to go away to investigate further.

Although I knew about many of these sites and tools, it was good to be reminded of them and offered ideas for using them. It was also great that people chipped in little bits of information that they had to share, and that included people via Twitter. And of course, the entertainment factor was high, especially as the master computer for the room was at the back and Drew had to keep running up and down the room to operate things until he coopted Paul Harrington into doing it for him ;o)

I really enjoy using Twitter to talk to people, and am rather peeved about the withdrawl of mobile tweets, making it rather tricky to use it at school where it’s blocked :o(.

However, thought I’d share with you a little table that @iusher has just sent me – the UKEdTech TwitterLeague!

The competitive streak in me is not too chuffed at being midtable, but I’m glad that there are 259 people interested in what I’m Tweeting. And there’s no point trying to compete with the Mighty Mc or that other SuperTwit, the irrepressible Drew Buddie – coincidence that they’re both Scottish??

I’ve been trying to summer-clean my e-mails this evening, deleting ones that are no longer needed, bookmarking sites referenced and archiving ones from fora that contain resources. Whilst doing so, I came across an e-mail reminding me that I’d requested an invite to Twitterfone, and sending me the necessary code to get an account.

I must admit that I like shiny new things and like to be up to date with the latest ‘thing’, and sometimes forget what I’ve requested so I had to look up Twitterfone.

Glad I did!

Whilst I am becoming a bit of techno-chick (according to colleagues!), I still have a blindspot with one regard – I cannot get my head around predictive texting! I am a fast texter but predictive textig gets me all of a flutter. As I love texting and my only access to Twitter whilst at school is via my mobile, I sometimes become frustrated by my inability to text fast enough and wonder why I can’t just dictate my message.

Now I can! Twitterfone works thus …

Having registered with my invitation code, I’ve just tried it out – and it works!! I called the number, left my message and voilà – my tweet arrived a minute or so later, complete with a link to hear my dulcet tones dictating the message – just in case it’s gobbledegook!!
As the info section points out, it isn’t perfect, as it won’t recognise @ replies or d messages which is a bit of a pain, but I guess they might sort it in time.

Want an invite? Click here!

Off to Twitterfone my blog post ;o)

PS Sadly, doesn’t seem to spell in Spanish :o(

I thought I’d share this with you because it amused me! Courtesy of Lucy Gray’s (@elemenous) del.icio.us links, here’s how to make a teddy bear that speaks your friends’ tweets.

I don’t think I’ll be making one – seems rather too complicated for me – but it would be rather amusing to have. Anyone up for making me one?

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/1151724 w=300&h=169]
How 2.0: How to Make a Twittering Teddy Bear from My Home 2.0 DIY on Vimeo.

I picked this cartoon up from a Lucy Gray and Silvia Tolisano aka Langwitches in my Google Reader this morning – it not only made me laugh, but it also made me think!

In the last few weeks there has been much tweeting and blogging about Twitter – is it good for you or not?

I really like Twitter and tweeting, don’t get me wrong. I’m just wondering how much it is taking over my life, and how much it might be distracting me from other things that I should be doing.

Doug Belshaw really prompted this over the weekend with two very thought-provoking posts – The map is not the territory and Is Twitter bad for you?. (Read them if you haven’t already!)

The former, subtitled The changing face of the edublogosphere, made me consider how dizzy and confused I can sometimes become thanks to Twitter (and following URLs and recommendations) – as I wrote in my comment on the post, perhaps it’s out of my own ‘immaturity’ as a blogger and technochick (as I have been dubbed by colleagues!), and the wish to ensure I don’t miss out on the latest thing that my head starts to spin. I do need to be more selective and I guess with experience will come more wisdom.

That’s why I love EdTechRoundup meetings – lots of ideas backed up with uses in the classroom and also lots of debate about tools and their use. I lurk and listen quite a bit – and that to me is very important so I learn! That’s not to say I don’t contribute – I’m not completely clueless :o)
I lurk on Twitter too – but often I feel excluded from the conversations – sometimes because I only follow half the speakers, or because it’s over my head. Guess I could follow more people but that to me feels like collecting friends on Facebook just so I have lots of friends, or becoming a ‘groupie’. Don’t get me wrong, there are times when I have received really great ideas via Tweets – someone tweeted www.placespotting.com a couple of weeks ago – think it was @injenuity – and this site has infuriated, entertained and educated my family ever since. 9 year old spent over half an hour searching rivers in Holland this morning in search of a particular bridge – the clue did not enlighten but he found it, bless him! And @willrich45 and @davestacey pointed me a blogpost showing how to use YahooPipes to put all received Twitter messages containing URLs into Google Reader. However, there sometimes seem to be far too many seemingly great ideas floating around- as a commenter on Doug’s blog said, 95% are irrelevant but 5% are gems. Recently I’ve been off work and had the luxury of time to check out all the recommendations, under normal circumstances I wouldn’t. And then there are the ones that everyone raves about – then never to be heard of again. What happened to @teachablemoment ? And @bookgroup ? Both started off with lots of activity but seem to have fizzled.

So is Twitter bad for me? My husband would say it was – but that’s more to do with mobile tweets than Twitter! And there lies a key issue – should I switch off my mobile tweets? During Edtechroundup last night we talked about this. Several people have switched off their mobile tweets – Doug commented that they were getting in the way of teaching. My inclination is to keep them switched on – I’ve been careful with from whom I receive mobile tweets and chosen people who aren’t too prolific in the tweet department. Even so, most that I receive are not directed at me – and some are like the cartoon man’s! My reason for keeping them on in term time is that Twitter is blocked at school so the only way I can even begin to use it with the pupils is to use my mobile. As I’ve blogged before, Year 6 answered a question posed by Ewan McIntosh via witter – and were fascinated by it. And there are times when I let out my frustrations on the Twitterverse via an ‘end-of-my-tether-sympathise-please’ message.

Then there’s Tom Barrett’s post Twitter- a teaching and learning tool. It’s a really comprehensive guide to Twitter’s many possibilities for learners (young and older) – it’s one of those posts you have to go back to and read several times to really grasp all of it! As I commented when Tom asked about the use of Twitter in the classroom, it’s hard to use when it’s blocked but I’m working on that one!
Interesting that he was cut off from the world of Twitter when he wrote it – as he said,
‘I am removed from the network I want to reflect upon and away from the classroom that it can impact. This perspective is welcome as it offers me clarity of thought, as I write, that I have not had for a long time.’

So, if I switched off mobile tweets, followed more people and was more selective with things I pursue, would that be OK?

I think Doug’s post about Twitter hits the nail on the head – there are times when I need to switch off from Twitter, email, Facebook as I can’t concentrate. Writing this, my mobile has Spiderpig-ed 24 times – and that’s from 3 people in an hour – and I’ve not finished yet! I haven’t checked my emails but I guess there are several of those too. His model of outward facing and inward facing modes of working seems so simple and sensible that I’m quite cross I didn’t come up with it!

So perhaps it’s a case of there being a time and place for everything and not allowing Twitter to encroach on everything I do, whilst still exploring the possibilities of using it creatively ;o)

This afternoon 6JF were introduced to the world of Twitter. It was unplanned but, as is often the case with spontaneous activities, was successful.

As I was half expecting a call from my boys’ school asking me to pick one of them up (everyone is being really careful with this bug going around), my ‘phone was not on silent as it usually is during lessons. Therefore when it chirped in my pocket, 6JF were amused. Then when it chirped again, they started wondering why I was so popular. At this point I hadn’t looked at my ‘phone but thought I’d better check, and it chirped again as I took it out my pocket. I’d just received some mobile Tweets from people I was following on Twitter, a Web site and service that lets users send short text messages from their cellphones to a group of friends. Launched in 2006, Twitter (www.twitter.com) was designed for people to broadcast their current activities and thoughts. Twitter expanded “mobile blogging” (updating a blog from a cellphone) into “microblogging,” the updating of an activities blog (microblog) that distributes the text to a list of names. Messages can also be sent and received via instant messaging, the Twitter Web site or a third-party Twitter application. A MySpace account can also be updated.

By this stage they were more interested in my ‘phone than drawing mindmaps about communities for RE, so when I read the following message,
I decided to go for it and ask the kids what they thought.

Once I’d explained what you did on Twitter, and they’d grasped that the messages I was receiving were being sent to a huge number of people, not just me, (this disappointed them as they thought I had, as one of them put it, ‘a thing going on’ ) they all had a nose at my ‘phone – it’s a good one (they were distinctly unimpressed by the make and model ;-O), but because BGfL had blocked Twitter so I couldn’t show them on the IWB – and came up with some ideas. I relayed their ideas back to Ewan McIntosh via text – again, kids were amused at ineptitude at predictive texting!
One thing I’d forgotten to factor in was the 140 character limit so the middle of the Tweet went astray (didn’t learn my lesson – did it again later!) but the gist was there.

We had a good discussion about social networking, and it did fit rather well into my RE lesson about communities – very serendipitous!
And then, my ‘phone chirped again with a Tweet from Ewan, thanking people for their ideas before another chirp and another message, this time just for them!
That really was the end of the RE lesson then, especially when we received Paul Harrington said ‘Hola’ to us as well!

Not sure if we can get past the firewall at school to use Twitter in the immediate future, but it certainly got one class of kids talking about the use of Twitter and social networking for their Spanish lessons and excited enough to want to find out more when they get home.

And it made their afternoon too that they got a reply – thanks Ewan and Paul (I owe you both a drink!) for proving what Twitter can do – and also that their RE lesson proved to be much more interesting and eventful than usual!