Riding the Google Wave

It's been almost a week and I survived my "Riding the Google Wave" session at NYSCATE's "Riding the Digital Wave" session out at Erie1 BOCES West Seneca location.

It was a great day starting off with the keynote by Dr. Roger Firestein who started off by telling us he got his major in Creativity and Innovation here at UB!  What?  I've never even heard of that.  He kept us thinking and in particular had us form groups and "without judgement" brainstorm ideas about what we'd want our bathtub to be!  It was amazing when there were no limits what we came up with.  From NASCAR strips that you could just rip off and BAM, the tub and area around it would be clean.  To having the water do a skin scan and sending that information directly to your doctor to make sure everything is OK (thanks @rickweinberg for both of those).  I keyed in on the idea of "without judgement" since I was going to be showing Google Wave, which is still in Beta, and quite honestly, Wave's been beat up quite a bit since it's release.

In my session, well, I survived!
I must've been pretty nervous because I can't distinctly remember where people were sitting, just that it was packed.  Quite a few people said they had Google Wave invites, but we only had a few editing with us.  I fortunately could call on @tclarkeee, @jgriffith2, @theresagray and @rickweinberg as well as some others to add content and ideas.

To give the others an real time collaboration option, I set up an Etherpad to use with suffix RtGW (Riding the Google Wave).  I then realized that this one is different because it has lower case letters here!  Ooops.
The good things that I believe I did was to organize my waves into one folder (RtGW).  That gave them a blue box when they were in my inbox denoted by RtGW.  I also brought in the Public Robot (public@a.gwave.com)  otherwise no one would be able to see it OR I'd have to invite every single person.
The other robot I used was EasyPublic (easypublic@appspot.com) not sure if it did anything different, but I read that it wouldn't go away.  I guess sometimes the Public Robot does?
THEN, I tagged each of the waves #RtGW and to be safe also RtGW.  This is done at the bottom of the wave where it says Tags" and a + sign in a grey ellipse.
To be even more save, I went up to the top and numbered them 1,2,3,4.  Then, when people went to the search they could type:

with:public #RtGW (or RtGW without the #)

and get my four waves.  
For some reason the Fourth wave didn't show up and that was too bad, because I had questions about the opening keynote.  
Instead I started back over to wave #1 and deleted my content to put questions up for the keynote.  
You can see it here (If you have a Google Wave account).
I tried to show the Google Wave that JamieLynn Griffith did with her 2nd Graders and their Community project, but I was trying to rush through all of it and by that point, I'm not sure how many people were still with me.
I'm glad I took the risk, but couldn't done it a lot better.




First, in the description, sent everyone to https://www.google.com/ to sign up for an account before they got there.  I did try to send an e-mail a week before, but some didn't get it in time and didn't have time to send it in and get it back.  This would've been the biggest improvement, because I think there was so much confusion at the beginning that it was hard for people to see how they may use this.
I also should've gone slower at the beginning for those that had Google Wave accounts.  This is how you start a wave, this is your blip.  Shown ways to edit and save a little slower.  Maybe had them send waves to a small group next to them to practice...then thrown them into mine to have all of us start adding to.
Then, I could've organized gadgets better.  I had my third wave all full of gadgets to play with. I barely talked about them.
Not sure if I'd do that again.  At least not until it's out of Beta and I get to use it more.


Next, maybe something more like Google SketchUp!

Global Connections

Picture above is from: http://www.classroom20.com/groups/group/list?page=14

Here's the deal, I belong to all of these networks to create Global Connections with area teachers and since NECC 2008 down in San Antonio it has been a main goal of mine.

I belong to CAPSPACE and get daily e-mails for projects that have been created. Now, I need to try to get that info to teachers in our area. I have been able to establish one French Connection because of a very flexible teacher in a district I work at. They were able to connect with a Pennsylvannia school on a wiki and have met via DL.

After that connection, I tried to establish another one with a French class in Toronto, but times didn't work out for a DL connection there. They were able to use a Twitter connection to collaborate with another school.

There are plenty of elementary projects out there like: Flat Stanley - seems at least one a week, weather in your area, and some using Voicethreads with students.

I want to make teachers aware that it is very easy to take a project that you will be doing and just post it out there to see what you can get. This is one thing I'll try to work with.

I also want people to know there are plenty of other ways to connect, there are plenty of Ning groups: Classroom 2.0 and Flat Classroom,

plus other sites like ePals, Global School Net, Taking it Global ...

You know what, just go here's a better list from Donna Farren and Lauren Skolny and they NYSCATE workshop "Learning without Borders".

What are some of the Global Connections others have made out there? Looking for some motivation!

Social Networking decision

The animation above is made from: http://www.loogix.com/
All of the photos are screen captures from: http://jingproject.com/

Still trying to figure out all this stuff about personal learning networks, professional learning networks and which I use where. I blur most of it together, but the social networks I use are Twitter, Delicious, Ning, Plurk and Facebook. Probably in that order.

I was first introduced to Twitter at my first Technology Conference in 2007: NYSCATE by Will Richardson, who also Ustreamed the session - another Web 2.0 tool I've used quite a bit. Then, I started to get into many other Social Networks including, MySpace, many Ning Groups, Facebook, Delicious, Diigo, Pownce (now gone), identi.ca, Twine, many Wiki sites, Twice, Teachers Connecting, Plurk......too many to mention and most with weird spellings of names!?!?

Delicious for me is a staple! Bookmark all your websites online so that you can access them anywhere and you can share them with others. The Gateway drug into Social Networking and where I tend to start when trying to explain Social Networking to teachers.

Twitter is again my favorite microblogging site. It's power is well documented a few times a week on CNN it seems. My most powerful network is there. I often still lurk around and listen in, often I ask questions and occasionally I try to add to my network.

Plurk was the one site I thought would replace Twitter for me. Your posts are contained in one thread so you can easily look back and see what others have added to anything you posted or responded to. My network is stronger on Twitter and I've had a hard time (probably finding time) to balance both. I still try to go onto Plurk, but have drastically dropped my usage in there.

Then comes Facebook. I still have no good reason why I don't use this more. Even my wife is on Facebook! And making friends with my co-workers and friends. As I posted on Facebook from George Costanza, "My worlds are colliding!". I think this is the one network I use for mostly personal use. It is amazing how many friends and/or people I barely knew growing up and going through college that I've connected with. With the pure numbers I really can't figure out why I don't use FB more? Maybe just because I want to improve at my job I stick with more professional networks, even though on all of those I do post about the recent bug going through the Carls house or what great new thing the kids have done.

That reminds me, I'm also a member of LinkedIn.

The battle I've seen is Twitter vs Plurk and even though a few months ago I was ready to write my "Dear John" letter to Twitter, I think for me Twitter gets me the info I need and the steady responses. I like the setup of Plurk more (even though I still think the timeline goes backwards), but Twitter is how I start my day. I find out what is new in the educational world and find great links, plus I usually get answers to questions I post.

The downside to Twitter, it does take a bit of time to build that network. @lizbdavis just posted this weekend 7 Twitter tips for new Twits tweeting to Twitter. If you followed all of that, then you are more of an expert than I.

Oh wait, then I got a tweet from @zmanrdz about the Top 10 tips for using Twitter and what is this? A Wetpaint wiki about using Twitter in the classroom!

What social networks work best for you?

Me?

Delicious and Twitter, then Ning Groups like the Voicethread for Educators Ning Group I've created, SMARTBoard Revolution Ning Group which just passed 1000 members and then Classroom 2.0. There are other Global Collaboration Groups I visit from time to time as well as long as groups for conferences like NYSCATE and NECC.

Cellphones in the Classroom with Rick Weinberg

NYSCATE 2008 was a great experience and there were many great keynotes, 1 hour workshops and of course, plenty of see at the vendors. I guess I did not win a Wii, nor did I even win a raffle for anything!?!? Carls Law.

However, we were given a Bean...but, I haven't used mine yet!

My favorite part was Rick Weinberg's presentation on "Cellphones in the Classroom". I have waited for this one since the RFP's came out.

Even with the internet going out minutes before his presentation and for the first 15-20 minutes, Rick did a great job audibling and creating conversation among the participants, then going back to his Model Lesson on Resveratrol.

The video is below, and also has been embedded onto this wiki.

You can find all of his resources at his NYSCATE wiki.

Here are some of Rick's Web based resources to use with cellphones:





Get instant poll results for free for up to 30 participants.







Record your voice and send it as text to cellphones or to e-mail accounts.







Give people a place to send voice and text messages about your topic. It is a dropbox to get information from your students or your participants.









Rick really likes this about going through a progression of sending a text, then an e-mail, then a phone call until the message goes through to all of the people you are looking to reach.







Send ChaCha a question and have a live person search for a result and get back to you with an answer.....be careful with those late night trivia questions (that can be addicting) because now you only get 20 texts for free.









I use this as well as some of my other colleagues to update sites like Plurk, Facebook and Twitter with one text being sent to multiple sources.


Great job Rick and thanks for all you've done opening our eyes to the use of cellphones in education.