Twitter shout out

Working with teachers the last Wednesday before the break, we went over any of their SMART software questions, then in the afternoon started to look at other Web 2.0 tools that they could use.

• Global Collaborations - Looked at a few Ning groups and at CAPSpace which I've used to connect a few techers.


• File storage - They were all over the place, so we talked about Box.net and our BOCES storage, then I just shared my delicious links.


• iPod help with iTunes and also using their voicerecorder.


• Jing Project to get screen captures- Which I love and used for the screen captures below, plus, a host of other ideas. and websites.

The most interesting part for me was when I mentioned to these teachers that I was using Twitter to answer most of their questions. Quite a few had heard of it, and I tried to explain it......tried being the key word!

Then, I asked my Twitter network to say hello (which I've seen many times, but rarely done). Below was the results and they were floored....plus, thinking I was even geekier than before!

Thanks to everyone for helping show how I learn and the power of having a network.

Long stretch

Since I'm a 12 month employee, my family scheduled our vacation around my wife's school schedule. They get the two week break in April, so we scheduled our second vacation as a family of 4. This year to Florida! We have the tickets, are finalizing arrangements this weekend and fly out Tuesday!
We can't wait, to get to sunny Florida and stay at.......a retirement community! The Villages in Lady Lake, Florida. Mostly free room and board and some relaxation.
To get here, though, required a long winter stretch with no February break. In March, we actually had pretty decent weather.
Then, this morning.....SNOW on April 4th. Of course, I remember growing up, my father saying, "It ALWAYS snows in April", so I'm not too surprised. Oh yeah, snow again when we leave on Tuesday!
I will try to write another post about the busy week I had at work and some of the things I worked on with teachers.
The one reason I remembered to come back here was because of Rick Weinberg's Tech Tip this week about QR codes. He showed us how you can get a QR 2 Dimensional code for your webpage, text, phone number or SMS from Kaywa. Rick used Liz Kolb's blog post as reference to these codes. Then, after seeing a post on Twitter by Jo Fothergill (@dragonsinger57 from New Zealand) I went and grabbed one for this blog. You can see it underneath my Twitter feeds to the right.
Here is the link to the QR Code as well: http://tinyurl.com/cuqadm

I hope everyone gets some time off to fully recharge for the final stretch of the school year, and hopefully, I'll find more time to blog about some of the great things are teachers are doing out here.

Welcome to the Tweets of March #gr8t

Welcome to the tweets of March

Here's an idea that has picked up speed lately on Twitter.
During the month of March use the hashmark (#gr8t) to retweet (RT) your favorite tweet of the day.
Here's the wiki to explain: http://gr8tweets.wikispaces.com/about

There have been quite a few blogs about it:

• Laura Deisley's post "What's tickled you lately?"


• Darren Kuropatwa's blog post "Great Tweets #gr8t"


• Clint Lalonde's blog post "gr8t Tweet"


• Allanah King's blog post "Tweet of the Day #gr8t"

Plenty of others, but those are a few who will explain it better than I.

Follow the TweetBird on Twitter or seach Twitter for #gr8t tag.

Maybe I should've titled this "Please share the Tweets of March"

... the tweets are coming, the tweets are coming.

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.

Delicious

How would you start to teach someone about Web 2.0?
I would use delicious.com
Everyone has a favorite website, most know how to save a bookmark on their computer. Why not share it worth the world? Or at least keep your bookmarks online for you to find from anywhere.
Still not big on Diigo. Delicious is simple and works great for me.

Netbook trial with HPMini 2133

Trying out my first Netbook: HPMini 2133

HP Mini 2133 I was using.

First off, I'll state that I am not an expert at evaluating computers....by any means! However, I did want to write down some of my thoughts about the HP Mini 2133 that I've used lately from a friend. I will also state that I'm writing this blog post and the previous one on the HP Mini.

This HP Mini came with Vista as the operating system, Microsoft Office 2007, 1GB of RAM and VIA C7-M processor (1.2 ghz).

My original thoughts revolved around the difficulty of the smaller keyboard and just trying to acquire a wireless signal and move to my normal websites. It did take some time to get both under control. Just like anything, the keyboard takes a little getting used to, and to date, I've only erased one e-mail because of pudgy fingers. Actually, I think my biggest problem is the base of my thumb hitting the front of the keyboard = "I have chubby hands"

Once I got connected to my wireless, I noticed that is seemed very slow, I mean Dialup slow! It took quite a long time to get Lotus Notes to load. Then, as I tried to open up six tabs (not out of the ordinary for me), it definately ran slower. As I continued to use it with a wireless connection, the more I realized it did run slow (see Dialup comment above). And forget about YouTube or on-line videos. However, for now, I can deal with it because of the nice travel size. But, I couldn't use it for everyday unless that drastically improves.

After playing with this HP Mini, my other three biggest concerns are: the memory, the durability (I'm not dropping this to to find out), and why buy Vista now? It appears Windows7 will be replacing Vista in the near future, and there is always a Linux option that would keep the price down. Personally, I think the next few months will see a huge boom in netbooks and prices getting back to $200 with OpenSource components. As I was trying it out, I sent a tweet out to Twitter and got this response from @tomgrissom about a $200 netbook in development.

I think this is nice to use, but I'm not 100% sold. I've never used an Asus Eee PC used in the OLPC project, but I do think these netbooks will continue to improve: memory/speed as technology changes. Someday, you'll see a picture of me with my glasses and big HP laptop and laugh.....kind of like how I laugh at pictures of the first walkietalkies....I mean cellphones!

Photo courtesy of: http://stlouis.missouri.org/citygov/recycle/Cellphones.html

Thoughts and corrections, always welcome.