#twittertuesday for Elementary School Students

For the last several years, my co-teacher, +sheila monger and I have been using +Twitter with my fourth and fifth grade students. It provides and authentic writing experience with practice in succinctly capturing a main idea or essence. We encourage their parents to follow us and they work really hard to do their best work for this wider audience. I try to keep an eye on the twittersphere for trending hashtags and use them if applicable to link to current events. For example  On #GSPD we _________________ (global school play day) .I limit them to  ½ 140 or 70 characters...they have to fit it on the paper and I have to be able to read it from across the room.

Logistics

Before the school year starts, I laminate 30 pieces of paper that fit on my back cabinets.  I create a handle for each student using the first few letters of their first and last name. For example Sandra McConnell would be SanMc. I write their handles and glue them to a name tag with an Egg, showing they are a new user on twitter. As the year progresses, some students created new avatars for themselves.

Be sure to start the year with digital citizenship lessons. We rely on +Common Sense Education lessons. We also use the acronym RAMENN with our kids. When posting make sure it's
R - relevant
A - appropriate
M - meaningful
E - edited - and our students added the last two...
N - is it nice?
N - is it necessary?

Each Tuesday I post the prompt and give students time to generate ideas and write. Sometimes the prompts generate a lot of reflection, other times not so much. After most of the tweets are posted to the wall, my tweeter of the week, a classroom job, chooses one to five posts that they want to have represent our class.  They rewrite the prompt in their journal (or take a picture with their iPad) and bring it to my computer to type into our class account in twitter, @mrsmccsclass. Often I will have them include photographs of the students’ tweets to include in the tweet. I have them do it at my computer because I do not want the students to have unrestricted, unsupervised access to twitter.

Although I am not in my classroom this year, our account is still active and you can see what other types of things we post.

General Student Instructions

1. write a draft of the tweet in your journal. Be sure to include a hashtag summarizing or emphasizing your main idea. Proofread.
2. have your post checked by an adult
3. make edits, then with pencil, write your tweet on twitter paper
4. go over letters with a marker (no more than two colors)
5. post in the wall with blue tape at your @handle

Have fun with it! For sample prompts, visit this google doc.

Why I love teaching #9 - Out of My Mind

Honestly, I don't know where it fits in the ranking, but this one is pretty high up there.  A little background is helpful.  My sister +Sharon Buehler is a school librarian in Oregon. She often gives me book recommendations and she knew of my inclusive education practices, so she suggested I read Out of My Mind, by Sharon Draper (OOMM). I bought it over a year ago but didn't get around to reading it, so I brought it to school to add to my classroom library.  Last year, one of my most reflective and deep readers asked what she should read, so I suggested OOMM. She came in the following Monday and said, "Oh Mrs. McConnell, you HAVE to read this book, and read it to the class, too!"  I dutifully took it home and added it to my summer reading stack.

Fast forward a bit to this past summer, and I read the book. In a day.  It was, to say the least, compelling. OOMM is an incredible story of inclusion and acceptance told from the eyes of a child.  I knew I would start my year reading it aloud to our kids.  About a week later, I stumbled across a tweet by +Pernille Ripp about something called The Global Read aloud (GRA), which she started a few years back. This year, the one book to connect the world, at least for my grade level, is OOMM! I knew we had to participate.  It is an incredible opportunity to share and discuss this powerful book with a wider group of students. Since I am super lucky to be a part of our 1:1 iPad program, I knew the kids would be able to easily collaborate and communicate with their 'colleagues' in other parts of the world using technologies such as +Edmodo , +Skype, +Kidblog  and even Twitter (with a teacher, of course).

I set about acquiring enough copies of the book for all 35 of our inclusive ed. kids to read. I co-teach +sheila monger who provides services to students with special needs.  Our kids are together every day for at least part of each day.

I ordered 5 copies with a B&N gift card I'd received at the end of the last school year. Then I went to my trusted fundraiser, Adopt-a-Classroom, and raised money to buy more books there. I put the word out via Facebook and my class web page.  One of my friends shipped me 12 books, just because she cares about public education and inclusion.  One of the parents of a student bought her daughter a copy and 2 extra copies for our classroom.  Gratefully, I should have enough books for each child to read their own copy.

Since we are participating in GRA13, I asked my kids not to read the book ahead of time (if they hadn't already) since we'd be making predictions with our global classmates.  Today, the child of the parent who bought the books for us came in and slipped this note on my desk.

 And this, my friends, is on of the many reasons I love teaching.

My 11+1 Essential Tools for using Social Networking as Professional Development

"Real PD starts with wanting 2 learn Not with learning something once for one hour once a year Take control of your profession" Tim Charleston (@MrCsays)

In May, I presented at the iPARA Expo in Los Gatos, CA.  My topic was the opportunity that social media and networking provides for educators. I started with what I know...after some thought I realized I use at a minimum 9 different social media tools every week day!  I sure thought computers were supposed to simplify our lives!  Here is a screen shot of just the apps I use, not to mention the websites.

1. edmodo - In addition to using +Edmodo to communicate with students and parents, I also use communities and groups to connect with other educators and learn about new ways to integrate technology with curriculum.
2. Twitter - I read twitter like some people read the news. I check it daily to see what new things are going on with education and technology (#edchat).. In his post, Twitterati: Progressive EDU leaders or outliers?  Tom Whitby writes Today’s technological tools for collaboration now enable it globally, timelessly, and virtually endlessly. The key factor in good and effective collaboration is connecting with right sources. 
3. Youtube is a great resource for teachers and students. I have not yet begun to tap into its vastness of instructional and professional development videos.
4. Blogs - Not only do I write for reflection but I also follow several other bloggers in the field of education.  Grace from Teacher Learning Community suggests: Reflect on your work from time to time by blogging about your experiences. Decide what has worked and what hasn’t? What should you do different next time? You can always draw from other people’s expertise as well. Social media is all about collaboration, and what better way to do that then by teaching and learning from other passionate educators?  Then share your blog with your colleagues. Build a list of blogs to read for professional development purposes…and make sure you subscribe to them so you know when they’ve posted new content. There are many teaching related blogs out there.
5. Wikis - I use wikispaces as a repository of information. Our current wiki is managed by a group of us involved in a 1:1 iPad pilot. 
6. facebook -I do not use this yet for professional purposes but this year plan to use a professional page/profile for parent communications
7. google + -   I find this a better source of professional information than facebook.
8. diigo - social bookmarking -   Not only can I save my bookmarks for use from any machine, bt I can also see what others are bookmarking and find new and interesting 
9.  Pinterest  Simply a great source of ideas!
10. LinkedIn and Tioki, which is kind of like a linkedin for educators, connects users with job opportunities. 
11. Edshelf -  -Find the right educational tools for your needs - Reviews and recommendations of tools for education
12. This just in - Graphite, a recently launched resource from +Common Sense Educators, provides curated recommendations and reviews of educational apps and tools.

Jason Tomassini from Education Week  suggests via the Huffington Post that teachers check Twitter for hashtags related to education technology, elementary education, and 1-to-1 computing initiatives featuring iPads. He found what is certainly true for this teacher, that we use Facebook in our personal life but we aren't on Facebook with our "teacher hats on."  I know for me I am more likely to use a designed for teachers and not likely one frequented by my students, current or past.  I don't even accept friend requests from parents of my current students. I know they can see my posts in a roundabout way, but it is just a line I have drawn for myself.


Eric Sheninger, "online idea-sharing tools like RSS feeds, digital discussion forums, and blogs have the power to expand PLNs to previously unimaginable sizes. By using social media tools such as Twitter, social bookmarking sites, and social networks, educators can participate in the new era of professional development—an era of idea exchange that is accessible anywhere, anytime and that connects the field’s brightest minds. These tools are real-time, cost-effective, and accessible around the world, and they are driven by practitioners, not just consultants. 

Social media–facilitated idea sharing and online personal learning networks also bypass the challenges of traditional professional development, including time and money constraints, uninterested participants, and an overemphasis on irrelevant or boring content. 

 George Couros ‏@gcouros  "Connecting on Twitter has not only created higher expectations for myself in education, but for people in general. So much awesome out there"

Indeed!