Twitter for Teachers Part 1

A short video outlining what Twitter is, why teachers might consider using it and how you go about joining.

Twitter for Teachers Part 2

A short video explaining how you can use Twitter once you have signed up.

#edbigcrowd - Tweeting around the World

Way too much has happened today for me to get my head around in one evening. My Twitter feed is fit to burst and I've still got to get my day job sorted for tomorrow. Still, too many people across the world have been so helpful today that I feel I need to at least give them an update. Here goes...

On Monday morning I was strolling to my school in Yorkshire (UK) contemplating the staff training session I was to deliver at that afternoon’s staff meeting. It was to be about Twitter. I’d been tweeting for about a month and had been impressed with how much good advice had come my way. Surely, I thought, Twitter was something from which my colleagues might benefit.

I’d made a prezi (I'll post this over the weekend) and was feeling fairly confident about the training session. Then I made a monumental step. Not realising quite what I was unleashing I fired off a quick tweet to the 141 people I followed.

Please help! Staff meeting tonight. I want to show colleagues how far a tweet can go in one school day #edbigcrowd PLEASE RT :o)

It was 7.29 am.

Six minutes later I was sitting at my desk with a cup of coffee, listening to the familiar sound of my classroom PC booting up and logging on. “Just check Twitter” I thought, “before sorting my lessons out.”

Twenty people had re-tweeted.

“Not bad,” I thought, and turned my mind to some photocopying.

Within an hour it was one of the top ten trending tweets in New Zealand. Minutes later it was trending in Sydney too. Before I finished teaching my first lesson my tweet was trending in London and Manchester. Another hour and it was into India.

By lunchtime I had a monster on my hands! People had had it retweeted to them several times. Twitterers I had never heard of were sending me data showing me how rapid the dispersal had been. Well-wishers were sending the tweet around and around the world.

Needless to say the point was well made in the staff training that afternoon. A well-meaning tweet sent out into a friendly community reached more people in a few hours than I could have ever hoped for had I used any other medium I could think of. Sure, I had not actually benefitted from the exercise, save from making a few hundred new followers, but the thought of quite how many people had been out there, willing to help my little message on its way, was quite intoxicating. I was giddy with the thought of what I had just done. What if I had really wanted help? How great would THAT have been?

As soon as I got home I went to my Twitter account and started replying to all the personal messages I’d received. Two hours later and I’d reached my status update limit and had to read through the remaining comments sad that I could not reply until my embargo was lifted.

So, what had the experiment taught me?

1. People on Twitter are generally kind and open-minded, and happy to help out
2. There is no other way to reach so many people so quickly
3. Be careful when you ask for a retweet!

It is only Monday evening now and it has been a big day in my twittersphere. The #edbigcrowd feed is still overflowing like the bucket in the Sorcerer's Apprentice. I'm going to have to leave it alone and get on with my marking. When the weekend comes and I have managed to grasp the scale of what has happened here I'll blog with all the details.

Until then, thanks to EVERYONE who retweeted this message. Wherever you are (although I don't believe the person who said they were on Betelgeuse!)

Easter Holiday. Time to put my feet up?

Three weeks. A bit more actually, thanks to the Royal wedding. A list of household jobs to get stuck into. Well, they can wait. Straight on to Twitter and see what people are up to. Digital Leaders seems like a good idea, then there's BrainPopUK, and of course I need to design the new pupil VLE. Still, now I've fired off a few requests into the twittersphere I'm sure I can take the night off. Got the dough on for some pizza, onions softening in the pan... Maybe school can wait for another day :o)

iPad or not iPad?

Well, I've trialled an iPad for a week in my Junior Prep classes. I started off being very sceptical. It was neither ultra-portable (like my Desire HD) nor super powerful (like my MacBook Pro). I figured that if I had to carry something around then it needed to be able to do EVERYTHING, and if it couldn't sing and dance then it needed to be small enough to fit in my pocket.

Well, after a week of putting the iPad in the hands of my pupils, or carrying it with me while I worked the room, making notes as I went, I have to say I was fully convinced that the iPad was both portable ENOUGH, and powerful ENOUGH, to be worth a more thorough trial.

In September I hope to start a proper trial, and I will record my thoughts here. In the meantime I am preparing the way, listening to people who have tried this technology already: some with success, others with disappointment. Anything I find I'll pop up here.

Facebook Fallout

It is interesting to see quite how quickly a ground-swell of opinion can form on Facebook. Within hours of sitting a difficult Biology A2 exam paper angry students had formed a group on Facebook criticising AQA, the exam board. The speed at which this new 'group' of affected interests formed just would not have been possible before Web 2.0. Within a day it was on the BBC! Click here to see their report.

Home Access

The Government is keen that every child has access to the internet at home. Hence the 'home access' scheme, whereby parents of pupils in Years 3 to 9 of state schools can apply for a grant to get a computer and internet access at home. Seems like a good idea. Let's watch this space.