Ruth's Random Resource Round-up Sept 10/09

More resources for teachers. Also see my blog post from Sept 1 with additional resources at http://rielliott.blogspot.com/2009/08/ruths-random-resource-round-up-sept-109.html

E-Learning for Kids. Find activities in Math, Science, etc. http://ow.ly/nu1v

Slideshare presentation with many ideas for using technology with younger children http://docs.google.com/present/view?id=ddf8kn4m_225dqg9bxfd

YouTube blocked at school. Save up to 100 videos for free at this site. http://embedr.com/

How to Find the name of that song. http://mashable.com/2009/08/30/find-that-song-name/

Image via Wikipedia

Larry Ferlazzo's blog post with many URL's for collections of Web 2.0 tools http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/2009/03/17/the-best-collections-of-web-20-tools-for-education/

Blogging guidelines for students--developed by and for elementary students http://mscofino.edublogs.org/2009/09/06/student-blogging-guidelines/

Easy way to manage a class website - everything on one site http://www.sfclassroom.com/

Microsoft Education Labs http://ow.ly/ogMH

Don't understand how Twitter works or why to use it. Read this blog post. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=407984&c=2

Many reasons for using Twitter http://www.diigo.com/list/kwhstechtips/twitter

Advice for teachers new to Twitter http://edtechpower.blogspot.com/2009/02/advice-for-teachers-new-to-twitter.html

Back to School Musings

Over the long weekend, we took our daughter to Calgary to begin her new adventure of attending Ambrose University College there. She will be living in the dorm and eating her meals in the cafeteria. During the first day (Friday) she was there, our moving in process was constantly interrupted by other students coming to introduce themselves. It is a very friendly place.

We continued to assist with setting up our daughter's room on the next day (Saturday). That morning I thought back to some parents' stories of the first day of kindergarten. As soon as their five year old sees all the toys, activity areas, and other students, they say, "Bye, Mom" and they are gone without a backward glance. It is the mom who is left in tears a

Image by woodleywonderworks via Flickr

s her five year old rushes off into the big wide world without her.

This is the way I felt on that second day of helping my daughter set up her room. She was just itching for us to leave so she could jump, feet first, into all that life on campus had to offer. I know this is exactly as it should be. However, being the mom that I am, I also feel sad and nostalgic because my little girl is all grown-up.

Be a Virtual Attendee at ALT-C 2009 (#altc2009)

I received an email from Seb Schmoller inviting me to participate in the Association for Learning Technologies 2009
conference next week. All sessions will be available in Live Streaming video and sessions will be recorded for later
viewing. If you missed the Open Education Conference in Vancouver, now is your opportunity to be a virtual attendee
at a conference. Sept. 8 - 10 in Manchester, U.K. (hashtag #altc2009)

Seb invited me to pass along this email, so here it is.

September 4, 2009 5:28:52 AM

Seb Schmoller 8-10 September - Martin Bean, Michael Wesch, Terry Anderson, and ALT-C 2009 invited speakers - sessions
available over the Web‏

Colleagues,

Feel free to forward this note as you see fit.

We will be making all keynote and most if not all invited speaker sessions from next week's ALT Conference available
over the Web in real time, and as archived files, from http://elluminate.alt.ac.uk/.

Those participating remotely in the keynote sessions will be able to submit questions online.

The keynote speaker schedule is:

* Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, Tuesday 8 September,
 09.25 to 10.25 UK time;

* Martin Bean, Vice-Chancellor Designate of the Open University,Wednesday 9 September, 11.55 to 12.55;

* Terry Anderson, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Distance Education at Athabasca University, Canada
 - Canada's Open University, Thursday 10 September, 11.55 to 12.55.

For the timings and details of the invited speaker sessions consult go to the schedule at
 http://altc2009.alt.ac.uk/talk/by_track/493.

If you intend to joining us, do not leave setting up your system until the last minute, and consult Elluminate
Help - http://elluminate.alt.ac.uk/help/public_help.help - if you need it.

For a URL version of this email go to http://tinyurl.com/mk7ceg

Regards,

Seb Schmoller


Chief Executive
Association for Learning Technology (ALT)
--
email: seb.schmoller@alt.ac.uk
--
Gipsy Lane, Headington, Oxford, OX3 0BP, UK
Registered Charity Number 1063519
http://www.alt.ac.uk/
ALT Conference, 8-10 September 2009, http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2009/

Twitter Poetry on the Plinth #oneandother

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

This summer in Trafalgar Square in London, England, people (one at a time) have been occupying the empty fourth plinth in the Square. The project, created by artist, Antony Gormley, is called One and Other (Twitter hashtag #oneandother). You can watch live-streaming video of the 24/7 activities at http://www.oneandother.co.uk/. This morning I watched a woman throw candies (she called them sweets) from her perch high above the crowd. Following her one hour, the next plinther gave salsa lessons (I was surprised he had no music).
Holly writes about her graveyard shift as a volunteer at the plinth (http://www.oneandother.co.uk/blog/2009/08/the-graveyard-shift.html)
An American professor spent an hour on the plinth. She invited people to help her create a digital poem (using Twitter). She explains the process in this video.

Juggling for Nelson video.

Image by the_junes via Flickr

What an terrific project. It makes me wonder what we could do in my city of Saskatoon with creative vision and repurposing of our landscape. How many years has that empty plinth been sitting in Trafalgar Square? (not sure--maybe 200 years) This summer and fall it will be populated with 2400 individuals, 24/7 for 100 days. Amazing!

Why I like Twitter

Two months ago I joined Twitter. My first post was inane--Something like: I'm trying to learn

Image by CanadaGood via Flickr

how to use Twitter. I've learned a lot since then. What have I learned and why do I like Twitter?

1. Pass it forward:

I like Twitter because it gives me a super easy way to share resources and ideas. I subscribe to many blogs with Google Reader and come across great ideas and writing all the time. I also follow suggested links in other people's tweets and this leads me to great resources. For example, recently I came across Kathy Cassidy (@kathycassidy on Twitter), a grade one teacher from Moose Jaw. Since she gave her website address as part of her Twitter profile (I like it when people do this), I went to her website. (http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?blogger_id=1337,%20http://primarypreoccupation.wordpress.com/) This amazing Grade One teacher is having her students blog. Last week on Twitter, she asked for people available to talk to her class on Skype about what they learned in Grade One. She has posted one of those talks on her website. Last year her students recorded their reading using Vocarro. Then other people could comment (parents, aunts, grandpas, etc.) about the reading.

So you get the picture. I come across great resources all the time via Twitter and Google Reader. What is the simplest way to share those resources? It is via Twitter. If someone is on Twitter, I can simply put @ in front of their user name and post the link with a short description of the resource. I admit it is easiest if that person is following me because I could even send the resource via a direct message. I am hoping that most people on Twitter are like me and that they check their Twitter mentions using Search with @ and their user name. Thus if (like Margaret Atwood) you are receiving lots of messages from those people you don't follow, you can still receive those messages.)

Yesterday at church, I spoke with a friend who teaches kindergarten. I told her that I've been coming across lots of kindergarten resources. I asked her to please sign up for Twitter so I have an easy way to pass those resources forward to her. I'm hoping she will do it. (Hi, K. J.)

2. Building a network

I like the people I have found and that I follow on Twitter. They introduce a different world of ideas and link to other people.

Recently during my morning walk, it started raining. I noticed that the raindrops, falling in a puddle, sent little circles outwards from the point of impact. Sometimes the little circles m

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

et and overlapped. Sometimes they did not. I think it is like this with building networks in the digital world. There are so many networks happening as each person discovers those people with similar interests to themselves. Since each of us is unique, each of our networks will be unique.

This morning I came across someone new to blogging who is also on Twitter. His name is Ken Wilson (blog site: http://kenwilsonelt.wordpress.com/ and Twitter: @kenwilsonlondon). He is big in English as a Second Language or Foreign Language circles. I had never heard of him before. When I started reading his blog posts, I was intrigued because I used to teach English as a Second Language when I lived in Hong Kong. So I decided to add Ken to my network of people I listen to on Google Reader and on Twitter.

I'm sure that if someone was interested in crocheting, Nascar racing, and geocaching, they could build a network with nodes which would represent each of these disparate interests.

I am trying to build a network of Twitter people (T-buds) from Saskatoon. With Saskatoon people, I am less demanding regarding who I will follow. Many Saskatoon people tweet about their plans for the evening and not about ideas. They don't often pass along resources. However, I believe there is power in establishing a local network (as Mack Male has done in Edmonton) and so I continue to work on finding and following people who live in Saskatoon.

I am also working on building a network of those who are into social media and using it with students (blogs, Twitter, Animoto, VoiceThread, podcasts, wikis, etc.). I also like to follow people with great ideas who inspire me (danah boyd, Seth Godin, Zen Habits).

One suggestion for you if you want to build your networks on Twitter: Find someone that you really admire and then click on the list of who they are following to find others who are influencing the person you are following. Read the tweets of those people and then you could follow them.

3. Searching on Twitter

I like Twitter for the search capacity it offers. I started to realize the power of search and the use of hashtags (when people establish a common way of referring to an idea or place in Twitter e.g. #yxe for Edmonton) during the Open Education Conference in Vancouver earlier in August (#opened09). Since all sessions in this conference were available in live-streaming video, people from around the world were virtual attendees of this conference. As I searched Twitter using the hashtag #opened09, I could see what others around the world (and even those present in the room with the speaker) were saying about the presentation. It was an amazing experience. I realized later that I was a "vicarious attendee" of the conference because I experienced so much of it through the tweets of those who were attending in a face to face manner.

Image via Wikipedia

I regularly search for tweets with "Saskatoon" in them in order to find people living here. Some of the searches that I use often, I have saved so that I can easily do them repeatedly.

Conclusion

The above are just three of the reasons why I like Twitter. I like to share resources, build a network, and search for ideas and conferences.

One thing I need to figure out though is how to use Tweetdeck or some kind of tweet aggregator. So far, I have been following Twitter by simply reading back through all the tweets that were posted since I last logged on to the computer. This has been fine while I have ha

Image by bwana via Flickr

d a little more time this summer. However, my busy fall schedule is kicking in. I don't want to miss important conversations and resources that are shared on Twitter.

I want to teach other people in my world how to use Twitter. I will be talking with those in the school board office, at my local school, at the university, and at the public library about teaching some classes on Twitter. However, I need to master the use of a tweet aggregator before I can teach others.

If any of my readers have other suggestions for ways to use Twitter or why they like Twitter, please comment below.