57:02 minutes (19.58 MB)This week we talked about how collaboration and being connected has changed our teaching practice. We looked at how we use Twitter to reach out to our PLN for feedback, advice, support and ideas. John Fladd joined Maria and Lisa to share his thoughts on the topic. Sheila will be back next week.
On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, Alicia Blair, a science teacher who lives near the beach in Mississippi, asked us to think of her the next time we pump gasoline into a gas-guzzling automobile. Later in the show her heart went out to an art teacher, April Estep, who lives 20 minutes from the site of Massey Energy's Upper Big Branch mining disaster. Casey Daugherty, a co-director of the Ozarks Writing Project, observed, "We'll think of April every time we switch the lights on."
Sandwiched between these ongoing conversations about how to respond to the BP oil spill and similar disasters such as the Big Branch disaster, we talked about how to raise teacher voice and how to push out audio and video on social networks like Twitter.
This summer our guests brought twitter and social networking to and from their local Invitational Summer Institutes of the National Writing Project. Paul Oh leads us in this discussion of how the face-to-face, intense summer work widens when social networks become part of the mix.
Our guests on this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers were:
Writing Project teachers have found Twitter to be a serious learning tool. Many sites across the country integrated Twitter into their summer institutes this summer, and teachers have built "personal learning networks"—groups of people who casually join together to communicate and collaborate on common topics—where they discuss serious educational issues.
Story behind the image:
As an ornithologist’s son, watercolor artist Paul Jackson grew up spending Christmases in the park ranger’s cabin on Horn Island, Miss. Over several weeks, he turned his outrage into “Fowl Language,” in which a least tern, stilt, egret, cormorant and other Gulf birds sit atop a dropping-streaked BP sign as an oil rig smokes in the background.
He posted a photo of the painting on his Web site while the paper was still damp. Within two hours, it was selling as a T-shirt on the art-sale Web site Zazzle.com.
The Columbia, Mo., painter has since created his own site, “Art vs. Oil Spill.” About 100 artists from as far away as India and Malaysia have offered works, with all proceeds going to nonprofit groups working to clean up the oil or oiled animals.
Social Media, Construction and 5th and 6th Grade Tech
arvind discusses Hewitt School's venture into Facebook and Twitter. Vinnie discusses the construction project that his school is diving into. Alex discusses teaching 5th and 6th grade Tech Classes in the fall. We wrapped with some conversation about Google and its recent upgrades.
21st Century Learning #128
April 13, 2010
David Bill from TEDxNYED
David Bill, Curator of TEDxNYED joined us to discuss the almost posted videos from TEDxNYED and how he hopes to continue the conversation about change in education.
On this week’s Teachers Teaching Teachers, we had some follow-up’s, and some room for new voices. Paul Allison invited several of his students from the East-West School of International Studies in Flushing, NY onto the show to explain more about gaming. These students were listening and in the chat room on TTT#181 the week before when we talked about gaming in schools with other teachers, researchers, and consultants. The student had asked for a student-centered follow up. Listen to find out where gaming is in their lives.
And stay tuned every Wednesday evening this Spring as Paul and Susan Ettenheim and other students learn about bringing gaming into their curriculum this coming semester. If you know of a gamer, please invite him or her to join us as well! We’d love to include other students via Skype!
I haven’t scrapped that platform yet, but I decided to try to use Twitter for self-directed learning first. It is so much more nimble of a platform, I figured it would allow for a more fluid discussion and more immediate feedback and clarification.I saw that you have a youthvoices account on twitter and I just started following it. My kids are almost ready to start tweeting out their questions and connecting to other kids as part of this “KidSourcing” project. My kids are 6th graders, but I have invited any classes in the ballpark to connect with my kids. We are connecting to kids in Tanzania (http://epicchangeblog.org/2009/10/21/the-twitterkids-of-tanzania/) and I am working out the involvement with schools in Peru, Brazil, China and a couple here in the old U.S. of A. I don’t know how neatly our project meshes with what you are trying to accomplish with Youth Voices, but I figured I would reach out and gauge your interest in connecting.Here is the basic outline for the project: The idea is to have kids search for answers from the crowd of kids with no help from the adults (aside from monitoring and guiding offline).
The idea is to seek answers to “why” questions as opposed to “What” questions. For example, a question that a kid can simply Google like “when did the civil war start?” is a bad one, but a question like “WHY did the civil war start?” is a good one. Questions that start discussions, lead to independent research and sharing links fit the bill. The idea would be to keep it loose and low impact- not a heavily dependent collaboration. I will probably tell my kids to post a new question each week and I will probably give them an arbitrary number of questions from other kids to help answer.
For the first month we will work in depth on the project, then I hope to make it part of the routine when they come to the lab, meaning they login and check twitter for 5-10 minutes before we launch into whatever other projects we are doing at the time. video and self-directed learning via youtube.I haven’t scrapped that platform yet, but I decided to try to use Twitter for self-directed learning first. It is so much more nimble of a platform, I figured it would allow for a more fluid discussion and more immediate feedback and clarification.I saw that you have a Youth Voices account on twitter and I just started following it. My kids are almost ready to start tweeting out their questions and connecting to other kids as part of this “KidSourcing” project. My kids are 6th graders, but I have invited any classes in the ballpark to connect with my kids. We are connecting to kids in Tanzania (http://epicchangeblog.org/2009/10/21/the-twitterkids-of-tanzania/) and I am working out the involvement with schools in Peru, Brazil, China and a couple here in the old U.S. of A. I don’t know how neatly our project meshes with what you are trying to accomplish with youthvoices, but I figured I would reach out and gauge your interest in connecting.
Click Read more to see a transcript of a chat that was happening during the webcast.
21st Century Learning #102
Checking in with arvind, Alex and Vinnie
April 23, 2009
arvind, Alex and Vinnie chat about what's going on at their schools; what the rest of the year looks like; and plans for the summer and next school year.
5:19 minutes (2.44 MB)This week consisted primarily of tunes from Derek K. Miller of Penmachine and the ramblings of your host. I talk a bit about what's going to be on upcoming shows, the TLt Summit in Saskatoon, as well as a photo from a Flickr project that I'm involved in.
Another in our series of virtual staff lounges here at EdTechTalk. This week I'm joined by Jennifer Wagner, Brad Hicks and James Sigler for a discussion about web-based projects and how technology is and can be used in the classroom and for professional development.
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