Teachers Teaching Teachers #208 - Wondering about fossil fuel and enjoying the power of twitter in the NWP - 07.07.10

Paul Allison - Mon, 2010-08-02 05:28
Post-Show description: 

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 Fowl Language by Paul Jacksongasoline 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:

Learn more from these folks and others on this recent NWP resource page, Tweeting in the Summer Institute and Beyond:

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.

Artists find ways to protest Gulf spill | Associated Press | The Portland Press Herald / Maine Sunday Telegram

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.


20:55:12 PaulOh: Hi Susan ... fyi ... i'm having a little trouble with Skype
20:55:21 PaulOh: Oh, actually, just got in on my phone.
20:55:24 SusanEttenheim: ok no prob will call you in a few
20:55:44 SusanEttenheim: humm I have to call you into the conference
20:56:01 PaulOh: i think you can do that via my phone
20:56:07 PaulOh: i should now be visible
20:56:33 SusanEttenheim: yup looks good
20:56:37 PaulOh: ok, cool
20:56:45 PaulOh: i'll keep my fingers crossed :)
21:02:05 SusanEttenheim: hi kellylou welcome!
21:02:09 SusanEttenheim: can you hear ok?
21:02:15 Kellylou: Howdy!
21:02:28 SusanEttenheim: can you hear ok?
21:02:30 SusanEttenheim: welcome!
21:02:40 SusanEttenheim: where and what do you teach?
21:02:51 Kellylou: Oh, am I supposed to hear something? O_o
21:02:56 SusanEttenheim: yes -
21:02:57 PaulOh: hi Kellylou
21:03:01 SusanEttenheim: click on the edtechtalk A
21:03:01 Kellylou: I'm in Texas -- 4th grade.
21:03:03 SusanEttenheim: icon
21:03:35 SusanEttenheim: kellylou do you have sound now?
21:03:56 Kellylou: Working on it.  Don't hear ...
21:03:58 Kellylou: oh, yep!
21:04:06 Kellylou: That's me!
21:05:40 stevejmoore: Hello from KC!
21:05:42 April.Estep: yay steve...you found it
21:06:04 ewilkey: GKCWP represent!
21:06:22 stevejmoore: Can you hear my typing now?
21:06:39 stevejmoore: Hi Erin!
21:06:43 ewilkey: Hey Steve!
21:06:48 April.Estep: didn't hear it steve
21:06:52 SusanEttenheim: Hi ewilkey welcome!
21:06:58 SusanEttenheim: where and what do you teach?
21:06:59 ewilkey: Hello!
21:07:04 SusanEttenheim: hi tashi welcome!
21:07:07 SusanEttenheim: hi andrea
21:07:15 Andrea Z: Hi Susan :)
21:07:24 SusanEttenheim: everyone please introduce yourselves - where and what do you teach?
21:07:32 SusanEttenheim: and can you all hear ok?
21:07:37 Andrea Z: Sounds great!
21:07:37 ewilkey: I have been teaching in KC, KS urban high school English
21:07:53 SusanEttenheim: hi aiden welcome
21:08:03 SusanEttenheim: please introduce yourself - where and what do you teach?
21:08:12 SusanEttenheim: thanks andrea
21:08:21 mikeh: i teach grade 7 social studies in central texas
21:08:27 April.Estep: is my typing muted?
21:08:39 SusanEttenheim: welcome ewilkey - have you joined us before?
21:08:43 Andrea Z: I am working with the Masters of Ed Tech program at MSU and as a consultant; former HS English and Biology Teacher,
21:08:44 tashi -> Koreabridge: hi is there james walker?
21:08:47 April.Estep: April...I teach music 7-12 in southern WV
21:08:52 SusanEttenheim: welcome mikeh
21:08:58 Andrea Z: MSU=Michigan State University
21:08:59 ewilkey: I have listened several times, just never been in chat
21:08:59 stevejmoore: Taught last year in Republic, MO teaching HS reading (suburbal/subrural) and am moving to Kansas City's urban core for next year to teach at an alternative school
21:09:09 ewilkey: So excited for you Steve!
21:09:43 SusanEttenheim: great that you're here ewilkey
21:09:50 SusanEttenheim: everyone feel free to join in!
21:10:00 April.Estep: I recognize some of the names here...yay!
21:10:02 ewilkey: I'm Erin--should have logged in as Erin
21:10:03 SusanEttenheim: welcome christina - please introduce yourself!
21:10:45 SusanEttenheim: hi erin welcome back!
21:10:46 caseydaugherty: Hi...I'm finally organizing myself here on this computer. :) Hi, Erin! Hi, Andrea!
21:10:52 Andrea Z: Hi Casey!
21:10:56 SusanEttenheim: welcome to chat casey
21:11:00 ewilkey: Hi Casey!
21:11:03 Andrea Z: I've been enjoying your tweets :)
21:11:07 caseydaugherty: And hi to everyone else. April, so glad to "meet" you. :)
21:11:24 caseydaugherty: And, Steve, of course, miss you!
21:11:34 April.Estep: I'm glad to finally "meet" you too...as well as Steve and Paul :)
21:11:56 SusanEttenheim: wow 4th grade, high school, 7th grade, masters of ed tech, music... what else?
21:11:59 SusanEttenheim: who else?
21:12:15 stevejmoore: I miss you too Casey! :) Sad we're not across the hall any more
21:12:23 SusanEttenheim: and we're from nyc to texas to w virginia to kansas.. I think
21:12:32 SusanEttenheim: ohh and MO
21:12:44 Kellylou: I'm not sure how to mute my typing.
21:13:01 SusanEttenheim: kelly you only need to mute your typing if you are on the skype call :)
21:13:14 Kellylou: ahh!
21:13:26 April.Estep: Is anyone else getting a crackling sound from Paul when he speaks
21:13:26 SusanEttenheim: because we can hear the typing on the broadcast :)
21:13:36 Andrea Z: Yes, Paul is crackly.
21:13:37 SusanEttenheim: there was a little crackling
21:13:37 Kellylou: Yep
21:13:48 April.Estep: Oh, she mentioned the coalmining explosion....that was 20 minutes from me :(
21:14:05 April.Estep: We had some good/sad writing from that
21:14:10 SusanEttenheim: just told him
21:14:15 stevejmoore: I am hearing a crackling too
21:14:17 Kellylou: Oh wow, I bet.
21:15:23 mikeh: hi, sarachristine
21:15:24 SusanEttenheim: welcome sarachristine
21:15:28 sarachristine21: hi
21:15:29 SusanEttenheim: where and what do you teach?
21:15:38 Kellylou: What powerful writing that would be to read.  We talk so often about the economy and longlasting effects for us, but I can't think of many conversations on how this effect the kids living in areas currently effected.
21:15:42 sarachristine21: i teach in springfield, mo 5th grade
21:15:46 sarachristine21: what about you?
21:15:52 caseydaugherty: SARA! Thanks for joining us!
21:16:04 sarachristine21: Oh, Casey, hi!
21:16:19 sarachristine21: I was just in the puentesalmundo room and i left
21:16:44 Andrea Z: Sara, I did that on accident, too :)
21:16:45 caseydaugherty: Welcome, Sara, and thanks for joining us...did you find it from twitter?
21:16:50 April.Estep: If there's anyone here I'm not following on Twitter please let me know so I can add you
21:16:51 sarachristine21: Yes.
21:17:14 sarachristine21: It didn't seem very active.
21:17:52 stevejmoore: Are you SaraCallen91?
21:17:58 sarachristine21: yes
21:18:15 sarachristine21: I can't stay long, but I wanted to see what was going on and what you guys were talking about.
21:18:33 ewilkey: I LOVE the videos and cinchcasts going up on twitter
21:18:42 ewilkey: felt like I am going through the SI again
21:19:11 Kellylou: Yep, I'm eating up all the #nwp chat on twitter, because I just couldn't stand letting go of SI!
21:20:30 SusanEttenheim: welcome aiden!
21:20:36 SusanEttenheim: where and what do you teach?
21:22:11 stevejmoore: I haven't done as much cinch casting in the last two weeks of the SI!
21:22:28 ewilkey: I noticed. Loved what you put up early on!
21:23:39 sarachristine21: What is cinch casting?
21:25:12 SusanEttenheim: yes - what is it?
21:25:18 ewilkey: http://www.cinchcast.com/
21:25:22 sarachristine21: I looked it up and I'm assuming you're not talking about the mount used in jewlery making
21:28:27 Andrea Z: Here are the cinchcasts Steve was sharing from his Summer Institute:
21:28:39 Andrea Z: http://www.cinchcast.com/stevejmoore
21:28:49 sarachristine21: Andrea, what's your twitter name?
21:28:52 SusanEttenheim: thanks andrea!
21:29:11 Kellylou: I've never seen those before!  Very cool!
21:29:34 Andrea Z: @AndreaZellner
21:29:35 Kellylou: (now I want to go cinch cast things)
21:30:57 Paul Allison: we'll be back in a moment -- very hot in NYC!
21:32:23 Andrea Z: I lost my internet for a second there: my notoriously unreliable internet...
21:32:53 SusanEttenheim: glad you're back andrea!
21:33:00 Andrea Z: Me, too.
21:33:02 SusanEttenheim: can you hear ok
21:33:07 Andrea Z: Yep, sounds great.
21:33:15 SusanEttenheim: we lost paul but he'll be back asap
21:33:25 Andrea Z: I'm glad it's not just me!
21:33:37 SusanEttenheim: hi carolyn welcome!
21:33:44 SusanEttenheim: wow it's been a while
21:33:51 SusanEttenheim: glad you're here! how areyou?
21:34:00 Andrea Z: I am loving that SIs are tweeting their institutes.  It's been great for me.
21:34:13 Andrea Z: It makes me feel so connected to the work of NWP.
21:34:57 SusanEttenheim: andrea do you use hash tags?
21:35:07 Andrea Z: I sometimes go a little hashtag crazy.
21:35:29 Andrea Z: Red Cedar's been tweeting a bit from their SI: we have a site twitter account.
21:36:00 Andrea Z: Have you seen the site blastfollow? You enter the hashtag and you can follow everyone using that hashtag.
21:36:14 Andrea Z: So anyone who tagged with #nwp, you could follow on twitter with one click.
21:36:21 Kellylou: I didn't really use hashtags much until I found the #nwp one... and I have benefit so much from that!  I'm learning amazing new things all the time because I have this 24/7 flow of information at my fingertips.  Loving it.  :D
21:36:30 ewilkey: wow. didn't know about that, andrea
21:36:36 stevejmoore: that's awesome!
21:37:02 Kellylou: Nope, but I'm on my way to check it out now.  :)
21:37:11 Andrea Z: www.blastfollow.com
21:37:21 Andrea Z: I can't believe my character's being assasintated in this way!
21:37:23 SusanEttenheim: wow thanks andrea!
21:38:24 Kellylou: woot! 68 new friends now.  Thanks Andrea!
21:38:31 SusanEttenheim: hahahaha kelly
21:38:45 Kellylou: Oh, 67.  It won't let me follow myself.  ;)
21:38:46 Andrea Z: YAY! 
21:38:55 Andrea Z: I followed you back :)
21:39:42 Andrea Z: People have been using hootcourse.com successfully with students.
21:40:08 Andrea Z: It's a third-party social media client: twitter, facebook
21:40:12 SusanEttenheim: hi christina welcome back!
21:40:30 christina: thanks!
21:40:46 ewilkey: another cool resource! thanks, andrea
21:40:52 Kellylou: Ooh, that looks really interesting.  I'll have to read it later.  I was just wondering if anyone was using twitter in the classroom.
21:41:27 ewilkey: if you can get it unblocked! hootsuite is unblocked at my school, but not twitter.
21:41:58 SusanEttenheim: anyone have a favorite twitter app for android?
21:42:13 Andrea Z: I think the thing about using these technologies in the classroom is to find out who does the blocking and make your case: it doesn't always work, but we should advocate for ourselves.
21:43:00 SusanEttenheim: we have found that it's not as hard to get sites unblocked as some think
21:43:05 ewilkey: true. our "blocker person" is pretty good about opening it up. sometimes takes a month or longer
21:43:16 Kellylou: I'm planning to try to get twitter unblocked this year.  We'll see how it goes!
21:43:42 SusanEttenheim: do any of you have school twitter accounts?
21:44:16 Andrea Z: A number of districts in our area are using twitter/facebook feeds to do announcements to the community.
21:44:24 SusanEttenheim: hi sars welcome!
21:44:33 SusanEttenheim: where and what do you teach?
21:44:41 April.Estep: most of the good sites are blocked in our district
21:44:43 ewilkey: I have not used twitter in the classroom. tried out a fb group, but kind of fizzled
21:45:04 April.Estep: and as a school we're horribly behind (I think) when it comes to using social media
21:45:34 Kellylou: That's a neat idea.  I could see tweeting info to parents that way.
21:45:42 April.Estep: Luckily twitter isn't blocked yet... :)
21:45:53 Andrea Z: I think there are mutliple ways to harness social media for different learning/teaching objectives.
21:46:10 Kellylou: I somehow have the lone computer that gets twitter at my school :D
21:46:20 Kellylou: Shh, don't tell.
21:46:26 Andrea Z: I used to ask my kids to get me around the firewall.
21:46:56 Andrea Z: then I learned our tech person would unblock anything I wanted, and I went on the straight and narrow.
21:47:15 ewilkey: my students always have the new bypass codes, though the tech won't share those with teachers...curious
21:49:15 Andrea Z: Kids are smart at getting done what they want to get done.
21:49:38 ewilkey: how else might we use twitter in the classroom? any concrete examples you have done or heard about?
21:50:28 ewilkey: could put hashtag convo up on projector for immediate feedback? discussions in the evenings/homework?
21:50:28 April.Estep: If I could afford a hybrid to carry my kids around in on a teacher's salary I'd be there....
21:50:42 Andrea Z: One of our TCs tweets with his 3rd graders: they collaboratively compose the tweets. @MrWorking
21:50:45 Kellylou: I see a lot of resistance, just from other teachers, about things like FB and twitter -- they think it's a bunch of mindless drivel.  They haven't seen the usefulness of it yet.
21:51:23 Kellylou: Andrea, I'm so glad to hear that! I was thinking how great it could be for younger kids to tweet writing.
21:51:40 Kellylou: In my own class, I want my kids to tweet mentor sentences they find and love.
21:51:56 ewilkey: great ideas
21:52:05 Andrea Z: Kelly, that's a great idea!
21:52:11 Andrea Z: I'm going to pass that one along.
21:52:30 Kellylou: I'm hoping it'll be the way I get it unlocked for us!
21:52:34 Andrea Z: For older kids, they actually tweeted Romeo and Juliet
21:52:38 Kellylou: Oooh
21:52:41 ewilkey: cool
21:52:43 Kellylou: Love it
21:52:51 Andrea Z: The BBC organized it: let me see if I can find the link
21:53:28 Andrea Z: http://www.suchtweetsorrow.com
21:53:48 Andrea Z: On the oil spill, the TEDxOilspill has some great resources.
21:53:56 Kellylou: And considering the conversation that's going on now, how neat would it be to have kids tweet responses to things like the oil spill?
21:54:23 Andrea Z: http://tedxoilspill.com
21:54:29 Andrea Z: They also have a twitter feed.
21:54:34 ewilkey: Ahhhhh! That is so cool andrea!
21:54:41 ewilkey: OMG
21:54:42 Kellylou: Especially if there were a hashtag for other schools tweeting the same things.
21:54:43 ewilkey: excited
21:54:53 Kellylou: Kids talking to other kids across the country about REAL issues.
21:54:57 Andrea Z: @tedxoilspill
21:55:11 Andrea Z: I am glad you are excited, Erin!
21:55:12 Andrea Z: :)
21:55:51 Kellylou: Thanks for sharing these!
21:55:52 ewilkey: making shakespeare fun is always a good thing
21:57:00 Kellylou: Absolutely.  My son had an assignment to make a comic strip about Romeo & Juliet, and used comiclife and pics he found on the internet along with text he typed into the strip to do his assginment...
21:57:10 Kellylou: Then got marked down for not drawing it himself!
21:57:12 Kellylou: Grr!
21:57:26 Andrea Z: Omg.  That's so bizarre, Kelly. How frustrating.
21:57:47 Kellylou: Love the romeo and juliet site! What a great idea.
21:57:50 Andrea Z: It's amazing how much we attempt to condition kids to be so "in the lines" as they say.
21:57:58 ewilkey: what?! sounds like a great project he created
21:58:34 Kellylou: I know.  It kills me.  Let kids use the tools they know to show their learning!
22:01:40 Paul Allison: I seem to have gone off again?
22:04:41 Andrea Z: Susan, I don't know about a student doing it, but check out StVrain's twitter account.
22:04:51 Andrea Z: where bud hunt is... let me find the link
22:05:40 SusanEttenheim: ahh
22:05:48 stevejmoore: You have to follow Bud Hunt, @budtheteacher I think
22:08:06 PaulOh: Hey Susan
22:08:18 PaulOh: got logged out of skype but am back in
22:08:31 PaulOh: no need to dial me back in if we're close to ending
22:09:08 Andrea Z: I can't find the St. Vrain's twitter, but here is their website: stvrain.k12.co.us
22:09:40 SusanEttenheim: paul oh - says  you are not online... hummm??
22:09:55 PaulOh: yeah
22:10:00 PaulOh: just got booted out again
22:10:07 PaulOh: am now back
22:10:19 stevejmoore: Paul should look at Edmodo for a more controlled social media/twitter like service
22:10:58 April.Estep: several of our fellows love edmodo
22:11:36 Andrea Z: I always forget about edmodo: good tip, Steve
22:14:25 ewilkey: nice chat! thanks :)
22:14:39 PaulOh: night everybody!
22:14:40 SusanEttenheim: night all - thanks!
22:14:40 mikeh: Thanks for sharing, everybody!
22:14:51 April.Estep: Thanks guys :)
22:14:55 Andrea Z: thanks! good night!
22:15:17 Kellylou: Bye guys!  Thanks!
22:15:29 stevejmoore: Bye everyone! Great to connect
22:15:51 caseydaugherty: Goodnight!
 

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