My Twitter History

http://twopcharts.com I have been investigating my twitter history and came up with some interesting memories.
My first tweet was sent on 25 Oct 2008. Therefore I have been using twitter for 1,136 days.
The first account I followed was @nzcurriculum. I do not remember why I chose them first. The first account to follow me back was @CherylDoig and it was through her that I began to build up my followers. So far I have not quite broken sending 1000 tweets but I know I have read more than that as I regularly pop on to follow the breadcrumbs of other educators.
When I first began using twitter just over 3 years ago, I was number 16,581893 user. My stats say that I have been on Twitter for 55.07% of its existence. I began by following television stars like @Oprah and also a few preachers as I was interested in how they used this medium to communicate with their followers. I used to follow a few singers. I won’t name them here but you know who I mean. I soon became irritated by the hogging of communication. So now I dump twitters who hog the timeline. Every so often I have a clean out and find out who is not using twitter regularly and they get filed. Sometimes I check out who is following me and usually look for ‘julia’ type profiles that do not fit my educator profile.
I do not know who introduced me to twitter, but I think it was at the time of @BarackObama and his presidential campaign. So it might have been the hype around his use. I witnessed his campaign using twitter and from then on I was hooked. Barack introduced me to the concept of real time technology as I watched the twitter timeline and the live video streaming of his win.

For the first year using twitter was a lonely existence on the ground and yet really exciting up in the twitter cloud. I did not find discussing my use easy, as other educators around me were not ready for this social medium. But what I now find is that I have made some great connection. One of these was hooking up with the efellows. The list of 2011 efellows twitters can be viewed here on https://twitter.com/#!/dragonsinger57/core-efellows-2011.

Great excitement happened when our principal took her initial twitter steps @newmarketschool. The URL had been booked for over a year and then last year she began to follow and then start post and respond to posts. However the greatest enjoyment I have had this year was when three of our teachers began to use twitter. @oprubyslippers, @MissNWalden and @Kyliegeddes.

At this stage I use twitter to amplify some of the exciting learning that happens at Newmarket School. I do this by retweeting and adding users who I know will retweet the message. Every so often I might use it for advertising or to share a link.
But it is the following of breadcrumbs that I enjoy the most. I have learnt so much using twitter and my wikispace http://www.ulimasao.wikispaces.com is the evidence of what I learn.

Where to next, I really need to sort out my list and I will use @justadandak idea of sorting his followers into lists. I already have one list of Pacific Islanders on twitter and I set that up in the early days. What I find is that some of my favourite tweetchers are being buried in the online noise. I hardly see @arti_choke anymore unless I really go searching for her. I am getting better at using @ and # to amplify my tweets. I use my tweets for microblogging and when I am ready, I write a blog entry.

So share with me your twitter history so that I may make links with my own learning about my twitter history.

Keeping track.

One of the changes in my thinking that has taken place over the past few weeks is about online work. I have so many learning sites that it is a challenge to keep track of them all.

One way I do this is to create a list using my wikispace. I do have a delicious account for keeping track of websites however my online spaces have a different purpose. I have two different personas. One persona is as a teacher and online school administrator and the other persona is for personal learning. Sometimes my spaces merge between the two personalities and sometimes I feel that they need to be kept separate. I also want a third online personality for keeping my digital photos and videos tidy and out of my computer. I am struggling not to create another space.

So here is one way I have chosen to show my learning self and that is using http://flavors.me/ulimasao.

I place this link onto twitter. Initially, I added my personal youtube video space and picassa photo folders. However when I was checking out information, I realized that the sites chosen did not match my twitter persona. So I adapted and merged my teacher sites with my personal blog. Even that does not feel correct as I have been channeling our teachers learning onto our school youtube account. A few of the videos are not ones I have created.

The second change in thinking is regarding online writing. Initially I wrote for an audience and was hesitant about publishing. But realize that writing for myself is a more powerful tool This came about with myportfolio work with teachers who do not want anyone reading their work or seeing what they have been doing. I teased them and said good luck getting anyone coming to read your work. Because I know that unless teachers live on social broadcasting sites like twitter or blogger how are they ever going to channel traffic to read their work.

I use blogger and myportfolio for my reflections. Personally I enjoy myportfolio as this is my teacher self shining through. At the same time I like using blogger because the site looks better.

When I reflect using SOLO taxonomy I know that making connections is relational thinking. Therefore I think my blog writing often sits at relational thinking because I use my writing to make connections with my own learning. In order to shift my writing to extended abstract I need to shift to the next level and give feedback on other peoples writing. So in relation to what I have been doing this term with teachers my next steps include encouraging them to blog about their learning and give them written feedback on what they are doing. I also can write about my new learning.

SCPlus Hot Seat- Hyperconnectivity

Date: Monday 15th of August 2011
Venue: National Library of New Zealand
Purpose: To connect online schools face to face. For teachers and children to work collaboratively, for invited guests to network, to launch a New Zealand author on Superclubsplus and to raise global awareness about the International year of forest and birds.

On Monday the 15th of August 5 Auckland schools who have been using Superclubsplus for teaching and learning gathered together to meet face to face. One school joined the session via skype. The five Auckland schools were St Ignatius, Rosebank School, Blockhouse Bay Intermediate and Newmarket School. Raumati came in via skype. Each school has a very different background. Our school Newmarket is an inner city small school.

The children and teachers in these schools have been using Superclubsplus for teaching and learning and how to be safe and respectful online.

Most of the teachers and invited guests involved used twitter to communicate about the upcoming event. The Hot tags chosen were #scplushotseat We also used Titanpad to share information and wikipages to coordinate timetables and a place to keep information together.
For the Hot Seat project, schools were chosen who proved that they have been actively working with their children about using the internet safely. So the teachers and children who came are already active users of Superclubsplus.

The school came together to be involved in an author Hot seat project where we launched a New Zealand illustrator and author onto Superclubsplus. Sandra Morris was in the Hot seat. We chose Sandra as this is the UNESCO International year of Forest and Birds. Sandra’s specialty is New Zealand birds. We used real time technology for learning such as skype, email and forum. We took lots of photos and the children are writing an online article about their experiences.

This link will give you highlights about the schools, teachers and invited quests involved. http://newmarketenviro.wikispaces.com/scp_highlights

Each teacher was given a designated task to do to help ensure the smooth running of the event.

After the event a picassa folder was set up to put in any photos. We look forward to the children’s articles.

Hyperconnect using elluminate

Using elluminate http://www.elluminate.com

Be aware of time difference http://www.timeanddate.com/

I had the most interesting experience on the weekend. @CliveSir on twitter called for people who could help answer some elluminate questions. I put my hand up and before I knew it I was asked to be a moderator for http://reformsymposium.com/

I was co-moderator for @krivett1 as she presented ‘Literacy in the Digital Age’. @mrsdkrebs was the main moderator and I learnt from watching her.

I had been a participant several times during elluminate sessions but when the message came via twitter for helpers for rncons3, I agreed to help to see what it would be like and to find out more about the global free conference. Now the conference itself would be another whole blog. This time I just want to focus on the tool because it was one of my personal goals this year to find out more about elluminate.

Some of the things I learnt about elluminate was:

How do I set up a poll? I still have to work on that.

2x Elluminate windows should not be open- so look at the bottom of the screen. This causes echoing. As a moderator- sign on early and set up your profile so that participants can learn more about you. Add a picture. Communicating on line requires a personal touch.

Always have a map for participants available as it is interesting to see where everyone comes from. It took me a while to figure out how to add a map. One neat idea was having little smiley faces that people could plot onto the map. Get the participants to test that you can be heard. Use the smile to indicate whether you can hear the presenter. Then have participants use chat to inform what the time is, and what the weather is like.

Have a video start to introduce yourself and then switch it off to save bandwidth.

As a mediator, I noticed that more tools show up. I have set up my own room and here is the link. Unfortunately you can have a look and if I am not there nothing will be happening.

https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2011061&password=M.0082D0676989571ACCF2B8F57DA4D3

When you sign on as a participant to an Elluminate session use your twitter name like @vanschaijik. That little gem took me a while to figure out.

When presenting- get the audience to add a smiley, or a hand clap to give a sign of participation. The chat can be quite distracting so if you are presenting focus on sharing. The mediator will be interacting with the participants for you.

Use images and simple phrases- do not use lines of text. Because the audience is hearing only a voice, reading the screen- becomes death by powerpoint. Think of how Lessig presents. Single words and images. I am going to have to redo some presentations. The computer screen can be shared if you want to have a look at some websites, but again band width can be an issue. So upload your presentation to the system and try and have links available on a word document to copy and paste into chat. You can copy and paste URLs onto a working sheet. Hyperlinks and animations do not work.

Remember to thank the moderators after the event.

Get on early and test everything before participants arrive and do not leave. When you exit the room you loose all your slides and have to start again. Room settings cannot be saved.

I have been involved in a few elluminate sessions but tonights by @shellterrell was one of the best. She obviously had presented via Elluminate several times and I learnt heaps from just listening. She spoke about setting 30 goals.

If you want to read about other moderators experiences with elluminate then have a look at Jo Harts blog. http://johart1.edublogs.org/2011/07/17/reform-symposium-presenter-training-overview/

She writes about some of the challenges that can be encountered when being a moderator.

#RSCON3 set up a google doc and had presenters ask questions and Chiew @aClilToClimb proved to be a mine of information. Here is the list of questions and answers that were helpful. https://docs.google.com/document/d/11ysUifJoANnf1ELq9UeFPeEZ6QYJM3XHoNpcTEpoKeo/edit?hl=en_GB&pli=1

Chiew took the questions and answers and created this self help document. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hREOuQBdusNamC0_pR2vq_TpUNL7_KSbDGWeUKM4bos/edit?hl=en_US&pli=1

Finally if you want to have a play and create your own space. Then here is the link to create your room with 3 participants and no recording facilities. You can pay for the upgraded version and more participants. http://www.learncentral.org/

efellow 2011