Why I Love Twitter (Tweet #7000)

I love getting to collaborate with these people (and others). They teach me new things, challenge my thinking, and even make me laugh. Thanks for making social media awesome for me!

https://twitter.com/theipodteacher	https://twitter.com/LLacrosse
https://twitter.com/sig225	https://twitter.com/jaymelinton
https://twitter.com/edrethink	https://twitter.com/mdroush
https://twitter.com/allthejenkins	https://twitter.com/MrCsays
https://twitter.com/MrMacRaild	https://twitter.com/mrsbothk

Aside from one dinner at Jimmy John's in Deerfield, OH, I've not met any of these people face to face, but they have been instrumental in my leap into the 21st Century.  Thank you!

#edtechex Reboot

It finally happened.  After trying to get other people involved in #edtechex, I finally had someone else post my blog on it. Nicely done, Leah.  I just about gave up!

As you can see in the conversation above, we're trying to breathe new life into #edtechex. 

Here's the basic plan.

1.  Blog a great example of educational technology use.

2.  Tweet it out, and use the hashtag #edtechex.

3.  OR... Pull a Leah move and tweet someone else's example on #edtechex.
4.  Spread the #edtechex love by sharing the hashtag with another awesome teacher.

I would love to start up a regular Tweetchat time where we can share things we've done and things we're learning.   Obviously, with summer coming, schedules will change and our focus will be elsewhere, but it's still good to gather ideas throughout those crazy hot months.

For the month of May, we will gather at #edtechex 11:30 till 12:30 (Eastern time) on Mondays -- excluding Memorial Day, of course.  Once we hit June, we'll try to come up with another time.

See you there!

What Makes A Techie Teacher Techie?

I am planning middle school and high school courses for next year and working off the GenYES model for student/teacher collaboration. It is my hope to save a few bucks and not have to purchase the GenYES materials.  Instead we'll create the course on our own.  

The basic mindset is that today's youth is more tech-savvy than adults.  Yes, that's a broad sweeping generalization, but there is some truth to back those words up.  We will spend the first month or so arming students with knowledge about a number of typical teacher needs.  Then, the rest of the semester would be students helping teachers solve problems, create projects, and take steps toward tech-integration awesomeness.  

In order to get this done, I need to think of the end-product.  

• The faculty will increase in technical confidence.
• The student will collaborate with a teacher to create a technical project.

What should these projects be?  What are skills that a 14 year old can quickly pick up and pass along to a 44 year old? 

So, that leads me back to the title.  What makes a techie teacher techie?

Think through your day.  What tools do you use? What sites and apps do you use?  What are you doing differently now that you didn't do 5 years ago? What are some simple things you wish your colleagues would do but don't?

I would appreciate any help you can give me, and in return I'll share it all back with you. 

eTech: Collaboration #oetc13

I'm much more extroverted online than I am in real person, as I hinted in my digital footprint post.  I found that one of the best aspects of being at a conference is being involved in Twitter during the conference.  I used the hashtag #oetc13 and tried to use the unconference hashtag #oetcx once or twice (but realized I spelled it wrong).  I'm still trying to get a grasp on what an unconference is, but that's a different thought for another time.

This was beneficial to me for a few reasons.

1. It gave me a whole new group of people to follow.  If I liked what you said, I clicked the FOLLOW button.  That way I can keep track of your thoughts, ideas, and lessons in the future.
2. Multitasking is not necessarily efficient, but helpful.  While I was sitting in a session and tweeting about it, I was reading other people's thoughts.  It was as if I was sitting in two or three rooms at once.  In fact, here is a whole list of things I picked up on from other people. 
3. It made those boring and useless sessions less of a waste of time. When I felt that I wasn't learning anything in a session, I could tune out the speaker and pay attention to Twitter.
4. I could ask a question and get an answer from someone who was in a session about that.  I was able to get answers about Minecraft in schools and math apps for high school this way. 

These connections took me further than the people at the conference.  I am now connected with the teachers from the real classroom session through Twitter, and sharing ideas through blogs.  I also blew off one session (I was super late due to slow breakfast service) because I got an email from a Kindergarten teacher who is helping me forge my way through the primary classes. I read her email on the escalator and knew that the ideas she just fed me would help me succeed as a Kindergarten teacher and I needed to work on that idea.

What I'm driving at is this.  Teachers can become better by expanding their network. We no longer have to resort to reading a text book to get great ideas.  They are all around us.  By joining in the Twitter and blog conversation, I have more access to information, support, and encouragement than ever before.  

So, the next time you go to a conference, join in the conversation on Twitter and see how much more you can learn!

Claco

If had been smarter, I could have been involved from the the very beginning.  But I chose to sit and watch instead.  Last spring, Eric Simons reached out to me to ask me about teacher collaboration.  I answered a few questions and let him do his thing.  Maybe I didn't understand what he was trying to do. Maybe I was too busy trying not to drown in the end of the year festivities.  At any rate, I didn't get involved till just recently.

Back in the spring, it was Classroom Connect.  Now, the name has been shortened to Claco, but the concept remains the same: Give the teachers a chance to collaborate and learn from each other.  Sure, we can do that in a variety of methods, but here is a centralized location where we can all meet and swap ideas. Think of it as the teachers' lounge, but without the fattening pumpkin bread and stale coffee.  I'll leave it to other people to expound on the founding of the web site.  Instead, I'll focus on my use of it the last few days. 

Claco is still in its beta format, but I was fortunate enough to start up this fall.  I spent the last couple days sick at home and was finally able to take the time to sit down and look at the genius of this site.

I've never been on Pinterest, but from what I've heard of that crafting idea site, Claco has a similar feel. You post ideas or sites that work for you on your personal page.  However, that page is visible to all others on the site.  Your online colleagues have the chance to come along and find your posts and "snap" them to their page as well.  

So far, I'm using this site as a chance to organize myself.  If I find a site I like, I bookmark it and move on.  I may or may  not come back to it later, but when I try to find a bookmarked site, I have to wade through a ton of stuff to find it.  "What was THAT site for?"  After an hour or two of work, my bookmarks are now cleared out.  I'm using Claco to hold them for me. 

Next, I'm going through and posting iPad apps that work for my classroom.  This will help me decide which ones are really worthy of sharing with the public.   I'm also rooting through my Google Docs finding lessons and activities that I've done.  

Obviously, I blog because I want to share what I'm learning with the larger community.  Claco is going to help me keep do that in a more organized fashion.  If you want to see what I'm doing in math class, you may find it on this blog, but it will take some searching.  Claco will make it easier for you to steal... I mean, borrow.. from me. 

I'm having fun with this.  Since I can create portfolios on any topic I want, I'm not just doing my content areas, but I've also included Common Core, Educational Technology, Social Media, Apps I Use, and plan to add a Bio portfolio.  In addition to useful web sites and Google Docs, I can also direct you to people who have influenced me and helped me in my learning journey.

And I haven't even started visiting other people's pages to see what I can learn from them!  I envision myself sitting at my desk one Friday trying to come up with a lesson idea, skipping over to Claco and a digital colleague to find the perfect tool to help me teach that hard to learn lesson. And I don't think I need to tell that this is a very good thing.

So, I suggest you visit Claco, sign up for the beta program, subscribe to my portfolio, and start organizing your content and collaborating with us! While you're there, zip me a message and say hi!