Twitter! Why Not?

photo © 2010 Steve Garfield | more info (via: Wylio)
When I mention to others around me that Twitter is great for teachers they say, "No way!" and to some extent I can understand that.  We already have very busy lives, get caught up in Twitter and there goes more time.  I held out against Twitter for quite awhile.  Turned a deaf ear.

However in January when I participated in the Edublogs Teacher Blogging Challenge I decided to dip my tootsies in.  It wasn't that bad!  Actually it was very good. A Twitter user only uses it as it suits them.  You might just follow others and pick up ideas.  That's one thing I do, I now have a number of people I follow who share great websites and ideas.  I test the ones I like the sound of.  Sometimes I click further onto the web site they are sharing.  Imagine my surprise today when I clicked on a website and found a face staring up at me that I knew. I couldn't believe my eyes.  I had taught with this Principal back in the days when he was a Deputy Principal at our school and I have a lot of respect for him.  So now I have the link to his blog on my blogroll.

One of the reasons I followed the link was because I follow mainly Australian and American educationalists.  They are great, yet I need a little more New Zealand in my diet, for the very reasons that TraintheTeacher shares.

Occasionally I share my own comments and thoughts on Twitter.  Not often, I am still getting used to it.  I occasionally retweet. Tweeting is like mini blogging.  Ideas are shared very succinctly.  You call in when you have time.  Learn a little more about it when you have time.  At present I am learning about #tags.  I haven't got into any of the'live' chats because the overseas ones are on at a time when I am working or asleep.  If you read this and have ideas on any good New Zealand Twitter people to follow let me know.  Maybe if I Twitter about it I may get a response as well.

If you are not a Twitter user I encourage you to try it.  Just small.  Don't even tell others you are trying it. Find a few people to follow.  See who they follow. Follow them. Start here and read Kathleen Morris' post about Twitter.

I Deleted my PLN!

photo © 2009 Sarah | more info (via: Wylio)
With one swipe of my finger (accidental you understand) I deleted a number of blogs that I follow.  These blogs I discovered while doing the Teacher Blogging Challenge earlier in the year.  All I intended to do was some tidying up, as I begin a new challenge about PLN's.  Memo to self, do not use my ipad2 to work on my blog. I can end up doing something I don't want!!

However it isn't as bad as it seems. You see I have other links to a number of these educators.  I have some of them in my Google Reader, where I quickly can see there latest posts.  On my iGoogle home page I have some more.  And my final port of call will be Twitter.  Well, actually there is one more.  I can go to the Edublogs Teacher Challenges and pick up some there.  So all is not lost.  I can probably restore the ones I want to keep over the weekend.  However one swipe of my finger on the ipad2 will take a little more time restoring on my laptop.

I want to continue developing my PLN.  I like the idea of small is good.  I find if I get too large I can't interact.  How does  a busy teacher get the time to follow what's happening on Twitter?  There is so much excellent material being shared.  I think this is a place I need to work on.  I still haven't got a handle on the hashtags so that needs to be mastered.  I don't use Tweetdeck and I am not sure that it would be of extra value to me.  However I am prepared to be open about that.  I don't use a mobile phone much. However soon I will need to upgrade because I have quite an old phone.  I am thinking maybe wait to the iphone5 comes out. That may keep me more connected.

I enjoy learning from teachers around the globe.  I can learn things that otherwise may never cross my path. I am a person who gets easily lulled to a state of boredom attending professional development that is not engaging for me.  Yes I do attend engaging PD as well, but not all the time.  What I like about a PLN is that I can engage with the ideas and learning that are relevant to me at the time. I may not know I want to learn about it until I see someone share about it.  I love that I don't have to 'leave home' to do it.  No travel!  Now that's a bonus.  I am presented with a lot of quality information, guidance, and good practice.  It makes me want to strive to lift my teaching practice, it opens up doors and possibilities.  Through the blogging challenge I began to keep an eye out for webinars that might give me new ways of seeing things.

So, blogging, Twitter, Google reader and iGoogle have been my main ways of developing my PLN.  I look forward to this challenge as a way of becoming more active within it.  I need to be realistic.  I only have a little time and so I want to build the most effective PLN for me.  I am also aware that I need to make time to contribute as well as learn.

Attribution:
Image from the Daring Librarian.
Image: 'PLN_DimSum' 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/43666171@N07/4806404770

Bullying in Schools.

photo © 2008 Pimkie | more info (via: Wylio)
Last week the issue of Bullying seemed to stand up and confront me.  A parent came to me to report an issue of bullying that her child had come to her with.  That day Mrs S online asked for comments for a post on bullying that a student of hers had posted.  At a Board meeting last week we read a letter by Anne Tolley our Minister for Education about bullying.  On Friday I began investigating a bullying incident.  Then on Friday evening I caught the end of an interview with a very articulate 13 year old on Close up. How proud she can be of herself.  How proud her parents and teachers must be. The interview is worth watching, and you can link to it from here.  It is Number 3 on the line up.

As I began to think about the issue of bullying that I am dealing with at present, I thought of the very serious incidents that have been bought to our attention in New Zealand schools.  Surely it is an issue that needs to be addressed.  It is easy to pay lip service to it.  Why do schools do that?  I personally think it is because they actually don't know how to handle it.  We are educators, and like it or not, we need to educate our students to deal with bullying behaviour, whether they are the bully or the one bullied.

Schools of course can't do it by themselves.  They need the support of parents, and sometimes services such as counsellors and youth aid officers.  They need to support those bullied, help them to cope and take steps to prevent bullying happening to them.  The school has to take steps as well to keep students safe.  Schools also need to support the bully, letting them know they are accepted but their behaviour is not acceptable.  This all sounds reasonably straightforward but of course issues like this are rarely straightforward.  As I deal with the specific issue confronting me at present, I ask myself how do I best deal with this?  How can I help get change in this situation?

Their often is a strange code of silence around bullying.  The bullied of course often remains silent.  What concerns me is that often others who witness the bullying do not stand up for this person, and I am coming to believe these people need to be awakened and faced with how they need to respond.  Be they students or Principals and senior staff of schools.  Giving lip service to the issue of bullying is not enough.  Bullying is violence, be it verbal or physical.

Some websites that deal with bullying are:
Stop Bullying.
Bullying Prevention at the elementary level.
Bullying No Way an Australian resource.
No Bully.  Resource from NZ police.
What's Bullying.

How do you deal with bullying in your school.  What in your opinion is successful when it comes to dealing with this issue?

Loving My Ipad2

photo © 2011 inUse Consulting | more info (via: Wylio)
Yes I am just loving the iPad2.  It is a personal item, so thus far I have refrained from taking it to school.  Well I did take it once.  I have a student in my class, an eleven year old who is in the earlier stages of learning to read.  I encouraged her by saying when she had a number of ticks  for chunking through words, using the sounds and not making big, fat guesses, I would reward her with a story on my iPad.  She worked hard and I gave her my iPad and she followed the story of Cinderella.  Of course I sat along side her guarding my precious piece of hardware!  The Cinderella app was not a fantastic app but we enjoyed the story and I already have another app waiting there for her when we make another page of ticks for meeting her goal.  She is buying into it. I love it, because of course as a teacher I have a hidden motive. It passes more text past her eyes!

I love the way I can sit in my armchair, open the cover and there it is.  No slow waiting for it to boot up.  I barely got the cover off tonight when it started playing the video I had closed on the night before.  Now there is a problem.  I find my bedtime is getting later as I explore blogs, twitter etc on the iPad.

There are a wonderful array of apps to be explored.  Some excellent ones for children.  So far I have ignored games.  Evidently Angry Birds is the in game!  Where do people find the time?

As I read student blogs, it is easy to leave comments.  I have tried writing a post on Edublogs with it.  Didn't work but a plea for help to Sue Waters solved the problem.  Write in the HTML tab and works perfectly.  However probably the laptop is a lot easier for writing posts.

Watching videos on the iPad2 is a dream.  What am I watching?  Well, actually videos on phones!!!!!  Yes I have decided now I want to buy a phone that will work for me in the classroom.  After participating in a webinar on Tech Talk Tuesday, presented this week by Richard Lambert, I tracked down his blog.  There he talks about the use of phones in classrooms.  I'm sold!!  I can't justify an iphone. Yes, I'd love one.  However I splurged on the iPad2, so that's enough.

photo © 2010 George Kelly | more info (via: Wylio)
So android phones are my area of research at present.  I have decided it willl be either a Motorola flip out, or a Motorola Milestone.  I want something with a keyboard, (note-taking), a reasonable camera and video, a good internet processor.  These two fit the criteria.

And while I was attending the webinar, the topic was digital storytelling.  Now I am all fired up to go with that. I have ordered his book.  Now.... what gadgets will I need for digital storytelling!!

An Ipad2 Initiation.

Recently I received my Ipad2 that I ordered a few weeks back.  I am not sure if I really needed it, but I did want one!  I already have a Kindle and Kobo ereader and the Kindle3 is a great ereader and I would go no further than it.  So I didn't need the ipad as an ereader.

However in the last year I have started to get The Reading Teacher magazine online and downloading articles as PDFs. I like the idea more, not so many magazines piled up on the bookcase!  I have bought the PDF Pro Reader Editon app and this is perfect for reading these articles, the screen is not too bright and I can highlight etc.  Possibly a little expensive as an app, but now that I have become skilled at using it I don't regret it.  To show how green I am with an ipad I spent about 12 hours wondering how I could enlarge the print.  The penny then dropped and I remembered how to make it larger.  The downside of this, is now I am touching and swiping and expecting my Kindle ereader to act in the same way!  Of course it doesn't!!

A free app that I have downloaded is Flipboard.  That makes blog reading and other favourite places like flipping through a magazine.  Fun.  I have had a go at logging onto Twitter with the ipad.  I found myself a little at sea there, finding myself doing things I just don't want.  My favourite quote has accidentally changed and I have been in danger of retweeting tweets I didn't want to do.

To see what an upmarket magazine looks like on the ipad2 I tried the most recent Austalian Women's Weekly.  Interesting but don't think I will repeat.  It took awhile to download, and while the photos were sharp, there wasn't that much reading really in it for me.

I have noticed the finger marks quickly build up and the dust, even though I do have a cover. However all in all I know that I am going to build up my use of this interesting piece of technology.

As a teacher I will be wanting to know what apps are really good for education.  I hope to be able to use it in class with a link to my projector.  If you read this post and have used the ipad2 in education, please let me know what has worked well (or not!) for you.

Sype with author Rob Buyea - author of 'because of mr terupt'

Over the last number of weeks I have been reading to my class, "because of mr terupt". The story is about some fifth graders and their teacher. A very special teacher. My class and I were enthralled by this book, each time I ended they would groan. I always seemed to end just at a place where we wanted to know what was going to happen! I didn't do that on purpose, I was reading the book for the first time along with the students. The book is written from the viewpoints of  seven students, and it is only when each character's voice is heard that the reader builds up the story. This is just one very clever aspect of this book.

Where did I hear about this book? I live in New Zealand and this book is not published in New Zealand or sold here. This is where the beauty of the internet comes into play. I read about it on The Two Writing Teacher's Blog. That post and its links made me want to read the book. My next decision was would I buy it on Kindle, or as a hold in your hand book. As I know that students often want to read the book for themselves after I have read it to them, I chose the hardback version. Great choice!

Then today we were able to meet Rob Buyea, the author of this outstanding book.  For a whole hour we were able to share with him our thoughts about the book and ask him questions.  It was a magical hour, and a great end to our first term for 2011.  I finished the day on a high. I owe my thanks to the Two Writing Teachers and also a teacher on Goodreads, who said he was open to skyping with classes.

To those of you who have had a skype with an author, I hope you share my excitement in our ability to do so these days, even if they live thousands of miles away, to those of you who haven't, do it, it is a wonderful experience. Hopefully it will switch my students into reading and writing even more than they are already.

Technicalities.
I did have some heart stopping moments as I am sure many of you identify with.  Our internet was working at lower capacity and slower than normal.  After sharing my anxieties with the Principal, we set up with his notebook, which linked with cable, rather than my wireless laptop.  The video reception was not perfect, we could see Rob well although there was some breaking up of the picture from time to time.  I had linked our computer to speakers so there was no trouble with sound!

There was some slight problems with accents.  New Zealanders have a very odd way of saying the short 'e' sound. (Don't tell Australians I said that!).  So we had a few laughs later about that.  However we were delighted. I am still on a high!!

Vocaroo

My class and I visited another New Zealand class blog yesterday.  We listened to an interview that two of the students had done, they used Vocaroo.  This is an extremely easy way to record your voice. I am amazed I haven't seen it on other blogs before this.  So fuss free!