From the ‘ICT in my Classroom’ blog (Web Link).

Another example of early school use of technology to enhance their learning. In this examples it’s science – specifically looking at how day length varies across the UK and the differences around the world.

Google Earth was used to illustrate the movement of the Earth’s shadow.

Google Docs added a collaborative element in which the students worked in pairs on the same document. Google Docs saves changes instantly and can be shared. In this case it was shared with the rest of the class through the tutor’s laptop being linked to the SMARTBoard and each students laptop.

Twitter, and this is very interesting, was to get real data from real people. Without going into detail Twitter is a microblogging tool through which people send small updates (called tweets). Tom asked his network of peers to send in their locations for the class to work out the day length for and allow contrasts with their onw. And this was the highlight of the session – real data, from real people in real locations, “Purposeful challenges from real people. It provided the whole class an opportunity to think, if only for a few minutes, as global citizens.”

Tom states “it was an great hour or so and I believe the tools we chose to use to support our learning were the correct ones. I was of course pleased to see the children engaging with Google Docs so effortlessly, it is just part of what we do now.”, (and remember these are primary school aged kids).

Can anyone think as to how these technologies might be used within the HE environment?

Darren Rowse lists 9 Benefits of Twitter for Bloggers. He started off using Twitter to: improve the quality of his blogs * network with other bloggers *widen his readership * grow his profile and drive traffic to his blogs.

He lists 9 benefits, most of which are marketing oriented but nevertheless can be extended to the educational context. They include: research tool; reinforcing your personal brand; promoting content; extending readership; networking; preview content; speed linking; story gathering and finding out what people really think. Taking a look at those most relevant to education:

Research Tool: echoing Tom Barrett’s observation (see previous post) you can ask your network of followers to provide examples, answers to difficult questions or for a straw poll on ideas. As an example Darren posted a question to his network and received 30 responses within 10 minutes. This is linked to another benefit, previewing blog content, in which draft blog posts are placed on the network for comment and suggestions.

Networking and the creation of community: again academhack refers to this in first post in this series. The emphasis is that twitter allows you to electronically network on a more intimate level. It build up a certain level of camaraderie similar to that experienced when you spend 3 or 4 days with someone at a conference.

Find out what people really think: this is interesting Darren observes that “that people have a certain level of honesty and rawness on Twitter that they sometimes mask or hide on their blogs”. He reckons this is down to the 140 characters limit which forces them “to strip away some of the politically correct language and just say what they mean”. So you get a sense of what people are really thinking on a topic.

Reflection: the very excellent Educausehave produced 7 Things you should know about Twitter. This is a very good introduction for first timers detailing possible applications and downsides. The main benefit again relates to using Twitter to encouraging students to engage in metacognition exercises in which they reflect and exchange thoughts about a topic. Obviously group blogging and wikis can be used for a similar exercises however again the character limit forces the user to be brief and to the point which as Educause points out is “an important skill in thinking clearly and communicating effectively”. Additionally Twitter can be used by attendees at a con¬ference to share thoughts about particular sessions with others at the event and those unable to attend.

Library use: Stephen Francoeur cites examples of library use, Reference services and Twitters, in which he suggest that libraries could use a Twitter address allowing people to “follow” and “learn about events, new books, and other announcements. Twitter could also be used to announce responses to library user questions, which might be answered in greater length on a linked webpage.” A couple of more library examples can be found at: Twitter Update or how I was able to exploit the latest social networking site without really trying and Twitter and the Missouri River Regional Library.

AND FINALLY the Twitteracy Project: recommended reading is Damian Bariexca’s blog post, The Twitteracy Project is Dead, Long Live the Twitteracy Project, which presents a very honest case study on his use of Twitter. It seems that despite the benefits on offer there are two major challenges: one, the technology and two, student intrinsic motivation.

You can follow me at Twitter by going here and look for “drandyoliver”.

The updates are also placed on a wiki so that you can view the story so far. After the 140th entry the story will be collectively edited before being publishing as a small book.

You can read details of Tom’s participation here.

Exploration: Another interesting use is also provided by Tom (sent in response to a question I sent out on the Twitter network “Could twitter be used for teaching and learning?” – thanks Tom). GeoTweets – Inviting your network into the classroom” describes an exercise involving Google Earth. Avoiding a simple show and tell exercise Tom asked his Twitter network to provide clues (via tweets) as to their geographical location. Tom’s class were then required to find them using the scraps of information. A helpful hint list is also provided, I like this one: “if you think your network isn’t quite at that tipping point where it will give live results, then you can prep it before hand and ask for specific responses a couple of days before. Ask others to pass on the request to their network – spread the word a bit.”

Group Work: Another school-based example (schools… HE please take note) is described by Clarence Fisher. “Twitter in the Classroom” looks at a possible assignment involving small groups of students using twitter to support project work. Essentially each member of the group will have a twitter account and each member will then “simply pull the RSS feeds of those people in their network (five? six? kids working on the same topic) into their iGoogle homepagest. This would allow them to stay in touch with each other and also give them a tool to ask questions of those who they are working with, post suggestions, share resources, etc.” Clarence obviously points out that the signal vs noise ratio might be an issue together with the group being small in size leading in turn to small benefits. But he ends positively “I also know that my own network is sometimes used for serious learning, and other times to cajole, laugh, and make general contact with each other. We are human. That is our reality. Their network will be the same.”.

Final part tomorrow.

Anyway during the course of writing and summarising the post has developed in length and I’m still not finished so I’m going to split it up.

From academHack, (Twitter for Academia). Not so much ways in which Twitter can be used but a great summary of its effects. I like this because Twitter has been used to support classroom conversation and dialogue:

Class Chatter: conversations continued inside and outside of class. I like the observation that often the conversations were tangentially related to class subjects as certain topics reminded the students about the subjects covered in class. In this manner Twitter served as “a reinforcement/connection between the material and the “real world.””
Classroom Community: Twitter allowed the students to develop ”a sense of each other as people beyond the classroom space”. This leads to more productive classroom conversations as students knew more about each other, their backgrounds, their views etc.

Get a Sense of the World: The Public Timeline (where all Twitter public messages are posted). Provide students with “a sense of how varied are the things people are doing around the globe.”

Alerts: From Doug Belshaw’s blog. “Using Twitter with your students” concentrates on secondary education. He suggests using the SMS functionality to send alerts on deadlines, trips etc to student mobile phones. This is useful if you don’t know the student’s email. An LMS might remove the necessity for this however many schools do not have the resources to afford one so this is a useful alternative.

Research questions: You can select who you ‘follow’ in Twitter and they in turn can follow your updates. This can lead to the creation of a community as the number of followers grow which is quite handy for when you need to ask for advice on problems, resources etc. Tom Barrett provides a useful account (Is there a doctor on board? Twitter as part of your Personal Learning Network) on how Twitter can help you solve problems / answer questions by connecting you to a community of like-minded individuals, who can provide instant feedback and suggestions in response to queries or problems (his example involved drafting a survey and he needed insightful questions). Interestingly he advises that it takes time for your network to grow, you have to be patient and wait until if reaches a sufficient cluster size before you can get any responses to your questions. This is something that will come to dominate future e-learning as managed learning environments accommodate more social networking elements. A good post which emphasises the importance of communities, in terms of being part of a person’s learning, in education.

More to follow…

Twitter again. It seems to becoming quite popular. For info Twitter is a social networking (aka micro-blogging) service that allows users to send “updates” (text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service or instant messaging. The act of doing this is called ‘Twittering’ and when you receive an update you have been ‘twittered’.

Users can sign up to receive updates from a particular user and receive updates via the Twitter website, instant messaging, SMS, RSS, email or through an application.

But the big thing is that it means we can use twitter to communicate to and between students using their mobile phones (although there is a cost of course).

So you can see / receive updates from a particularly person as they go about their business. From this perspective I couldn’t see any application for education. However Vicki Davis proposed an interesting use of book reviews citing the character limitation in the updates as being a benefit in terms of forcing he sender to rationalise their thoughts etc. (I blogged about this earlier this month).

Anyway I’ve comes across some more suggestions for use courtesy of academHack. Interestingly the list starts with a preface in which the author echoes my own perceptions in that Twitter reduces conversation to mere sound-bites often self-centered statements. Anyway the author has since investigated further: (I’ve not listed them all click here).

#Class Chatter: Keep track of conversations which start inside the class and extend outside of it. The author is keen to state that ‘Most of these conversations were not directly related to class material, but many were tangentially related.’ In other words as the students engage in their outside lives something they do may trigger a recall of class material and this gets sent (twittered) to fellow class members. And as the author states :” This served as a reinforcement/connection between the material and the “real world.”
#Classroom Community: Twittering brings the students closer together helping them know each other, their lives, where they are coming from and in doing enables the classroom conversation mentioned previously.
#Track a Word: Twitter allows you to track words so that you receive an update every time that word is used in a post. “So, for example a student could be interested in how a particular word is used. They can track the word, and see the varied phrases in which people use it. “
#Instant Feedback: Good for receiving instant feedback but also as the author suggests for asking questions. The tutor for insatnce could ask the class about certain references. “Students can also use this when doing their classwork, trying to understand the material. Tweet: “I don’t understand what this reading has to do with New Media? any ideas?” Other students then respond. (This actually happened recently in a class of mine.)”
#Follow a Professional: You can ‘follow’ someone as they record their activity throughout the day. Students could keep track of professionals working in their future career area, (health professions, jounralists for instance). The author provides an example: “NewMediaJim who works for NBC and Tweets about being on Airforce One, covering the Middle East etc. …He is followed by over 2,500 people at this point.
#Other suggestions include using Twitter for sharing inspiration, “thoughts that just popped into your head. Not only are they recorded, because you can go back and look at them, but you can also get inspiration from others. This is really useful for any “creative” based class.” And writing assignments in which one person would start a story, the next person would continue it, etc. . .
A great post in all and food for thought. Anyone have additional suggestions?

The list can be found here.

The sender can restrict delivery of the updates to specific individuals and so can be used for group contact (delivery to everyone is the default). The updates can be received via the Twitter website, instant messaging, SMS, RSS or email. So the system is very mobile.

Essentially Twitters works though someone sending you updates about he or she is up to at the moment and as such a has been likened to micro-blogging. Ideally it is well suited to those who have a hectic lifestyle which involves travel and yet would prefer or need to stay in contacts with others, feeding back their movements etc.

I’m in minds however and knowing what a person is up to in detail isn’t a major issue on my people. Some educators have mentioned it may have an educational application however but I’ve found very few examples.

Vicki A. Davis in her blog outlines an interesting use monthly book club discussion. Vicki has set up wiki page to enable interested parties to create a rubric for the way in which a Twitter-based BOOK GROUP might operate. there’s some interesting rules which could provide a basis for future Twitter based projects. Some of the benefits of using Twitter are outlined:

# Being able to effectively synopsis your thoughts in 140 characters requires higher order thinking, (A GOOD one this. Way too many people are guilty of text dense posting – myself included)
# It is is more inclusive of those with lower bandwidth capabilities or do not have computers (they can use cell phones)
# Contributions can be made “on the go” (via cell phone)
# It would potentially allow a greater number of people to participate
# It could encourage participants to read off line.

the cell phone aspects bring in a nice mobile element to the exercise. More detail can be found on her wiki. Can anyone think of any other applications to which Twitter might be applied?

Have a look Twitter and decide for yourself: Twitter , Twitter entry in Wikipedia

And here’s Twitter on CSI.

As Mark Oehlert here “part of me feels like I’m watching the pulse of the Web…”.

Basically what we have here is an animated mashup of Google earth and blogging technology (Twittervision) and Flickr photos (Flickrvision).

Twittervision shows real-time geographic visualization of blog entries on a social network. The map constantly moves to the location of the most recent blog entry. You can create a Twitter account and restrict updates from selected individuals (good for corporations on a world wide basis). Flickrvision (seen below) is essentially a tweak on Twittervision in which it uses geolocated Flickr photos and again the map moves directly to the location of the most recent photo.

And uses? You really could waste a lot of time simply watching it. I cant help wondering however as to how this would look on a more local level. Hertfordshire? Hatfield? UH students? From a sociological point of view it would be really interesting to see what students exchange using this medium.