To tweet or not to tweet? Part 2 In my last blog I discussed the increasing conflict between the long established listen and learn styles of presenting and the ever increasing use of mobile devices by participants during talks. In the first part of my blog I looked at how listeners can ensure these devices don’t disrupt their learning experience. This week we come to the bit everybody has been waiting for. How can presenters ensure they get the most engagement out of those people tapping away on iPhones, iPads and a range of other devices? Here are my top tips! Don’t be put off: Everyone has their own way of learning – don’t take people’s engagement with these devices as a sign of not listening to what you’re saying.Recognise and embrace the existence of these tools: Even if you would rather that people didn’t tweet during your talk, the chances are that they will! Make your information available: Many people take lots of notes and don’t participate in discussions during talks because they are afraid of missing things.
HOW TO: Get the Most Out of Twitter #Hashtags One of the most complex features of Twitter for new users to understand is the hashtag, a topic with a hash symbol ("#") at the start to identify it. Twitter hashtags like #followfriday help spread information on Twitter while also helping to organize it. The hashtag is a favorite tool of conferences and event organizers, but it's also a way for Twitter users to organize themselves: if everyone agrees to append a certain hashtag to tweets about a topic, it becomes easier to find that topic in search, and more likely the topic will appear in Twitter's Trending Topics. So how do you disseminate and make sense of all this hashtag madness? Have a tip to share on hashtags or a unique way you utilize them? 1. For new Twitter users, and even we veterans, figuring out what a specific hashtag is being used for can be a major chore. So what's the most efficient way to figure out those nasty hashtags? What the Trend? 2. What's buzzing on Twitter right now? 3. 4.
Blog In February I reflected on the Learning Technologies Exhibition 2014 with a post called ‘Design the complete experience’. Thinking about the end-to-end learner experience was a major theme of the show, and my title was inspired by the continuing relevance of The Six Disciplines of Breakthrough Learning, which was first published in 2006 and republished in 2010. The idea behind this book is to provide a toolkit for learning professionals who want to design programmes that make a genuine business impact, summarised in the six ‘Ds’: Define Outcomes in Business Terms Design the Complete ExperienceDeliver for ApplicationDrive Follow-ThroughDeploy Active SupportDocument Results Today I want to draw attention to the first ‘D’, looking specifically at how we define the problem which we are trying to solve with training. This is an insight which many of us would do well to remember. Typically, a lofty initiative or management vision sits behind well-funded programmes. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
revisit revisit is a real–time visualization of twitter messages (tweets) around a specific topic. You can create your own twitter wall at a conference or an ambient display at your company or whatever use you come up with. In contrast to other twitter stream tools, it provides a sense of the temporal dynamics in the twitter stream, and emphasizes the conversational threads established by retweets and @replies. The tool is currently offline due to major changes in the Twitter API (more info), but please find a screencast here: revisit see5 from Moritz Stefaner on Vimeo. revisit aligns all twitter messages for your search terms along a timeline. When new tweets arrive, they are brought to the front and highlighted. A more complex conversational situation, with multiple interconnected retweets and replies. Source code + standalone version can be downloaded at github
Storify your English classroom Washington Post Storify (Photo credit: cfpereda) This year, I’m teaching Year 10 English. In our team discussions early on, we decided to apply some SAMR thinking to modify a task that was normally completed as a paper folio, with pictures pasted in and students adding their comments as handwritten text or something that was computer generated pasted in. Over the past year, I’ve used Storify to help compile tweets and thoughts from conferences I’ve attended. Storify is a wonderful curation tool being used by journalists, newspaper organisations, noted figures from Social Media circles, and even the British Monarchy and The White House! Our focus this term is a thematic study about power and greed, perfect as a lead in to out text study of George Orwell’s Animal Farm. The students have adopted it quickly and find it intuitive to use. I can see us using Storify for other purposes throughout the school year. Our students have blogs they use as ePortfolios. Google+ Like this: Like Loading...
How to Leverage Backchanneling & the Long Tail of Learning We’ve all been there. Two colleagues across the room tap away at their phones, while the principal describes the rationale for cutbacks in funding for new technology initiatives. (Or switch out the colleagues for students while you are delivering an essential lecture on freedom of speech.) Their jabbing thumbs are punctuated by muffled giggles, as the digital text flies across the room. Is this a rude disruption or an extension of learning? At a conference, the speaker is riveting in his call for student empowerment through 21st-century learning. In an online synchronous webinar, Will Richardson shares his slides about the shifts in how we think about our privacy, our interactions with strangers on the Internet, and the powerful impact on education of some of the interactions we undertake every day. Should we teach students to backchannel effectively? The backchannel chat has become a fixture of our culture, like it or not. How do we leverage the backchanneling students already do?
Using Twitter To Support Learning Social Networking | Viewpoint Using Twitter To Support Learning Twitter has become ubiquitous and many educators use it or a similar micro blogging technology to maintain connection with students in terms of announcements, information flow, and assignment updates. While some instructors have experienced success in community building and numerous articles detailing the more common uses of the platform are available online, a couple core questions have emerged. Can Twitter help support and facilitate the instructional process itself? Facilitating InstructionDirect and effective communication is crucial to good instruction, and Twitter can help provide that. As Chris Betcher, a teacher from Sydney wrote in his blog, we must "remember that Twitter is about 'small pieces loosely joined,' which is really how the world works in real life. Distributed DialogueThe main advantage of the technology is that true collaborative knowledge building can take place.
A College Student’s Guide to Getting Started with Twitter Image Credit: "Montreal Twestival 2009 Cupcakes" by Clever This week, spend some time learning on your own about using Twitter. Here are a few ways to learn. We’ll talk more about Twitter next week in class. Step 1: Watch How to Storify. Why to Storify. | Digital Pedagogy We’ve threatened to publish reviews and how-to-guides for digital tools since we started Hybrid Pedagogy, but we haven’t really gotten around to it. Every time we sit down to do this work, we get caught up in philosophizing about bigger issues related to educational technology — caught up in a desire to theorize the room before we fully enter the room. It’s important, though, for us to turn our minds (and typing fingers) toward both process and practice, hence our concordance of digital tools, and now this article about Storify. Intended to serve as a stop-motion camera for the torrent of information we get from social media, Storify allows the user to arrange pieces of conversations to construct a narrative. When we first began teaching with Twitter, we wanted to contain conversations that would eventually evaporate. We begin, from the critical perspective that drives the mission of the journal, with the big questions: What is Storify? A metaphor might serve well here.
Integrating Backchanneling into Your Classroom | It's Time! In last week’s #BYOTchat, one of the topics that came up was the idea of “backchanneling.” What is backchanneling, you say? Well, that’s what I’m here to tell you! Simply put, backchanneling is the process of designating a medium for facilitating the conversation happening around a particular event. Whenever an event is taking place, there is a swirl of conversations occurring around that event. In the classroom, it can be two kids talking in the back row, passing notes, or sending texts or emails. When entertaining the idea of establishing a backchannel in your classroom, the first thing you should realize is that the backchannel already exists; these conversations are already occurring, even if it’s merely inside someone’s head. The other great thing about backchanneling is that it gives students who may be less enthusiastic about sharing during class the freedom to express themselves without the fear that prevents them from raising their hand.