Wiki, Wiki...This Summer!

I am going to be participating in a summer PDS series on wikis provided by PBWorks.com, formally PBWiki, called "PBWorks Summer Camp"! I think I found this on Twitter last week and I took a look and immediately signed up. It's a FREE (we all know how I like free learning tools!), completely online summer PDS on how to use wikis in the classroom. It runs from June 22 - July 21 and every week I will have assignments to complete, webinars to participate in, and homework!

I have two reasons for doing participating in this: 1) While, I have learned about wikis before, I haven't really used them with a group of students and 2) There was some discussion earlier this year about the geography classes at my school wanting to use wikis, however, we all decided we weren't quite ready for that step. So I want to prepared to use them next year. Hopefully, through some of the assignments I have to do, I can start creating some ideas and lessons to get us ready for this!

The only hard part will be trying to complete assignments while I'm at NECC! If sounds like something you would be interested in, there's still time to register!

Okay, So Twitter Away!

Back in October, I talked about starting up on Twitter. I was really excited to see what this new tech phenomenon was all about. Once on my page though, I kinda of didn't see the whole point. Who would want to read about what I was doing at any given point during the day? I tweeted a few times, but other than that not much; that is until FETC.

What made the difference? Talking with other educators and finding out how they use it. Because I had only subscribed to a few people and them to me, I don't think I was getting the full effect. Friday night at dinner with some other edubloggers (at the edubloggercon meet up at Front Row Friday's), the very first question I was asked was, "What is your Twitter user name?" Technication was how I was introduced. Then we got around to real first names. I was completely taken aback. Was I missing something?

Yes, was the answer, of course. All day Friday, subscribers were posting info about sessions, who was in what session, how their session was going, hoping out of one room to another if they heard another session was better. Now, I don't like skipping out on someone's session, but sometimes you end up in a session that is completely different than the session description, or you hear stuff you already know about. I was excited to see how others were using Twitter during the conference.

Then I received a bunch of recommendations for who I should follow. I went from 3 to I think about 19 and I have a bunch more following me now. And I have a great way to stay in contact with the awesome educators I met. I see how everyone is using it and just the other night, got great ideas from those posting. I found out the YouTube now has a channel with the White House and already four videos have been posted. I also found a great website about the Holocaust that will help out the 8th graders who just finished up "The Diary of Anne Frank". I also found Cool Web Tools for Schools, Using Flip Video in the Classroom, and 28 Interesting Ways to Use a Pocket Video Camera. Most of these came from Angela Maiers, who is constantly posting online resources, I don't know how she has the time to do it! Plus keep her blog up to date! She, along with Steve Dembo (Teach42) and Coolcatteacher, have great ideas to share.

I can strongly say my opinion of Twitter has changed and I will be trying to keep up as much as possible! Here are a few other blog posts you can check out, as well: Twitter and FETC 2009 - a new experience, and Chris Brogan about Twitter from Coolcatteacher
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Twitter! Moodle?

After reading TekkieTeacher's blog post today, I decided I am going to give Twitter a try. Twitter is a social networking community and many teachers are using it as part of their PLC's and PLN's. I have heard of it before, but didn't think I would have time to invest in it. Many of the teachers blogs I have on my Google Reader and those in the DEN have taken to Twitter, so I guess it was only a matter of time before I broke down to try it.

I have already set up my account and found some friends. I have also already added my first "tweet"-that's Twitter speak for a post. A post on Twitter can only be 140 words or less, making a shorter post than a blog post, hence the name "tweet". I'm not quite sure how I let others know that I've created an account....need to figure that out. :)

I also went to an Online Facilitating in Moodle course tonight. I'll be doing this online for next four weeks and designing professional development classes for online learning. Tonight's class felt long (although I am very tired) and I'm not sure much was sinking in. I do agree with another classmate, that it is not the most user friendly tool. I get to do alot of reading in the first two weeks and planning my class, which I think I am going to do on spreadsheets. I did this as part of my practicum last year, but there are things I would like to change and I want to eventually put all of my PDS classes online. We'll see what happens.

Let everything recently, I'll keep updating on all the new stuff I'm learning.