Growing my Friends-List Twitter and Social Networking for Educators

About Me

Please share Name Current Position Why did you choose my presentation?

When was the last time you… Discussed educational research? Discussed pedagogy? Shared ideas or advice? Argued over your curriculum? Suggested readings or read someone else’s? Left your classroom for ideas?

The problem with teaching in South Dakota? Isolation ◦ Never leave your room ◦ Never go into someone else’s ◦ Only one teaching subject

The problem with teaching in South Dakota? Professional Development ◦ Expensive ◦ Limited Local Options

The Solution Expand your PLN!?!

What is a PLN/PLP/PLE? Whatever you call it, it is the people and tools that help you learn new information. Personal Learning Network Professional Learning Network Personal Learning Plan Personal Learning Environment

Five Reasons Why Educators Should Network Adapted from Tanya Roscorla’s Post of the same name. 1. To learn with others 2. To serve your students 3. To access a dynamic resource 4. To extend your learning base 5. To stay engaged in education

Grand total 42 People Map of My PLN before August 2009

Map of my PLN Today Over 3,540 Members of EduPLN Over 2,800 members of the AP- Chem List-serv Over 2,200 members of the AP- Physics List-serv Over 350 people connected to me on Twitter OVER 8,000 Unique Friends

Tools Del.icio.us Distributed Lists Twitter Ning

Del.icio.us Just one of many social bookmarking sites, Digg, StumbleUpon, Mixx, Use tags to mark websites See who else has marked that website See what other sites they have marked

Mail Distribution Lists Get to know your mail options. ◦ Using Rules to pre-sort ◦ Sort by thread College Board Discussions Teachers.net Google for Educators

Twitter Pros Instantaneous Conversational Great Search tools Cons Overwhelming Too Fast Too many conversations A lot of ‘junk’ You miss things when you aren’t online

Tips for Using Twitter Adapted from David Hopkins’s blog Don’t Waste Your Time Work out what you want to get out of Twitter Make sure you put some relevant and interesting information in your Twitter profile Share and share alike. Look at the people who follow someone in your network. Don’t be afraid to ‘block’ people who you don’t think you want following you. Don’t worry about numbers

More Basic Tips Re-Tweet the ideas of - respond to others, have conversations Use Hashtags ◦ #followfriday (#ff)– suggest people to follow ◦ #teacher, #principal ◦ #tie10 – hashtag for this conference ◦ #edchat – VideoVideo Use groups Skip the celebrities…

More Advanced Tips Use What the Hashtag? – find out what the abbreviations meanWhat the Hashtag Use Twitcleaner –Twitcleaner Use URL Shortening services ◦ Tiny URL Tiny URL Use Desktop applications to manage Twitter ◦ Tweetdeck Tweetdeck

Who to follow? The founders of #edchat Many more by subject at

Ning Ning is a site where you can build your own Social Network, like Facebook. Ning is just one of many such tools. Pros Great for storage More moderated Persistent Totally self contained Cons Ning is converting to a pay service.

Imagine… Having someone there for you when you need it… at any time, any where. You had access to inexpensive, but powerful professional development

Closing Thought The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what (awards) he is capable of receiving. The most important motive … in life is the pleasure of working and thereby obtaining results which will serve the community. ~Albert Einstein

References Cassinelli, Colette. "What is a PLN and Why do I need one?" edtech VISION. Colette Cassinelli, 15 Feb Web. 14 Apr Hopkins, David. "Twitter Tips: for Teachers & Educators." eLearning Blog Don't Waste Your Time. David Hopkins, 09 MAY Web. 13 Apr Roscorla, Tanya. "5 Reasons Why Educators Should Network." Converge Magazine. e.Republic Inc, 22 Jan Web. 17 Apr 2010.

Attributions – All images used under a Creative Commons License Slide #1- “Growing A Rope” by Tinkerbrad / / Slide #3 –”Young Tree” by aaron_language / / Slide #19 – ‘holding hands’ by JonathanCohen / / Slide # 25 – ‘alpacas’ by lamazone, 01/

Alpacas