Feb
09
Filed Under (21st Century Skills) by Mister McIntosh on 09-02-2010

TwitterLetsTweetLgWhtShdwI was conversing with an editor the other day, wondering why her company did not use twitter to communicate with readers. She said “Twitter is just a fad.”

I didn’t say anything. But, I did think back to a time many years ago when I requested a friend get on email so we could communicate that way and he said “No thanks. The internet is just a fad.” Fail!

It also kind of reminded me of the time (probably around 1984) when I told people (chest puffed out) “I’ll never own a personal computer!”

What is Twitter and Why?

Five million people buying a hula-hoop is a fad. 75,000,000+ people and businesses on twitter, sharing information and communicating in real-time is a movement.

I will freely admit that my initial reaction to twitter was essentially the same as almost everyone else’s–”what the heck good is it?” I mean you are limited to a maximum of 140 characters (that’s why is is called “microblogging”). But I decided to give it a try and I am now convinced of its usefulness.

I follow Wired (@WIRED) Scientific American (@sciam), Science News (@sciencenewsorg), New Scientist (@newscientist) , Nature Biotechnology (@naturebiotech), The National Math and Science Initiative, (@NMSI), Teacher Magazine (@teachermagazine), Guy Kawasaki (@GuyKawasaki), Dan Schawbel (@DanSchawbel), Neil Gaiman (@neilhimself), Bruce Sterling (@bruces) and others.

These are people and organizations that are interesting to me and feed me information that I both want and need. Sometimes it’s great, sometimes it’s inspirational. If I am not interested in what they have to offer at any particular time I just ignore it. No big deal.

Here at Challenger Middle School, Team 724 is engaged in a Twitter experiment. If you have a student on Team 724, send me an email and I’ll tell you how to follow us. It’s easy, it’s fun, and it’s the most up-to-date way to keep up with what is going on during the school day.

I recommend using Firefox with the Echofon extension for a seamless and convenient twitter experience. I’ve heard that TweetDeck might be a good way to go. Of course you can always use the twitter website if all else fails. Below you see a screen capture of what the team 724 timeline looked like at the end of the day on February 10, 2010 . This is only a part of the timeline. You’d have to scroll down on the real thing to see the previous posts.

Echofon view of the team timeline

Echofon view of the team timeline

Give it a whirl, you might just get converted, have a lot of fun, and learn a bunch of amazing things all at the same time.

Nov
19
Filed Under (Info) by Mister McIntosh on 19-11-2009
(Caren Litherland)

(Caren Litherland)

I think it will be beneficial if I set out some guidelines for the students to keep in mind as they write and post to their blogs. I am open to suggestions or clarifications. Here they are.

  • No insults or attacks on other people
  • Must use proper grammar and punctuation
  • No making fun of anyone
  • No threats
  • Do not pretend to be insane
  • No joking about hurting people
  • No foul language
  • No posting of copyright material (text, pictures, video, etc.) without permission from the copyright owner
  • If you use pictures or other objects that are in the public domain or are used under a Creative Commons (CC) license, you must give credit to the owner of the material, and provide a link back to the original (like I did when using the CC-licensed photo from Flickr in this post)

You can post as often as you want. Some good topics for blog posts include:

  • A subject you know a lot about
  • Hobbies
  • World events
  • Sports
  • Local news
  • What’s going on in your neighborhood
  • Pets
  • Books you are reading
  • Product reviews (only if you are very familiar with a particular product)
  • TV shows
  • Movies you have seen
  • Games
  • How-to do something

Those are just a few ideas.