CLL Twitter for Beginners

I was asked by Rob Long to do a brief workshop on Twitter basics and how I use Twitter in my professional life.

Twitter is something that has so many uses to connect with other like minded people, share information and access information. The problem is that Twitter is not always the easiest thing to master.

Here is a chart that will help explain some of the basics..... (click here for a larger version)

Twitter for Educators

Twitter, the popular social media platform, is continually picking up momentum in its number of users; however, I find many educators who are not tapping into the power of Twitter. The mystery that surrounds Twitter, I believe, keeps many people from benefiting from the potential it holds. Consider this recent post on Facebook from a friend who revealed, “My mom thought that hashtags were code messages.” While the post made me chuckle, to those who don’t use Twitter, terms like tweets, retweets, and hashtags, can seem pretty foreign and intimidating.

For those just getting started, I’ll explain a few basic terms to help you easily and quickly navigate your way around Twitter. For those who already use Twitter, you may want to jump down to the next section, Benefits for Educators, or simply download the Twitter Cheat Sheet.

Twitter: The Basics

• Twitter: According to Wikipedia, Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based messages, called “tweets.”  A helpful way to think of Twitter is to picture a constantly flowing stream of water. Tweets are the stream. As a user, you dip your toes in and out of the ongoing stream of tweets. You can’t expect to take it all in, simply read a few tweets and then step out.

• Tweet: “Tweets” are text-based messages of up to 140 characters (letters, symbols, words, spaces, & punctuation).

• Choosing a Name: To begin, simply sign up for a free account. Try to select a username that is your name or close to it so that people can easily find you by searching. For example, Tim Slack (my name) was taken, @slackt was available so that became my username. People can still find me easily by searching for my name.

• Following: You’ll want to connect to other educators by following them which can be done in two ways. First, click the Follow button when you see it next to a user’s profile photo or you can click the Follow button next to any of your followers. Start by searching for people you know or educators that you have read or heard at conferences – just type in their name to see if they’re on Twitter. 

• Hashtags (#): A hashtag (#) is a word or phrase preceded by a “#.” By using hashtags, you can aggregate tweets around that topic. Hashtags help you focus on tweets around a specific topic. You can also add a hashtag to any tweet. Just follow the tweet with an appropriate hashtag and it will appear in the group. For example, here’s a recent tweet with 2 hashtags—Vocab instruction stale? Perk it up! Attend Top 10 Vocab Strategies – free Webinar Dec 12 4-5pm bit.ly/Vd9nGG #principals #elemteachers  By the way, best practice is to limit the number of hashtags following a tweet. Only use the hashtag if that group would be interested in or benefit from your post. How about using #ocsbcll for tweeting interesting blogs and tweets you think we would find interesting.

• Chat groups: Chat groups are frequently formed around a specific topic of interest and they meet regularly through Twitter. The group is defined by a specific hashtag. To join the group, you simply type in the hashtag and you can follow the posts and contribute to the conversation by posting a tweet followed by the hashtag. Two examples, #TitleTalk and #Satchat, are summarized below.
• #TitleTalk, a group who shares about how to best promote reading and specific books to students, meets once a month on Sunday nights. Colby Sharp (@colbysharp) and Donalyn Miller (@donalynbooks) moderate the online meetings around a topic such as favorite read alouds, graphic novels, teaching with short texts, or book lists, to name just a few. So when you log in at that time and type in the hashtag, you’ll experience an online conversation around the topic.
• #Satchat, another active group, is a weekly Twitter chat for current and emerging school leaders who meet around all things education. Brad Currie (@bcurrie5) and Scott Rocco (@scottrocco), two administrators, are the co-founders and moderators of the lively discussions held each Saturday morning at 7:30am EST. Grab your coffee and join them!
• Want to get started? You’ll find more groups specific to educational technology, literacy, content areas, school reform, and more. I’ve compiled a list of many chat groups on the Twitter Cheat Sheet which is downloadable from this post.
Benefits for Educators
• Connections: Twitter, at its heart, is a place to build connections with other educators – those next door and those across the country and world. Twitter can help you stay connected and up-to-date with news and resources shared by other school leaders.
• Collaborations: Start your own hashtag to collaborate with colleagues. Additionally, have students create their own hashtag for a group research project. Then group members can save their links to resources and share information through the common stream designated by their hashtag. They’ll be able to easily see others results and research by simply searching by their hashtag.
• Resources: Another benefit of Twitter is sharing and receiving resources. Take time to share your favorite resources by providing links to them and be prepared to receive a steady stream of resources from others. Do you need advice about a resource or technology tool that you’re getting ready to purchase? Just ask on Twitter and you’ll probably receive lots of feedback which can ultimately help you research and make decisions.



What to Do on Twitter: 50 Ideas

• Professional development: Professional development opportunities are yet another great reason to be active on Twitter. In a time when many schools have limited funds to support professional development, Twitter can serve as a great resource to learn about free webinars, cost-effective professional learning opportunities, and more. Finally, share in the conversation by tweeting about your educational activities, favorite conference, read aloud, tech tool, and more.

Some of the educators on Twitter that I suggest that you follow:

• @dougpete
• @shellterrell
• @shannoninottawa
• @PeterMDwitt
• @scottrrocco
• @justintarte
• @gcouros
• @web20classroom

Interesting blog posts:

100 Top Twitter Tools

25 Bio Tips for Teachers

140 Twitter Tips for A Better Social Media Experience

Math Assembly an Educational Success!!

This week we had our very first Math Assembly here at St. Rita Catholic School in Ottawa, Ontario. Every single class in the school put together something that demonstrated their knowledge and understanding of the Patterning and Algebra curriculum.

Some of the presentations included:

• growing and extending patterns with kindergarten students modelling
• using tableau's to demonstrate patterns
• using music to show the pattern and showing their understanding with drums
• short skits with props

There was an unbelievable amount of time, effort and creativity that went into these presentations. Once the assembly was finished there was absolutely no question that the students here benefited from this experience. The purposeful talk that we could all hear in the gymnasium was very empowering and without question it has carried on in the classrooms here in our school.

Staff members here also had so many positive comments about this new learning experience. One thing that was quite interesting was that every teacher in the school could see what the students were expected to learn in Patterning and Algebra from Kindergarten to Grade 6 and how they did it. This has lead to quite a bit of informal professional development right at our school and we are excited to look towards a new idea and a new goal.

Following the assembly we had a school wide assessment and we gathered in divisions the next week to moderate the student work. Teachers had great discussions and ideas to help increase student achievement in this area.

Here is our school wide assessment that covered K - 6 and met the big ideas of the Patterning and Algebra Curriculum from the Ontario Mathematics Curriculum.

School Wide Assessment

In the new year we are going to have a school wide focus on Geometry and Spacial Sense and are brainstorming ideas of how we can demonstrate our learning to the entire school.

Flipping the Monthly Staff Meeting

I have been hearing a lot about flipping classrooms over the past year or so and more recently I have come across schools that are flipping their staff/faculty meetings.

The more I thought about it the more it seemed to make more and more sense to me. Here is why:

• We are always looking for more time to get together to talk about the real issues in our school. These issues include assessment and evaluation, rich learning tasks and looking at student work as a team. It has been quite difficult to get teachers released to have the time to talk about these things. Flipping a staff meeting allows for teachers to read through all of the information items at their leisure so we can spend the time talking about the issues we want to. 
• Staff members do not want to sit and listen to be for an hour talking about things that could have just as easily been sent in a email.
• The flipped meeting will archive everything that is important that our staff members need to know about. If they forget something, need something or just want to reference something that was discussed, it is all in one place

So what I have decided to do it use a blog to 'flip' my meeting. In a perfect world I would have started this at the August Staff Meeting but for now the October one will have to do.

The first meeting is this afternoon and I am going to try it out. In the future I will be sending it out at least a few days in advance so everyone can take a look before the meeting takes place.

Any feedback would be most welcome. Especially from anyone who has already tried this in their schools!

The Role of Homework in an Elementary School

I have never been a big fan of homework even though I admit I have assigned homework in the past that I would never dream of sending home now. Why? I am not sure if it is because I am now more informed about how students learn and how they or motivated to learn. Or, is it because I have my own children and I can see the other side of the fence.

The big question surrounding homework for me is: What is the purpose of the work?

Should work come home with students on a regular basis? Absolutely. What we have to look at is what type of work goes home with our students. Is it busy work that is given just for the sake of giving students homework. Or is it an extension of the learning process in the class meant to allow students to follow their own curiosity and make their own investigations and conclusions?

In Ontario we have a document entitled: "GROWING SUCCESS: Assessment, Evaluation, and Reporting in Ontario Schools".

The document takes an extensive look at assessment and evaluation and how they are used to improve student learning.

One of the sections of the document that really stood out for me was:

"To ensure equity of all students, assignments for evaluation and tests or exams are to be completed, whenever possible, under the supervision of a teacher. Assignments must not include ongoing homework that students do to consolidate their knowledge and skills or to prepare for the next class."

This section stood out to me for the following reasons:

• It puts all students on an even playing field so to speak.
• Every child's reality is different at home and they are not being penalized because of who helps them or who does not.

So what are the reasons that I am rethinking homework in an elementary school?

1. Homework is often has the wrong focus: If homework is being sent home in order to get all aspects of the curriculum covered, there is a problem. Homework should go home that promotes learning and that spark students interest.
2. School is a job: Our students spend 6 hours plus a day at school. Some of our students do not even get picked up from childcare until almost 6 o'clock. Let's think about ourselves. When you get home do you want to do and hour plus of homework? Our students should be able to focus on their studies at school in a positive environment that makes going to 'work' fun. No one wants to bring work home.
3. Let a kid be a kid:  Kids need to run around and be active. When they get home they should have the opportunity to go outside and play and participate in extra-curricular activities without worrying about doing their hour of homework each night.
4. Reality: Some of our kids go home to an empty house. Mom and Dad may work late. Maybe it is a single family home where the parent takes a night shift and your student is responsible to take care of her/his siblings. Often we have no idea what is happening in the homes of our students.
5. The majority of homework is ....... well boring: More often than not homework mirrors what has gone on in the classroom during the school day. If we are going to assign after hours work, why not make it interesting and offer different learning opportunities.

When we do assign homework I would like to see the homework do the following:

• motivate students to investigate
• give the students choice of what they can do for homework
• have the students document what they have done at home
• have open ended homework assignments that act as a springboard to discover something new and exciting

I would really be interested in seeing what kind of effect this would have on a learning environment at school. Not for one second do I think that it would be perfect. Of course there would be obstacles and things that need tweaked. However, I am sure that there would be students at school that are less stressed out, chronicled details of out of school discoveries and students who have more control over their learning while meeting classroom expectations.

I think I will start the ball rolling here. I'll let you know how the journey progresses.

Library to Learning Commons

Library to Learning Commons


At St. Rita School we just received to fantastic news about a new initiative our school board has backed and we will start to implement in the very near future.

Eighteen libraries across the school board have been given $20,000 to help the school library transition to a Learning Commons for students.

This is incredibly exciting for our students, staff and community!

The whole idea originated from teachers bypassing the library with their students when they were looking for current resources to complete class work. Where were they going? The Internet of course! With this transition teachers and students will have the tools to easily access this up to date current information.


What does a Learning Commons Sound and Look like?

“As one enters the Learning Commons, the first impression differs greatly from that of a traditional library or
computer lab. Immediately we notice a completely flexible learning space where neither computers nor books
get in the way… the buzz in the air is both purposeful and casual and it is a mix of learners both adult and
student engaged in a wide variety of activities” (The New Learning Commons, pg. 6).

Some of the items we have been encouraged to purchase are:

• netbook cart
• eReaders
• mobile devices
• tablets

We are on a unique journey and are exploring all of the different avenues to help bring this Learning Commons idea alive to St. Rita.

Any thoughts, ideas or opinions would greatly be appreciated as we continue on this journey.

Visual Bloom's for Learning Technology

I've often struggled with where does everything fit in to the classroom, curriculum, teaching and learning in regard to all of the technological tools that are out there. Yesterday I found a site that gave me an, "Ah ha....." moment!

This is what it was:

A Visual Representation of Bloom's Taxonomic Hierarchy with a 21st Century Skills FrameYou can find it here:  http://visualblooms.wikispaces.com/I think these diagrams are amazing and I am excite to share them with teachers here at school.