I like the cut of it.

Y’see, Kevin and I each received the exact same email, he about a month before I.  You can read the exact transcript at the linked post above (aside from some minor syntactical differences in the first paragraph, the content is identical), but the gist is that he and I are “power Twitter users”, and we’re being invited to leverage our power-user-hood to (wait for it) make money on teh Internets by incorporating advertisements into our regularly scheduled programming Tweets.

My jib-admiring stems from Kevin’s explanation of why he finds this distasteful, which very closely mirrors my own thinking.  I get flak for my advocacy of Twitter as a networking tool for educators, but I’ve found it to be a fantastic way to make connections in the nearly three years I’ve actively used the service.  The tool itself, however, is secondary at best in importance to the people who live in my computer on the other end of all those other Twitter accounts who share ideas, information, opinions, and resources.  Twitter and services like it have the potential to help people make connections that:

• overcome geographical boundaries
• overcome many issues of ability and disability
• are established on the basis of trust and transparency

Of course, this doesn’t apply if you use Twitter to auto-follow everyone in a hashtag search plus your favorite celebrities, but it does appear to apply to a large number of educators who use Twitter as a part-social, part-professional online water cooler.  Everyone uses Twitter differently: personally, I like to cast a wide net, and I try to follow back every individual (not company) who follows me, as long as we seem to have some mutual interests.  Obviously, I don’t have a tight working relationship with all 1100-some-odd people I follow, but I do take in a lot of what comes across my feed (and I appreciate it all), and I engage in discussions and relationships with a smaller cross-section of that number.  Of the people with whom I have established relationships, I would hate to a) spam them with ads, and b) have them think I’m spamming them when I’m recommending a product or service I legitimately enjoy or find useful.

In the post linked above, Kevin O’Keefe says, “If I like a restaurant, I’ll share word of it with people who trust me.  The restaurant needn’t pay me.”  At just about every professional development workshop I’ve given, I have always been self-conscious enough about my own authenticity that I have disclaimed any professional relationships with the services I demonstrate (e.g., Wikispaces, TodaysMeet, Google Apps) other than as a very satisfied end-user.  To me, it’s important that I not be seen as a shill because, rightly or wrongly, the question of who is paying my paycheck can very easily distract from more important questions, like “How can we use this to improve teaching” and “How might my students benefit from this?”

I’m not against anyone getting paid for what they do, especially if they do it well, and I understand that businesses have to advertise.  I just really don’t like the pseudo-social approach that this company wants to take – it feels sneaky to me.  I admit that may be an unfair characterization, but that’s how it feels in my gut, and I don’t want to be a part of it.  If I were to punctuate all my IRL conversations with frequent pitches for Amway or Avon (“You sure you don’t need any more bisque?  We’re having a sale this month, and–hey, where are you going?”), I’d quite rightly be ostracized by colleagues, friends, and family.  Similarly, I’d rather keep Twitter a space for me to communicate freely with other educators.  Whether I am discussing personal, professional, weighty, or silly topics, the content is original and genuine – it’s all me, for better or for worse.  I have gained and given trust in establishing ties with these folks, and I’ve gained much, not only in terms of professional knowledge and resources, but I’d also like to think I’ve established some good personal relationships and friendships via the medium, as well.  I would hate to taint that by feeding my friends and acquaintances ads every so often, even if they are ads I can hand-pick, as stated in the email.

I’ve managed pretty well for myself for three years without the burden of sponsorship – I think I’ll keep it that way.

In the meantime, please allow me to direct your attention to some projects to which I’ve had the pleasure and honor of contributing:

• Terry Freedman’s The Amazing Web 2.0 Projects Book is a free e-book describing over 80 Web 2.0 projects developed and implemented by teachers in classrooms around the world.  Head over to his download page for more details (and check out my write-up on the wiki created by my Honors British Literature class on page 70!).
• As I’ve mentioned before, I was a presenter at last November’s Technology Integration Showcase at the NJEA Convention in Atlantic City, NJ.  During my eight-hour shift on the floor of High Tech Hall, I was interviewed about social Web tools for educators for an episode of Classroom Closeup NJ.  You can watch the segment on the Tech Integration Showcase here (my bit runs from about 2:15 to 3:20).
• The Cooperating Teacher Leadership Network is an initiative based out of my grad school alma mater, Rider University.  The declared purpose of the group is to celebrate and support the folks who work closest with student teachers, but I think over time the positive impact of a group like this will ripple further into the entire teacher training program at Rider, with other universities hopefully to follow.  We’re in the process of planning a two-day conference for June 29-30 of this year, so if you’ll be in the Lawrenceville, NJ area this June and think you might be interested, check out our brochure (direct link to PDF).  Our Facebook fan page is still new and low on content, but feel free to become a fan if you’d like to see what we get up to in the coming weeks and months.

Add to this a few presentations I have coming up and a collaborative research project that I am very excited about, and my dance card is pretty darn full through the end of the school year.  I just hope I can stay focused as the seasons change and the weather draws me out of my winter hibernation!

I’ve just walked in the door from Educon 2.2, a conference structured as a series of breakout conversations about current and future issues in education, facilitated by classroom teachers, professors, researchers, and students, among others.

I was fortunate to attend sessions led by Gary Stager, Ben Hazzard & Rodd Lucier, and Jon Becker & Justin Bothan.  In between I spent time walking around the conference site, Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, and taking in the classroom setups, the facilities, and even the little details like the posters & flyers on the walls.  The majority of what little down time I had, however, was spent speaking and rubbing a friendly elbow with many people with whom I had heretofore only corresponded online via Twitter or Facebook.

Doubtless, there will be a flurry of blog posts over the next week about how great EduCon was (and it was!), and what people’s favorite presenters or sessions were, or what have you.  What’s on my mind right now, however, is the value of the time spent in between sessions.  I imagine that most folks at EduCon have a few things in common:

• we fancy ourselves “progressive” educators (for whatever that might mean to each of us)
• we are proponents of increasing student access to technology
• we believe that there is a significant degree of change needed in the American education system, from the federal level down to individual classroom practices.

I don’t know that these phrases always describe the majority of our colleagues outside of our little online pseudo-social circles.

While it’s easy to look at the folks congregating in-between (or in some cases, during) sessions and cast aspersions that they’re prioritizing socializing over their own learning, consider how isolating the teaching profession can be in general.  Then, place yourself in a small subset of educators who can be defined by the above criteria.  For teachers who work in districts where their passion is not only ignored, but sometimes actively discouraged or prohibited by colleagues and superiors alike, social sessions with like-minded people are a necessity for sharing ideas, blowing off steam, and, as someone I spoke with earlier today said (I forget who, sorry!), “remembering that we’re not crazy”.  In some cases, it can feel like a deep exhalation.

There’s always been talk of the dangers of the “echo chamber” effect in ed-tech circles online.  Yes, it’s a valid concern, but considering how far the pendulum swings in the other direction for most of us in our professional lives, it’s not as if there’s not plenty to bring us ‘back to reality’.  Indulging in some off-the-clock camaraderie, perhaps even at the expense of a structured, scheduled activity, is not only acceptable, but vital to our continued advocacy in the face of continued opposition.  The sessions gave us plenty of food for thought about what we can do differently (or do more of) in our classrooms, buildings, and districts, but the shared food, drink, and laughter outside those sessions nourished our souls.

And I’m definitely going back next year for seconds.

It turns out that an aspiring teacher came across my resume via Google and decided to call me to ask for some advice on resources she could look to in order to prepare for her first year of teaching.  Ten years ago, I would have been freaked beyond words to receive a call out of the blue from a complete stranger, but since I have gone to great lengths to represent myself online, I actually took this as a) very flattering, and b) validation of the concept of networked learning – somebody else was able to increase their knowledge because I have established an online identity and made myself available (besides, it’s not all that different from getting a blog comment or a follow on Twitter from someone you don’t know).

I wasn’t able to talk at the time (between dinner and the kids’ bedtime gets a bit hectic), but she promised to send me her email address, to which I replied later that night.  After some shout-outs to my fellow educators on Twitter, I was able to offer the following advice (this is the truncated version; the real email is much more detailed):

• Read lots of blogs to get a sense of what issues, challenges, and triumphs teachers are experiencing (I forgot to say ‘comment on’ too, but I hope it’s implied; I also supplied some suggested starting points)
• A supportive community/network is important.  Augment the one you’ll have at work by reaching out to other educational professionals on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn
• I turned to Kevin Jarrett for some advice on books for someone transitioning from the business world to teaching, and he provided the following list (none of which I’ve read, I’m a bit embarrassed to say):
  • Schools That Learn
  • The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher
  • Classroom Instruction that Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement
  • Literacy Work Stations: Making Centers Work
  • Mosaic of Thought: Teaching Comprehension in a Reader’s Workshop (this one comes courtesy Nancy Devine)
• Join a national organization that caters to your specific professional interests (I never joined the NCTE as a teacher, but I have been a member of NASP since grad school)

My parting bit of advice was this: you can go through the best teacher prep program, read all the books, blogs, and magazines out there, and go to all the conferences, but so much of how we learn to teach comes from actual classroom experience – OJT!  At least, that’s how it was for me.

What advice could you have benefitted most from when you were just starting out?   Drafting this blog post I can already think of a few things I left out of my original email, but the topic is so vast, it’s hard to get everything in the first go-round.  If she’s reading, what other advice would you offer this soon-to-be teacher?

Please feel free to either subscribe to my Delicious RSS feed or just bookmark my page; have a look at the tag list on the right-hand side of the screen for categories that may interest you (e.g., Organization, Reading, Math, ADHD, etc.).  I hope you and your colleagues can find something useful there, for yourselves or your students.

So why might I jump ship?

Identi.ca is the new microblogging kid on the block, and at first glance, it not only seems similar to Twitter, Pownce, Plurk, etc., it actually seems like it has less to offer.  No replies buttons or tabs, no search bar, just a steady stream of messages and the ability to ‘subscribe’ to one another.

What entices me about Identi.ca is the fact that it’s open source.  While Twitter has been having trouble staying on its feet lately (it has been better of late, to be fair), I wonder how long it would take for Identi.ca users with some technical knowledge to diagnose and attack the underlying problems.  Seems like a good thing to have “more hands on deck.”  There’s more to be said about it, but Mike Bogle covered it in pretty good detail in his post and follow-up comment here.  With add-ons and other contributions from the Identi.ca community, I’m seeing the potential for Identi.ca to play Firefox to Twitter’s IE – highly customizable and community-based.

I also like Identi.ca’s commitment to the OpenMicroBlogging protocol.  Essentially, conversations could take place across services, so there’d be no need for a Twitter account, Plurk account, etc.  One protocol to rule them all, so to speak.  There is already a plethora of services for cross-posting to multiple services, but nothing to aggregate responses and facilitate discussion.

To me, the discussions and exchanges of ideas that take place on Twitter are by far its most important factor, and why I won’t be deleting my Twitter account anytime soon.  Identi.ca may evolve into something great, and I’ll definitely stick with it, unlike a lot of other microblogging services.  Without the people who make up my network, however, it won’t be of nearly as much value as Twitter, broken down and everything.  Ultimately, it’s the people, not the tools, that give the network its value.

In the meantime, I encourage folks to try out Identi.ca and see if it suits you.  I’m @damian613 on both Identi.ca and Twitter; feel free to subscribe, follow, or just read.

While the course is called “Honors British Literature”, in all honesty we skew very English in the literature we read. In addition to wanting to give my students some exposure to non-English British culture for balance’s sake, I also wanted to satisfy their curiosity at seeing some street signs in Welsh. I turned to fellow teacher, Twitterer, and ex-pat Englishman in Wales Dave Stacey for help.

Over the course of a few weeks, Dave and I corresponded via email and arranged for him to Skype into our class on 13 March, when he spent about 45 minutes speaking with my students. In preparation for the chat, they brainstormed questions for Dave, using a page on our class wiki as their “scratchpad”. Dave obligingly researched (and posted answers to!) every question my kids could throw at him prior to our chat. Dave and I had a test run to make sure both of our school networks could handle the Skype-y awesomeness, then linked up for the real deal at 11:15am EDT / 3:15pm GMT. Dave fielded questions from my students on the Welsh language and pronunciations, culture (popular and otherwise), and even his personal experiences moving from the south of England to Wales for university and eventually settling down and starting a family there.

I was impressed on a few levels: first, at Dave’s willingness to make himself available to a bunch of American high school kids long after his work day ended (not always easy for a new dad). Second, my students could very easily have sat there and been passive learners. They chose to engage themselves in the process, more or less interviewing Dave the entire time. They shaped the discussion, the lesson, and, ultimately, their own learning.

In our session debrief, I asked my students what the value of an experience like this was for them – not why it was cool, or new, but what value it held for them. Responses centered around these major concepts:

• first-hand access to a living primary source
• interactivity & having the ability to probe and ask for explanations & clarifications
• hearing a non-American perspective; combating ethnocentrism
• greater investment in preparation
• greater overall engagement due to all of the above

It was such a positive experience that when Christian Long contacted me to brainstorm some ways to link up our British Lit classes, Skype was my first thought. For this experience, my students will be leading his sophomores through discussion of issues pertaining to Hamlet and Shakespeare’s tragedies. They’ll be meeting each other in a few weeks; I’ll be sure to post reflections on that shortly thereafter.

How do you use Skype in your classes?

It took me a while to get on here because I was worried students would search me out or something. You never know. I’m sure some have. But I stopped being worried about it. I asked my friends to be respectfull of what pictures they post of me. Other than that, I use my privacy settings and hope for the best. I have friends all over the world and this is the only way to keep in touch with everyone.

***

While I don’t seek out my students on facebook (I see enough of them in school) some have found me and sent a friend request. Keeping this in mind I simply make sure that there is nothing incriminating in my profile, and I make sure that any wall posts or pictures are respectful. So I guess I censor myself to make sure that past or future students don’t have leverage on me! PLus, I think we should set examples for appropriate internet behavior, it’s never a good idea to display too much about your personal life or post pics that show you in an unsavoury manner, no matter what your occupation may be.

***

I think the key is: treat your facebook like it’s a postcard. Anyone can read it if it is curiously intersting for anyone.

***

honestly i just didnt add them, not even to my limited profile :s it would be too weird to have them reading my posts…especially the older ones…

***

Maybe when they graduate or leave the school [I'll add them as friends --Ed.], but while they’re a student at my school, I don’t want to risk any semblance of inappropriateness. I’ve also overheard some of the other teachers and admin at my school talking negatively about Facebook, so I’m not sure if they’d look favourably on my even having an account period. I felt better when I found out some of the other teachers had accounts too. We just don’t talk about it at school.

***

I use my email addresses to send my Grade 9 students handouts, assignments, etc. It’s an exchange of information, that’s all. It allows them to send me things but does not give them access to everything that’s been sent to me. Giving students access to my Facebook account gives them access to all of my friends and their photos, my photo albums, a listing of my groups (including this one) and everything written on my wall. To me they are two very different things.

***

I just see facebook as another tool for teachers and students to interact. Which I feel is extremely important.

***

I’ve had a few students (last semester and one I taught two years ago) send out a friend request, which I declined. Students are students. I joined Facebook to network with friends. However, having said that I did go on the alumni website of my present high school where I teach and found out what some students really think of me: I’m a bitch, but a hot bitch. [Yeah, I get that a lot, too. --Ed.]

***

Our union has been very clear about technology. Basically, the phone and face to face is the best thing for you, probably because nothing’s in writing. Email interaction is something that we have been told to avoid. Really, nothing is stopping people from changing you words around…I hear stories about teachers who are suspended because their profile pictures are inappropriate (holding alcohol, wearing bathing suits, etc.).

***

Try to use common sense and good judgment. Set a good example for the students. I think its OK for teachers to have a facebook and accept friend requests, but use discretion. Like an earlier poster said, its public–show that you have nothing to hide.

***

Oh, and a bit of friendly advice -

NEVER, under ANY circumstances, have pupils as friends, and
NEVER, under ANY circumstances, message them, or reply to messages.

Any interactions should be kept face to face, and in the classroom.

The lines MUST NEVER blur.

***

Originally I had made up a hotmail account so students could email their assignments to me without it being late but even that got me in a bit of trouble. Since then I avoid anything to do with connecting through technology. I just got a permanent position and I plan on keeping it.

The thread seems to still be active; if you have an account, why don’t you add your two cents?

To put it succinctly, I think the two main roadblocks were 1) the technology at home and 2) student motivation. Many kids reported problems even being able to log in to Twitter from home, let alone send messages. I suggested they upgrade IE, I suggested they try Firefox if they were using IE (sorry, Bill), but all to no effect. Also, the students had to be motivated enough to log in and send messages, which very few of them were. In a class of 24, I think there were only 4 or 5 “regulars”, and when no one else was joining in, even they lost interest by about Thanksgiving or so.

Not one to learn lessons easily, I’m implementing the project again this semester, this time with my Honors Brit Lit juniors & seniors. While I can’t address their home technical issues, I hope that their intrinsic motivation will be a little higher than my sophomores’. Sure enough, just when I needed a little inspiration, The Chronicle of Higher Ed [via Twitter's blog] runs a story about David Parry, a UT-Dallas professor who used Twitter with his students to great success. The big payoff, according to the prof?

The immediacy of the messages helped the students feel like more of a community, Mr. Parry said in an interview Monday. “It was the single thing that changed the classroom dynamics more than anything I’ve ever done teaching,” he said.

Now where have I heard that before?

Further reading: Twitter article on Dave Parry’s blog, academHack.

Edit: He’s @academicdave on Twitter, if you want to see what he’s doing with his students.

I don’t hate taking time off from work, I just hate being absent. It’s far more work for me to put together sub plans and develop some sort of meaningful activity for the kids than it is to just come in sick and spread whatever disease I’ve got.

In an effort to make learning about grammar a lot more palatable to me my sophomores, I concocted a little research/creative project. Without boring you with details, we spent an hour or so today going over the assignment, talking about objectives, and critiquing models, with an eye to spending the entire block Tuesday researching and designing these projects. Naturally, my kids will have further questions, but I have to be absent; believe me, it’s not my preference.

As I’m writing my sub plans this afternoon, I get a flash of inspiration, and include the following:

I will be available during class time to answer questions. Students may email me at [redacted], or AOL IM me at MrBariexca. I will be online between 7:30 and 9 am, and will be able to answer student questions in realtime.

Oh, yeah. The filter.

I will be available during class time to answer questions. Students may email me at [redacted], or, if they can figure out how to get AOL IM working on the school computers, they can IM me at MrBariexca. I will be online between 7:30 and 9 am, so I should be able to respond in realtime, even by email.

I contemplated providing the sub with a list of proxies students could try to circumvent the filters, or suggesting that they try Meebo (I don’t know if our filter blocks that or not), but ultimately decided against it. After all, I wouldn’t want to put anything incriminating in writing.

I really shouldn’t complain; our filtering system is extremely progressive compared to what other folks deal with, and I have a great deal of respect for the job our IT team does, especially with regard to Internet access/content. I just feel that allowing kids to use these tools appropriately would a) allow my class to run a lot more smoothly in my absence, and b) be another chance to model non-recreational applications for our kids.

I shoulda just left them Christmas Vacation and been done with it.

*Lest anyone accuse me of sexism in my title, I’m just riffing on The Gipper.