I love this song, the message and the video!
This is a great video to share with students and staff alike!
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Here it is from a totally different perspective… Not kindness, but rumours… Created by a group of students in a Middle School advisory:
Author Archives: David Truss
Cite Your Sources;)
One of my online teachers had an essay handed in, and it had only one source sited. Here is the link the student shared… At least he was ‘honest’!
DigiFoot12, Twitter, lurking and drinking from a fire hose.
This was Week 2 – “Tweet Me” in Digifoot12. It was all about Twitter and Kim Gill @Gill_Ville was a great host!
I created the image above for my blog post: “Drinking from a fire hose”. In this post, I shared my personal Twitter user-experience timeline:
Twitter
Why would I want to tell people that I’m brushing my teeth? This is like facebook updates without Facebook -> But Claudia seems to think there is something to this -> Wow, these teachers are sharing great links -> I can’t miss a tweet, need to read them all -> I’m drinking from a fire hose, this is too much -> hey, I can narrow this by following a list in Tweetdeck -> and hey, I can follow a hashtag to focus this even more -> I can go away and when I come back, my network will still be there -> This is better than my RSS feed -> If I miss something in my RSS feed, and it is good, it will probably get back to me via twitter.
Why would I want to tell people that I’m brushing my teeth? This is like facebook updates without Facebook -> But Claudia seems to think there is something to this -> Wow, these teachers are sharing great links -> I can’t miss a tweet, need to read them all -> I’m drinking from a fire hose, this is too much -> hey, I can narrow this by following a list in Tweetdeck -> and hey, I can follow a hashtag to focus this even more -> I can go away and when I come back, my network will still be there -> This is better than my RSS feed -> If I miss something in my RSS feed, and it is good, it will probably get back to me via twitter.
Which brings me to another graphic by Alan Levine @cogdog, check out his wiki page on the Twitter Life Cycle.
I went through the cycle, and now I’m here: ???
I still share and try to help people on Twitter, but now I’m also a lurker/spammer/moocher, and I mean that in the most positive way!?!
Lurker – I keep Twitter on in the background, and when I do look at it I tend to follow links and do some quiet reading, without Tweeting. I’m not ‘on’ twitter nearly as much as I have been in the past. But I love that my network shares great links and resources, and that this network reduces the fire-hose-like flow of information that I get from many different ‘streams’.
Spammer – When I do go on twitter I power-share. I throw out a bunch of the links I’ve read, I retweet, and I have conversations with people. I’ve been told by a couple people, new to twitter, that I ‘spam’ them: Since they only have about 20-30 followers they can end up getting about 25-40 messages from me in a row before getting something from one of their other followers. (If I do this to you, feel free to unfollow me, I won’t be offended… just remember to come back when your network has grown!) J
Moocher – Google isn’t the only place to find information on the web. Often, my social network, and Twitter users in general, do a much better job than search engines! Example: I have a question about Moodle so I ask it on Twitter with the hashtag #Moodle and I get an answer I couldn’t find on Google.
BUT… I do still share a lot, comment a lot on blogs and help others on Twitter. One way that I help people on Twitter, especially educators new to Twitter, is that I will often DM them this link after they have started following me: Twitter EDU – Follow these steps and you will grow your twitter network much faster.
I deliberately ‘flipped’ the negative connotation to the terms above, and chose ‘spammer’ and ‘moocher’ as terms to go with ‘lurker’ because I think for many, lurking is a big part of what they do on Twitter, and that word tends to have a creepy/negative emotional connection for people. However, it is important to know that in Twitter, lurking is a natural thing, (everybody does it! J)
And now, a great quote by Craig Nansen @cnansen, which came to me via Miguel Guhlin @MGuhlin‘s post Gongs and Cymbals – Twitter Tinnitus.
I use a different approach to get teachers and administrators using Twitter. I have them explore Twitter before they get an account, searching for hashtags that I provide them. More info here –http://tinyurl.com/7shqn6m
More evidence that lurking is good!
When joining a social network like Twitter, it is easy to either:
a) Get frustrated with it before you build a network that will help you more than you could ever reciprocate; or,
b) Get fully turned on to Twitter and have it become a fire hose of information coming at you too fast and too furious to feel that you can handle it.
Somewhere between these two points there is the balance that I’ve found which has placed Twitter as the second best Pro-D I’ve ever done! Twitter is second only to blogging… but that’s a whole other story!
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ps. For those that are in the #Digifoot12 course, I’ve had a lot of feedback that suggests my Netvibes page helps to narrow the fire hose a little by putting all the links you’ll need in one spot. Hope it helps and let me know if you think of anything I should add to it.
DigiFoot12 – My Experience
Yes, I’m still at work. Yes, I’m probably too busy to add something new to my plate. But this is my work in a way… actually in two different ways!
1. I have been a MOOC dropout that did one assignment for the course, and I’ve never followed through with an online course… and yet, I work in an environment where I help students find success in online courses. I work in a learning centre for adults and most of them, like me, live very busy lives. I want to model the commitment I ask of our students.
2. Digifoot12 is an excellent launching ground for me as I start to build my course, Applications of Digital Literacy for our new Inquiry Hub, starting in September. I’m very excited about teaching this course and I think that almost everything I do in Digifoot12 will benefit the development of my own course. In fact, as we approached the start of this course, Verena Roberts and I had a conversation and we realized that we were taking similar approaches. She has students working as Digital Detectives, working on cases: Case 1 – Scavenger Hunt And I too had the idea of students being ‘digital detectives’ though not as an overriding theme.
So, I have a lot to model and to learn from. I decided to use my Daily Ink blog because I’ll be posting much more frequently than I normally do on ‘Pair-a-Dimes‘, and that blog is really not for course material as that’s not the audience I’ve built there… Although reflections on this experience will creep over there as we move forward.
What I’ve done so far:
* Joined the Student2.0 Digifoot12 Group and updated my profile.
* Added my twitter and blog links. I’ve also posted about on Digifoot12 Twitter.
* Added an artifact to mightybell – This one: The complete guide to building a digital footprint
* Watched the slideshow for week 1. (I had a work appointment that prevented me from being part of the live session.)
* Written this introductory post, And…
* Created this Netvibes page to help me, and hopefully others, follow along.
Invasion by Alien Zombies *Experiment
Had I not been to Northern Voice, I’m sure I would have passed this off as a hoax! It required an actual sighting to make me a believer… And yet I’m still not convinced that I believe my own eyes. Is this a bunch of actors doing some sort of street improv? NO, that’s real blood! I’m speechless.
Ok, not sure zombie is the right word, these things are living, yet they are feeding on people. I’ve got to get out of h
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*Update: So… for those of you that wondered what this was all about… I’d call it a failed experiment. It was really just a Northern Voice session where the leader tried to get us to create some buzz and *Trend* our topic of an alien invasion by zombies. It was forced. It really wasn’t authentic in any way. It also was funny in that I forgot this blog is autoposted to Facebook and so I had comments from Toronto to China wondering what was wrong with me;)
A classic example of worlds colliding: http://pairadimes.davidtruss.com/google-buzz-and-george-costanza-worlds-collide/
But there is more here… it really was about trying to game social media in a way that felt strained and which did what I like least of all about pushing a message and gaming the system to create buzz about a topic.
It was a good lesson on what not to do to garnish attention. So I guess it was a valuable experience after all – we do learn from failure after all!
Blending Learning: The Convergence of Online and Face-to-Face Education
NACOL – North American Council for Online Learning :: Promising Practices in Online Learning
Blending Learning: The Convergence of Online and Face-to-Face Education
http://www.15centnewspaper.com/resources/inacolblend.pdf
This is why I say there is a 'transformation' going on! It's not about things 'not working' or being 'broken', it's simply a necessary shift from doing things in a traditional school setting to doing things in a meaningfully different way. It's not about adding technology to teaching, it's about a transformation in what teaching means today. Exciting stuff!
Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology
via ted.com
Wow! I love the very ending when he talked about developing a missing 5th sense…. It excited me about the potential for helping with special needs students.
Two other thoughts:
-What’s the next iPad? What’s the next device that everyone will want? What will it do?
-How do we create schools where students can explore and ‘tinker’ like Pranav?
Cassie and Katie – Public Speaking 2011
Both of my girls did a great job with their speeches!
Katie was a finalist in our non-judged Junior Public Speaking Celebration, on the morning of June 9th, 2011.
Cassie was 2nd in the Grade 5/6 category of the Senior Public Speaking Finals, later that afternoon.
‘My Day with Boon the Elephant’ by Katie Truss
‘Procrastination’ by Cassie Truss
Sarcasm, even spelt right too!
I think Cassie was only 3 years old when she started asking me, “Dad, are you being tar-tas-tic again?”
This is from her Father’s Day card.
It’s interesting but I really don’t think that my sarcasm plays out online. I tend not to use it as it is too easily interpreted as rude or at times even scathing. So instead I barrage my kids with it. I’m sure as they get older their eyes will role-over as I embarrass them in front of their friends, (the eye-rolls have already started), but my editing filter shuts off at home. So, my girls will just have to put up with me… even with my sarcasm. 🙂
Compliment Tree
Very sweet, she’s a keeper! 🙂
