First Master class

We held our first master class today on using twitter.

The two sessions we held worked well. The morning session's focus was explaining the purpose of using twitter as a teacher and how we can develop an online PD community.  It  was great to see so many teachers interested and motivated to join and use twitter! We now have a few more teachers signed up to twitter!

The afternoon's session focus on on using hashtags. We have begun (thanks to @Myravardon) a #Vardonchat and #VardonPD hashtag.

Let's get tweeting everyone!

Tweeting with my class!

This afternoon from 1:30pm-2:30pm my class were involved in twitter conversations with a range of schools around NZ. We used the hash tag #kidsedchatnz.

I used my twitter account and as the class came in from lunch we started reading the tweets that were being written and we started replying and then started asking our own questions.

My class loved reading, responding to and writing their own tweets. I actually wrote them but they told me what to write.

Most children were really engaged for 40 minutes. A few stayed on the mat with me while the rest of the class did other topic based learning.

Here is the post we wrote as a class at the end of the day.

http://room7vardonschool.blogspot.co.nz/2012/11/using-twitter-to-connect-with-others.html

Here are some of the tweets:

Positives:

• using social media with the class - they are learning how to use these tools (even though they are too young to have an account of their own they are seeing good examples of how to use this tool)
• the conversations children were having with other NZ schools
• the links my class were making with other schools and other children
• discussions around the question being asked on twitter e.g one questions asked was "How does your teacher help you with connecting with other?"

I don't think there were any negatives, apart from a few children getting wriggly towards the end. I would really like to try setting up a class twitter account because I don't really want to use my personal account (which is mostly teacher stuff anyway) but with a class account we can really make it child friendly.

Watch this space!

Using Twitter as a PLN

Well, I've been tweeting now for about 5 weeks, ever since I went to a session called "A tweet for a teacher" at Ulearn11.
At the start I wasn't convinced but... I have made a complete 180 degree spin on the whole idea of twitter.

I am using twitter as a PLN (professional learning network). I have already made contact with other schools and teachers.

So far....

• I have signed my class up for quadblogging - links with other blogs around the works with a ficus on quality commentng!


• made my class blog available for commenting and viewing - so far views from 6 countries across the globe!


• comments have been made on my class blog and on Toby's e-journal - Toby actually said "I want people from other countries to make comments?" and now that has happened... can't wait for his to read them tomorrow at school!

I can definitely see the benefit in having a twitter account now!!! Unfortunately twitter is blocked at school?!?

http://ideasfactory.me/using-twitter-the-pln-in-education