Techie Tuesday: All Aboard? Survey Results

Towards the end of January, I wrote an All Aboard? post asking for opinions on helping other teachers “see the power” of learning more about web 2.0 and creating their own PLN.  This post included a Poll Daddy survey of the following:

  • Where would you suggest a teacher get involved first?
  • What is your favorite PLN or Web 2.0 website for newcomers?
  • What web 2.0 tools should a teacher not be without?
  • List an activity you would include in a workshop for teachers.

Are you ready for the results?

Some interesting facts about this survey include the fact that all of the respondents took a little over 6 minutes to complete the survey and represented at least 5-8 countries.  The exact number of countries can’t be determined because three respondents were listed as an unknown location.

Here is the breakdown of the results:

  • Where would you suggest a teacher get involved first?
    • Workshop x 3
    • Twitter x3
    • Other x 4
    • Blog
    • Forum
  • What is your favorite PLN or Web 2.0 website for newcomers?
  • What web 2.0 tools should a teacher not be without?
  • List an activity you would include in a workshop for teachers. For these responses, I copied their ideas below.
    • Activity 1:  Pass out or take out your digital camera. Ask participants to form into small groups and give them a simple photography assignment. Give them fifteen minutes to go take the photos and then report back. I’ve done this, you can’t get them back in the room! They laugh, they have fun, they run all over (we took over the hotel lobby where I was doing the workshop!) and they learn how energizing, interactive and useful it can be to use digital photography and visual literacy in the classroom.
    • Activity 2:  Voicethread…learn how to develop one and try it out with students. Share it with parents.
    • Activity 3:  Create and add to a collaborative wiki. (suggested by two survey participants)
    • Activity 4:  I have never done this, but I just think it is the greatest idea.  I can’t remember where I learned it from- giving out your twitter name and mobilenumber and getting delegates to text your twitter account with instant feedback throughout the day.
    • Activity 5:  Start a blog with a local topic flavour.  Get them to begin posting and commenting before they leave. Then show them examples of educational blogs that are in use.
    • Activity 6:  Live interaction with others worldwide – eg through Twitter, Skype or virtual room
    • Activity 7:  Use blogs and wikis for teaching
    • Activity 8:  I would literally walk participants through setting up a blog and writing a post so that they could see how easy it is.
    • Activity 9:  Voicethread – find up to 3 images (use creative commons search if that doesn’t make it too difficult) and use it to describe a belief that you have about how students learn. Include text and voice recording. Invite someone in the room to make a comment on your voicethread. (Or, a small group could create a joint Voicethread of their main beliefs.)
    • Activity 10:  Form small ‘creative clusters’ so that people join with a friend or two to practice something new like Delicious or Google Docs. The biggest impact activity we have done recently is to Skype in another educator to join the chat.
    • Activity 11:  Just Tweet:)

    What does this tell me?
    First, I want to visit some of these sites that I haven’t incorporated.  I have checked out a few, and they were blocked by our Smartfilter:( Second, I should have found a way to incorporate “other” with a place to type the “other”.  I wonder if those three people in question on were referring to the same great place, and I just missed out on it.
    I’m really glad that “workshop” was one of the desired methods to lure other teachers.  We have one this summer and I hope it is met with a great response. I’m trying to get a few twitters out of the faculty before school lets out.  We have one so far, @ccroad.  She hasn’t had time to see it’s full potential yet, so drop her a line or two, and a follow.

    Lastly, I am extremely thrilled with the fact that the results show that I am on the right track with web 2.0 integration!  To think, this journey really just started in November.  The activity ideas are great, and will be implemented in same fashion.
    Was anyone surprised by del.icio.us ranking as one of the favorite web 2.0 site, but Diigo didn’t?  I am a Diigo user, so I would like to know if I’m missing something by not using del.icio.us.

Techie Tuesday: 31 Day Challenge Days 6 – 11

Oh, the irony I found in day seven’s challenge.  Have you ever been lackadaisical about something only to have it bite you back?

While completing day seven’s challenge to plan the next week’s posting, I thought to myself, “This won’t take long ’cause I already have it figured out.”  Maybe I should have stopped right then and gotten started on actually writing because an entire week flew by while the plan remained just that a plan.

I really enjoyed the day 8 challenge to comment on a blog that I haven’t commented on before.  I visited everyones blog or emailed them.  I tried to do this again last week, but seem to have too much on my plate.  On a good note, I did get my daughter wedding invitations created and mailed on time:)

Declutter?  I can’t get my house decluttered much less my sidebar.  I did switch around a few things on my sidebar for day 10.  Honestly I need others to comment on likes and dislikes to know where to go from here.  I do have two category links, but wasn’t able to get one to delete.  Maybe someone reading will have a solution to this!

I LOVE Google statistics!!!  It is so great to be able to see where your visitors are arriving from and what they look at while visiting.  The students are amazed at all the locations that are popping up on our cluster maps!

As far as the actual statistics that I went through, my bounce rate was lower for twitter visitors and the about page statistics have gone up tremendously since the start of this challenge – thanks challenge participants;)

My favorite two challenges so far have been the about page and the google statistics.  What is your favorite challenge activity?

Techie Tuesday: 31 Day Challenge Days 1 – 5

A few week’s back I was catching up with my google reader feeds and spotted Sue Water‘s post, Life is One Big Top Ten In it she mentioned

One of my Top personal blogging I want To-Do’s is to revisit the 31 Day Project by working through Steve Dembo’s 30 Days to Being A Better Blogger!

Oh cool, there are directions to being better at blogging without all this trial and error (oh, and error). I started the 31 Day Challenge by myself while out for Christmas break.  I was actually also working the Steve Dembo challenge to Be a Better Blogger.  I thought hey these are quick little tasks, I can do two at once:)  

Reality check!  I first of all spent more time than I originally thought completing the challenges.  Not that they are hard.  I just have a very active brain and one challenge leads to another idea, and another, and you get the picture!  So I decided to only complete the 31 Day Challenge and then skim Steve’s.

Via Sue’s Suggestion, I tweeted that I was starting the challenge to see if anyone else wanted to join in.  That is when I met Bill and then we met Ana and Pam.  Basically one thing led to another and then Sue posted about the challenge and we are currently up to 15 participants.  Of course, that could change any minute.  

So how has the first 5 days gone?  GREAT!

I feel that day one is a vital part of building your PLN.  Each email, comment, or twitter response acts as building blocks to build your Personal(professional) Learning Network.  Day two I will probably visit several times during this challenge.  The audit of a blog by people outside of you local support system (or family) is GREAT! I loved Jenny Wood’s idea to post a poll and then send out a tweet.  I need to change a few things from my latest audit via Sue Water’s.  Then I want to tweet and poll:)

Joining a forum (day 3) is a great resource.  I found it helpful to search for various topics as well as expanding my PLN members.  The interlink activity for day 4 is a great idea I had never thought about. I will do more of this as I add posts to my blog.  Of course there had to be another challenge I would want to visit more than once, about page audit (day 5). I completed this challenge and am already ready to revamp again.  I think I might be visiting day 2 and 5 every week:) 

 

Techie Tuesday: 2.0 Red Tape

Do you ever feel like you are wrapped in red tape so tight you are unable to move?  In order to implement an innovative classroom technique/project, we sometimes get so caught up in trying to “straighten out” the red tape that we end up with eyes focused on the tape instead of our original  innovative idea.

I have been fortunate to work with excellent principals who are “all about the students” and allow the freedom to dream big.  When I began teaching at Minden High, I had a one computer classroom. Implementation of technology to broaden skills was key to reaching student learning styles.  My first purchase was an Averkey in order for all students to participate in tech rich lessons by connecting our channel one tv to the class computer.  By the time I took over the computer education courses, my math classroom had grown into a model room which included a class set of Palms, Smartboard, projector, mini lab, and CPS.

Why then did I get so focused on the red tape of web 2.0 implementation?  While I searched for a blog, wiki, etc that would be ok’d by the “internet filter committee,” I totally revamped the class website four times in three years.  Each time making it just alittle more interactive with approved components and each time falling way short of what I was imagining.  Granted the students didn’t mind; they were perfectly happy with a class website and the ability to journal and message the teacher.  My eyes were focused on the compliance within smartfilter.

November 2008 marked the first time that a blog was allowed to be added to the website approval list and thus not blocked.  You guessed it…Edublogs!  To say I was ecstatic would probably be an understatement:) I quickly started building the blog and learning about all the new widgets and such I could add to this now interactive site. Of course it would have taken much longer to learn the ends and outs if it wouldn’t have been for Sue Waters, James, and Dr. Mike at Edublogs.  To finally have these great tools to use with my students was like a dream come true, but I also quickly realized that there was a lot I had missed out on waiting to cut the red tape.

So what would I do differently?  First of all I wouldnt have focused on smartfilter compliance and instead would have had my eyes on the world of web 2.0.  To do this I would have read more, researched more, and reach out more.  Secondly I would have focused on my own PLN instead of only focusing on student’s use of web 2.0.

What components do I think would have been my first stop?  That one is pretty easy.  I would have created my igoogle page  (for organization) including the google feed, and joined Twitter(for socialization).

More on these first stops on next week’s Techie Tuesday.

What first steps would you recommend for a web 2.0 newbee?