Global Collaboration Day – Different Styles of Twitter Chats!

Different styles of Twitter Chats – Global Collaboration Day

Twitter has been used extensively to develop an amazing professional learning network. Although I do not regularly participate in twitter chats, I do find the global classroom chats of high interest. When I became a Master Skype teacher, Beverly Ladd and I started the #skype2learn twitter chat on a two monthly basis and again, when Julie Lindsay founded the ISTE Global PLN network, I help to organise the #isteglobalpln chat. Over the past 7 or 8 years twitter has developed significantly in its power to aid in networking. Hashtags, a translation option, the addition of images, tagged images and short videos etc to tweets has evolved.

On Global Collaboration Day my involvement in moderation spanned across three twitter chats –

• A 1 hour chat #isteglobalpln “Twitter Chats 101” See the archive
• Two slow twitter chats: #skype2learn “Learning with the World” and #globalgamechat The Gllobal Game Chat The slow twitter chats were less formal and people could answer questions in their own time. Moderators put out the questions on a regular basis.

Archives for Learning with the world and #globalgamechat

The Global Game Chat #globalgamechat was a multilingual chat instigated by the ISTE Games and Simulations Network. However it became a collaborative effort between two other ISTE groups the Mobile Learning and Global Collaboration network. The initial 30 minute chat was  followed by a slow twitter chat over a 24 hour period. The questions were sent out in English, French and Arabic.

Example of a multilinugal tweet

RT@GridJumper INGRESS это игра, которая держит вас в движении и поможет вам узнать площадь лучше #globalgamechathttp://t.co/4EGGBY96EF#gbl

— UnSymposium (@vwgus) September 18, 2015

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

The #skype2learn Learning with the World was a slow twitter chat that spanned the 48 hours that Sept 17^th takes to cross the world. It was a true collaborative effort.  As moderators came from Australia, Europe (Serbia and Greece) and USA, we were able to monitor the chats 24/7 (or 48/7)!!!  Jed Dearybury created an image which featured the 12 questions. Master Skype teachers crowd sourced the 12 questions that would be posed. The questions were reversed in order for the second 24 hour period.

Some moderators automated their tweets, and watched the responses evolve, interacting where possible. Participants were encouraged to respond as the questions fell (approx. every 1 or 2 hours) or answer all questions at once.

The addition of pictures and tweeting in local languages was encouraged. Pictures added great value especially when “What can you see outside your window? and “What animals are common in your area?”

The 1 hour #isteglobalpln chat was really fast and intense with co-moderators coming from the USA and Australia. Toni Olivieri-Barton @toniobarton, Anne Mirtschin @murcha, Linda Martin @mrsmartinusa Nine questions were posed and participants responded their answers immediately. However the timing of this chat left out almost half the world as it was not friendly to Europe and Asia for real time involvement.

The #globalgamechat received many tweets in languages other than English – Russian etc Moderators spanned the 24 hours.

Reflections on the experience:

One hour twitter chats

A one hour twitter chat can be intense. Having three moderators helped to lighten the load. We took it in turns to ask the questions. Answers came in chronological order making for easier archiving and retrieval.

Slow twitter chats

• Requires a number of moderators who can span the time zones, pose the questions and interact.
• Enables all people across the world to participate in their own time and in their own language.
• Not all questions will be answered by all participants
• Answers may not fall in chronological order
• Far more relaxing to moderate
• Tweets can be pre-timed in twitter apps like tweetdeck and hootsuite. However if the tweets are simply pretimed, interaction still provides for richer conversations.

Further observations

• Fascinating to read tweets in different global languages and gain a glimpse into what they look like. I though WOLOF was a teaser but it is an actual language spoken by Jed Dearybury!
• Images add so much to tweets – we can actually see what things look like rather than imagine through the sharing of 140 characters. The #globalgamechat participants really used the richness of media and is a delight to go back through.
• Time zones were not an issue in the slow chats as they spanned a period of time.

The archives can be found by clicking on the appropriate links

Twitter Chats 101 #isteglobalpln

Learning with the World #skype2learn

Global Games Chat #globalgamechat

#isteglobalpln Twitter Chat: Getting connected – Starting to collaborate

An twitter chat took place yesterday as part of the ISTE Global Collaboration PLN group. The topic of conversation was “Getting connected – Starting to collaborate”. #isteglobalpln This chat was moderated by Julie Lindsay and me. The questions were:-

See the archive on storify

How would you have answered these questions?

#globalclassroom Twitter Chat: The Globally Connected Eduator

Global Classroom is three!

#globalclassroom twitter chats are three years old!   To celebrate this month’s chat will take up the theme of “The Globally Connected Educator”. This also continues the theme of  Connected Educator month which took place during October. Karen Stadler (@ICT_Integrator) of South Africa and  Anne Mirtschin (@murcha) of Australia will c0-moderate this chat. It will take place on Sunday November 16th at 9pm, Melbourne Australia time (gmt+11) Please check timeanddate for your day and timezone. Dont forget to use the hashtag #globalclassroom with each tweet!

The following questions will be posed.

1. What does it mean to be a globally connected educator? What does it mean to YOU personally?
2. How do you become a global connected educator? Ideas / advice for teachers wanting to become global connected educators.
3. What are the benefits of being a globally connected educator – why would you encourage other teachers to become globally connected?
4. Ideas/Tips for managing your “connectedness” – one cannot be available online 24/7, so how do you get around this and find the balance? Tips from other globally connected educators.

If you cannot be part of this chat due to timezone constraints, it would be great if you can share your answers either prior to or after the chat. Use the hashtag #globalclassroom, add A1 or A2 etc to whichever question you are answering.

If this is your first experience in a twitter chat, see How to participate in a twitter chat

Please note that these chats will be held on a quarterly basis over the next year. Looking forward to you joining us!

#skype2learn twitter chat – the archive

Questions for the first chat

Thanks to everyone who participated in the first twitter chat for #skype2learn. Special thanks to Bevery Ladd who co-modarted the chat and to the Master Skype teachers for their active involvement.

Participants stayed up late at night (including Siberia and England) or tweeted early before they went to bed (eg Livingstone, a teacher from Havilla Childrens Centre in the biggest slum in Africa, Kenya). There were many conversations, some fantastic resources shared, ideas for using skype for innovative learning and many new connections to make. The chat has been archived at storify Connected Classrooms with #skype2learn

The questions can be found here. question 2 “Why do you use skype?” has some powerful answers. Make sure you look at them.

Connected Classrooms with Skype

At 9am  Friday 31st October, the inaugual #skype2learn twitter chat will take place in Melbourne, Australia (gmt+11) time. This will be 6pm Eastern Standard or 3pm Pacific, USA on Thursday October 30th. See timeanddate for your day and time.

It takes place on the last day of the official Connected Educator Month and the theme will be “Connected Classrooms with Skype”. The hashtag will be #skype2learn. Skype has been a long term favourite of mine as it is free, user friendly and people across the globe are able to use it readily. The twitter chat will use some of the following questions over the hour of dedicated conversations:-

1. Please introduce yourself, where you are from and what your interest is in education
2. Why do you use skype for connecting?
3. How have you used skype for learning?
4. Share your favourite stories and learning outcomes
5. Where do you find connections?
6. What tips do you have for those who are new to using skype?

If this is your first experience with pariticpating in a twitter chat, see How to participate in a twitter chat

What other questions could we explore with each other. Please join us and learn of the power of videoconferencing and skype in the classroom.

Below is the scribd poster for this session

https://www.scribd.com/doc/244543616/Twitter-Chat-Connected-Classrooms-with-Skype

Twitter for Senior Student Revision

Today, marks the first day back for term 4 in Victorian schools in Australia. The pressure is on to prepare our senior students for their final VCE exams and set them up with organized revision activities.

Revision started in earnest and in a very traditional manner through reading and writing but then an aha moment reminded me that twitter might be useful, especially as the Business Management students need to look at the Management of Change. We stopped what we are doing and:

1. Registered for twitter: Only 2 students were registered for twitter, so the rest registered. We discussed usernames, passwords and the nature of random follows and followers
2. Used twitter as a search engine: Then searched for their chosen organisations to study in depth eg Australia Post  and found this link  Post Office faces Changes two tweets down on the timeline (very valuable for their Management of Change understanding)

Post Office faces challenges http://t.co/g1z8RQM1Tb via @newcastleherald pic.twitter.com/78T1O61zbQ

— Australia Post (@auspost) October 6, 2014

• Searched for people or organisations to follow.
• I commenced a list for VCE Business Management based on their research and mine.
• Students followed me and subscribed to my list VCE Business Management (They can always unsubscribe and unfollow me when their study is completed)

From the Australia Post tweetfeed, we found more more great links for those who are using Australia Post as their organisation of choice. These appeared at the top of the timeline feed for today and give students a feel for the organisation so much more than they would get through static webpages and gives a deeper understanding of how large organisations work, especially with the advent of technology.

On 6 October, price changes will take effect for some Australia Post products & services http://t.co/qRD0BezKfZpic.twitter.com/GCZ1jVyKey

— Australia Post (@auspost) October 5, 2014

This tweet is great for their study of social responsibility

The 113 wonderful recipients of 2014’s #OurNeighbourhood Community Grants have been announced http://t.co/vU7YmI2jQy pic.twitter.com/zAKdWdOqV1

— Australia Post (@auspost) October 7, 2014

What else did we find? Other teachers of the subject sharing resources, advice etc Newspaper articles that have hints and tips for successful exam preparation and completion and this is just the beginning……. Do you think it will help them with exam revision and improved study score in exams?

Twitter 201: Build Your PLN with Advanced Tips and Tools with Susan Bearden

This was the title of one of the Spotlight sessions at #iste13   This blog post is part of a series of posts sharing some of my favourite learning at the ISTE conference.

Why chosen? Twitter has played a huge role in developing a professional network. As I use twitter extensively and effectively, I wondered what more could be learnt about twitter and  this is one session I nearly dismissed. However, Susan Bearden @s_bearden kept tweeting her session, encouraging us to attend  and shared a great blog post on Thinking Before You Tweet prior to iste.

The outcome! – this was a great session in a theatre that was packed with tweeters, from which I learnt even more about twitter. Susan created a hashtag  for the session #twtr201 See Susan’s presentation and on slideshare or read some of my notes below:-

• Twitter Lists for categorizing – can be private or public, can follow lists or use other people’s lists
• Twitter chats – great PD, use columns in hootsuite, tweetdeck or tweetchat and add hashtags followed
• Schedule the tweets to avoid tweet overload with hootsuite, tweetdeck or buffer
• Use buffer app as it picks the best time to send the tweets out based on your followers.
• Link shorteners when sharing website links eg tinyurl, google shortener, bitly Bit.ly allows you to customize the name to suit the topic and can create qr code.  Create the shortened url in bitly, copy it to your browser and add .qrcode to the url and it provides the qr code image.
• Twitter clients for mobiles  – tweetings echofon tweetlist hootsuite native twitter app
• Twitter as a search engine:- search for hashtags, words (might give more focussed content)
• Twitter has an advanced search – key in a number of people in the advanced search, then key them in to tweetdeck and add them into a list
• Geeky twitter stuff! Twitter analytics  Favstar twubs (follow twitter chat hashtags)
• Hootsuite University – study all about twitter – get a pro account for 1 month and attend hootsuite university for 1 month free

Thanks Susan for sharing this great session.

Creating an educational hashtag

Most of my working life is spent teaching at Hawkesdale P12 College but for one day per week, I also work for Digital Learning, Victorian Department of Education as a Web or Virtual Conference coach helping teachers in to use  Blackboard Collaborate, MS Lync, Skype and Polycom Equipment. There are 4 other coaches appointed to this position.

For some time, we have wanted to keep track of tweets that might mention virtual conferencing in education and learning.  However, we need a hashtag which needs to be unique and short in length. After some discussion, it was decided to use #edvc (educational virtual conferencing).  Education is the main objective so “ed” comes first, then the vc for virtual conferencing. Here is what I did:-

1. thought up a generic hashtag that was broad and global in nature and not confined to any specific organisation
2. checked whether #edvc was already used. Online searches failed to come up with any finds.
3. registered the hashtag with hashtags, tag definitions and twubs
4. sent out a tweet with the hashtag

A tweet displaying the new hashtag

The resultant photo is shared below:-

A student proudly shares her Great Grandfather’s army uniform

If you use twitter and conference virtually with others, it would be great if you could share with this hashtag.

There’s a Frog in my Classroom!

Globalclassroom tweetchats are a great way to converse with others on a specified topic and  meet a network of educators who live in a similar time zone. They are held once a month for one hour over three days and times to suit all time zones.. @Warwick_Languages and I co-moderated one of the December sessions.The topic of conversation was “Eat that Frog!” A great topic discussion suggested by David Potter (@iearnusa) in California. See the globalclassroom post “Eat that Frog“.

This topic was of high intrigue. Frogs! – we are not allowed to eat frogs in Australia, yet they are a prized dish in other countries – primarily Asia.  Would we offend anyone?

As the chat progressed a number of experienced global classroom tweeters came on board and many more were lured into the conversation with this great topic teaser! It became one of the most amazing chats that I have participated in – participants from across the world – some great sharing, honesty, laced with humour and many wonderful experiences to learn about. The hour did not let us do justice to the questions – we ran out of time!

Please take time to peruse the chatfeed which @CliveSir kindly puts together. There is a wealth of advice, resources and experience to be found there. One experience that fascinated participants was that of Jenny Ashby and her 24 hour skype-a-thon, where Australia students went to school with others across the world in their school class time. Read Jenny’s account of their 24 Hour Skype

What frogs do you have in your classoom? Have you been involved in tweethchats? If so, which ones?  What tweet chats do you enjoy?

What is a tweetchat?

Chats using twitter to deliver conversations are becoming increasingly popular. A great variety of chats have sprung up over the last 12 months. Some are held weekly, some monthly, usually for one hour. They are aimed at people with a common interest or passion eg edchat, globalclassroom chat, kinderchat etc. It is a group chat in real time using twitter. To get involved, you need to know the hashtag or #. A number of people may moderate the chat and lead the discussion, keeping participants on task and allowing the chat to formally start and finish.

Tonight we have the globalclassroom chat. Here are suggestions for being involved.

1.  Set aside dedicated time to be part of the chat (usually one hour)
2. Goto tweetchat, and enter globalclassroom (or the hashtag you want to follow) into the search bar (at the top, in the middle). Some twitter browsers allow a dedicated column to be setup with the hashtag eg tweetdeck
3. End any tweets with #globalclassroom. This will bring the tweet to the attention of all who are interested in sharing information about Global Classrooms.
4. Register for tweetchat, if you would like control over various elements of the chat eg speed, saving ability etc.
5. Tweets will usually be sent out prior to the time so that the topic is promoted etc
6. Look for the archives of the chat. The link will be shared at some stage after the official chat time. eg Globalclassroom chats are archived on the Global Classroom Chat wiki. You can read through all conversations should you miss the live session.
7. The chat will often continue on a less intense pace once the dedicated time has passed.

globalclassroom inserted into search window

Why get involved?

• Each participant has a voice!
• great opportunity to meet other partipants from across the world who share similar passion
• access the latest in thinking in a particular area
• access some great resources, blog posts, spaces etc that are shared by participants
• ability to hone in a particular subject
• chance to share your knowledge and help others
• txt chat is not daunting, everyone can type in something
• find many new people to follow on twitter
• help develop a networked brain!

Where can you find hashtags and chats?

• list of educational hashtags compiled by cybraryman
• 50 most popular educational chats and how to use them

Won’t you join me and Tasha Cowdy as we co-moderate global classroom chat this evening, Sunday, Setp 16th at 7pm, Melbourne Australia time (gmt+10)

What have I left out? What else would you like to know about tweetchats?