EVERYTHING I NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED ON TWITTER.

This is the title of a one hour long workshop which I will presenting at the Tai Tokerau Literacy Association Seminar later this month. The seminar looks great, you can view details here.

I have two twitter accounts @Kar3nlj which is my own account and an account for my class @RumaTahi . The following are some of the things I hope to share with other teachers (assuming of course that anyone comes  to my workshop there are so many really good choices!)

1. The value of building a PLN. 
I don't really know where to start with this one. Joining twitter and building a professsional learning (and sharing ) network has been the best PD I have had. Furthermore it is the PD which keeps on giving and is as big or as small as I choose. It is very common for me to 'eavesdrop' on #edchatnz and other twitter conversations. This is a phenomenon known as 'lurking.' I have picked up a number of great tips and links by doing this.

It is not unusual for me to tweet a request for help or advice (especially in ICT) and most often I will get the answer I need in the form of a a tweet.
You can view my twitter account here: https://twitter.com/Kar3nlj

2. Sharing our Learning 
My classroom twitter account (@RumaTahi)  is used to share our learning. Students tweet about their learning and also photos of their work. You can view our account here:  https://twitter.com/RumaTahi

My aim is to grow this and encourage the class to use the account not just to share our work but also to engage with others. A good way to do this is through kidsedchatnz. You can find out more about it here. http://kidsedchatnz.blogspot.co.nz  Unfortunately, due to school timetabling it doesn't work for me this year.

3. Flubaroo
I first heard of flubaroo on twitter and wondered what it was, by clicking the links I soon found out and now it is my new favourite thing.

Basically flubaroo allows me to create a quiz or test for formative (or summative) assessment purposes, marks it for me and identifies the students who may need some more support. It also shows which questions students found difficult, and then (if I choose) it emails the students their personalised results.

It sounds complicated when I write it all in a short paragraph like that, but really it's not! I use google drive create forms to make the multi-choice test and I finish up with a beautiful, detailed spreadsheet of personalised results. I taught myself to use flubaroo after first discovering it on twitter. You can do the same, check it out here:

http://www.flubaroo.com/flubaroo-user-guide

I sometimes link the test to a QR code and give the students a deadline for completion so they can complete it whenever they like on their own device.

4. QR Codes

Of course it was through twitter that I learnt about using QR codes in the classroom too. I just had to tweet a request for some advice and that led me to this brilliant blog from a well known NZ tweep.  Check it out here: http://allanahk.edublogs.org/category/qr-codes/ 

That led me to explore ways of using QR codes in my own classroom. My year 7 students loved the QR Code scavenger hunt in the first week of school and now I mainly use them to link to learning activities. I recently stuck a QR code on my classroom door which links to our class twitter account, (@RumaTahi)  and because I used http://snap.vu for this I can see how many times that code gets scanned.

I have been interested in attaching a QR codes to student learning activities and I am still exploring this.

I imagine classroom displays with QR links to videos of students talking about their learning. The problem has been where to put the video, when you don't want to put it on line.  This problem was recently solved too and the answer came about through a twitter conversation.

You can view the link here: http://jaymelinnjohnson.wordpress.com/2014/05/06/creating-qr-codes-to-share-videos/

YAY!... IT WORKS

 I generally like to use http://www.qrstuff.com to create my own QR codes.

5. Blogging

Shortly after discovering twitter I realised that many teachers have their own, or run a class blog. I'm not sure if I personally have anything particularly useful to share in my own blog but I do it because it makes me reflect on my practice and I find it quite helpful. If anyone comments, or finds anything I have to say useful, well that's just a bonus. I also see blogging as a really valuable way to have some control over my on-line persona.

I had some questions and I needed some help when I first set up my blog, but  I soon found there's always somebody in my PLN happy to give advice. (Thanks @ReidHns1 and @Allanahk )
 I just need to ask twitter. This blog from Allanah is a great place to start http://bling4yrblog.blogspot.co.nz and of course I found this by asking my PLN for some twitter help.

Aside from writing though, reading blogs and finding new blogs through twitter provides enormous learning and professional development. There are some amazing teachers out there who publish excellent posts about all things teaching and learning and through twitter you won't have to search very far to find some.

6. Chatting and not attending conferences.

Twitter is a great way to participate in professional learning conversations and I love that I can do it in my pyjamas! I've learnt a lot from #edchatnz, often by 'lurking', reading the tweets and saving the links.
You can find out more about it here:

#Edchatnz  http://missdtheteacher.blogspot.co.nz/2014/04/starting-little-hashtag-that-could.html

I've also used twitter to virtually attend conferences. I learnt new things from ulearn last year even though I spent the whole day lying on my couch with my computer open and my phone in my hand. (The food wasn't as good, but at least I didn't have to queue for the toilet!)

7. Geocaching

This is a personal one. I had never heard the word 'geocaching' before I noticed it popping up in my twitter stream from time to time. I investigated it further and now I am a keen geocacher and it has become a hobby that I share with my family and friends. Find out more here:  http://www.geocaching.com/guide/

8. Other Cool Stuff

I've explored countless other websites and apps. There's a lot more that I haven't explored, but if you are prepared to do some self directed learning, twitter can provide endless opportunities for professional development.

These are just a few of the other favourite things I've learned about through twitter.

http://www.codecademy.com

http://zombiebothq.com

http://www.literacyshed.com

http://colarapp.com

I can't recommend twitter highly enough as a tool for ongoing learning.