I admit it. I’m addicted…I’m addicted to Twitter! I joined Twitter 1000 days ago on April 20, 2009 -- http://www.whendidyoujointwitter.com. My addiction makes me feel guilty if I don’t go on Twitter every day. I feel that I might miss something of value tweeted by respected professionals that I follow. My students think that I am on Twitter to find out which marriage ended after 72 days. I choose to use Twitter. I choose to use Twitter for my own professional development – the only problem is I don't get credit for my hours.
The first thing that I love about Twitter is that a person has to present their ideas in a concise manner (of 140 characters or less). I think this makes us focus on our core thoughts and ideas and get to the point. I don’t have a lot of time to read books and lengthy blogs. But by watching my Twitter stream and focusing on what I want to learn, I can pick and choose the information and topics of people working in a similar position as me.
I also love the real-time customer support center offered to those that tweet. It’s another part of my PLN. Instead of using Google, I can use Twitter to find information. I can ask a question and receive great feedback, suggestions and various answers from those that follow me and/or are interested in similar topics. My followers can retweet to their followers and the topic and the audience increases exponentially.
Topics are called hashtags and are preceded by an “#”. #edchat is a very popular hashtag used by educators on Twitter. By watching our hashtags we can learn from others on a similar journey. We can connect and share ideas between educators all around the world. Instead of looking for information, hashtags allow the information to come to us. In the past couple weeks, my students finally figured out the power of a hashtag. They thought it was used to make a “clever” comment at the end of a tweet. However, after a local student was paralyzed in a hockey injury, they all now follow a tag (#jabs) that supports this local student athlete on his journey to heal.
Instead of using the actual Twitter site, I actually use TweetDeck – a third party social media tool that allows me to organize all of my social networks in one location. With TweetDeck I can watch a regular twitter stream, follow a hashtag, see my name “mentioned” in others tweets and watch my Facebook status updates. There’s nothing wrong with Twitter; however, the TweetDeck user interface has so much more to offer. After 1000 days on Twitter, I continue to learn and grow. I’m excited for what the next 1000 days on Twitter will bring. I’m excited for the new tools and interactive sites that I will learn about. I excited to learn new dynamic ways to engage students. I’m excited to tweet!
Follow @Susan_Simonson
Monday, January 16, 2012
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
Diigo
This week I was developing a small lesson on the benefits of Diigo for my technology team. I have been a long-time user of Delicious, a social bookmarking site. Social bookmarking sites save your bookmarks to the cloud and can be accessed from any computer connected to the web. The great thing about this is it allows you to access to your bookmarks no matter what computer or browser you are using! It is a true 21st Century Tool!
After following several tweets about the benefits of Diigo to educators, I made the shift to Diigo. Making the shift was easy since Diigo created an import of all my bookmarks from Delicious to Diigo. Losing three years worth of bookmarks would have been a deal breaker. By preparing this lesson, I learned a lot about Diigo! The tag line for Diigo is Research, Share, Collaborate ~ My Library, My Network, My Groups.
Research – Diigo is an excellent research tool to highlight, organize, bookmark, annotate, search and access information we find on the internet. What’s really cool is you can add sticky notes, highlight information and annotate with shapes, arrows and text and all this stays on the page when you revisit. You can obviously bookmark a page, but you can also choose to upload or capture a screen snapshot into your library. I believe that tags are the powerhouse of a good social bookmarking system. Of the 500+ bookmarks I have, I have them divided into over 70 different categories or tags. I can search by the tags (or multiple tags) when I’m trying to find an article of interest. For example, I teach web design once a year. I have an awesome site that shares the history of the internet that I use every year. I also learned I could create lists of information that can be organized, moved and sorted. From this list, a user can generate a report. This report can then be played like a slideshow in a tool Diigo created called Webslide…very cool!
Share – A goal for me this year was to continually look for ways to expand and enhance my Personal Learning Network. Diigo is another way to do this. I can share or not share…it’s up to me. All the information in My Library up to this point has been from the internet – so why not? Annotations and things I add would enhance my bookmarks. I could benefit and learn if others commented on them. I can share through email, groups, RSS feeds, twitter and cool widgets like the ones I added this week to the side of the blog. In My Network, I can build different groups that share varied interests consisting of different tags and bookmarks. We can communicate through Diigo and learn from one another. There is also a powerful feature where you create an “annotated link” that you can share with a friend or colleague that is not a current Diigo user.
Collaborate – Diigo groups are great for collaborative/group research. Each member can share their annotated findings with the group. All the information is together in one central repository. It is the Google Apps of web research and information sharing. Comments can be made on the pages or in a thread. Members can receive emails when new items are added to the group. Members can “Like” an item in a Facebook like fashion. As every group member contributes, the group grows and learns. I am currently setting up my WestonkaTILT group. I’m hoping Diigo will be a powerful central hub built around our groups’ mission of embedding 21st century skills and personalizing learning for our students!
[caption id="attachment_124" align="aligncenter" width="422" caption="My Diigo Bookmarks & Tags"]
[/caption]
Follow @Susan_Simonson
After following several tweets about the benefits of Diigo to educators, I made the shift to Diigo. Making the shift was easy since Diigo created an import of all my bookmarks from Delicious to Diigo. Losing three years worth of bookmarks would have been a deal breaker. By preparing this lesson, I learned a lot about Diigo! The tag line for Diigo is Research, Share, Collaborate ~ My Library, My Network, My Groups.
Research – Diigo is an excellent research tool to highlight, organize, bookmark, annotate, search and access information we find on the internet. What’s really cool is you can add sticky notes, highlight information and annotate with shapes, arrows and text and all this stays on the page when you revisit. You can obviously bookmark a page, but you can also choose to upload or capture a screen snapshot into your library. I believe that tags are the powerhouse of a good social bookmarking system. Of the 500+ bookmarks I have, I have them divided into over 70 different categories or tags. I can search by the tags (or multiple tags) when I’m trying to find an article of interest. For example, I teach web design once a year. I have an awesome site that shares the history of the internet that I use every year. I also learned I could create lists of information that can be organized, moved and sorted. From this list, a user can generate a report. This report can then be played like a slideshow in a tool Diigo created called Webslide…very cool!
Share – A goal for me this year was to continually look for ways to expand and enhance my Personal Learning Network. Diigo is another way to do this. I can share or not share…it’s up to me. All the information in My Library up to this point has been from the internet – so why not? Annotations and things I add would enhance my bookmarks. I could benefit and learn if others commented on them. I can share through email, groups, RSS feeds, twitter and cool widgets like the ones I added this week to the side of the blog. In My Network, I can build different groups that share varied interests consisting of different tags and bookmarks. We can communicate through Diigo and learn from one another. There is also a powerful feature where you create an “annotated link” that you can share with a friend or colleague that is not a current Diigo user.
Collaborate – Diigo groups are great for collaborative/group research. Each member can share their annotated findings with the group. All the information is together in one central repository. It is the Google Apps of web research and information sharing. Comments can be made on the pages or in a thread. Members can receive emails when new items are added to the group. Members can “Like” an item in a Facebook like fashion. As every group member contributes, the group grows and learns. I am currently setting up my WestonkaTILT group. I’m hoping Diigo will be a powerful central hub built around our groups’ mission of embedding 21st century skills and personalizing learning for our students!
[caption id="attachment_124" align="aligncenter" width="422" caption="My Diigo Bookmarks & Tags"]
[/caption]Follow @Susan_Simonson
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