Tweetdeck versus Twhirl

Twitter has become one of my biggest resources for my personal learning network and I find that I check it multiple times a day-sometimes multiple times a minute, so I figured it was probably time to look for an easier way of keeping up with the latest tweets. I was given the recommendation to look at Tweetdeck and Twhirl.

My first impression of Tweetdeck wasn't good. I found it a little more difficult to use, but if you want all the bells and whistles or have a complex listing of tweets, this might be the way to go. Tweetdeck has 3 columns ( you can add up to 10 I believe), one for your full listing of tweets, one for your @ replies and one for your DM's. Personally, I wanted one column and found that there is a way to reduce it down to just one listing of tweets.
I did like the color customization with tweetdeck-it allowed me to make the window my school colors, which was fun. I also liked the alert sound when a new tweet came in. We all know that colors and sounds are very important, right? One small problem I found is after I shut down my computer for the day and returned the next morning, I couldn't get tweetdeck to reopen in a small window. I'm not sure why-I'm assuming maybe I did something wrong, but I still haven't been able to open back up without it taking up my entire screen.

Tweeting was easy with tweetdeck, but it did take me a second to figure out that sending a direct message or @reply had to be done by holding my mouse over the picture of a person. One neat feature I did like was that urls could be easily shortened with a click of a button into a tinyurl. Always nice when you have limited characters.

After the problem I had with tweetdeck, I was ready to download Twhirl. It seemed to me that the install process with twhirl was a lot faster. It was up and running in less than a minute.
My first impression was good. It had the small "chat size" window I was looking for and it was kind of cute. There aren't as many color options with twhirl, but that's not really the point here, so I didn't focus on that. I was able to easily switch between dms, @replies and my listing of tweets via small buttons at the bottom of the window.

One of the first things I looked for was the shortened url option I had liked so much in tweetdeck and twhirl did have it! Found tweeting to be very easy and also noticed with twhirl that when you do an @reply, it places the picture of both you and the person you're replying to next to the tweet.

In the end, I picked twhirl. I am more simplistic in my needs for a tool like this and twhirl had all I needed in an easy to use, small window. I can see that if I had a lot more followers or followed a lot more people, tweetdeck would be a good option as I could see everything in one area. I might also be more interested in tweetdeck if I wanted to see facebook status updates as it has an option to integrate those as well.

Not a school + technology

Over the weekend I had the opportunity to attend the DEN Virtual Conference and listen to Chris Lehmann speak. One thing he said was that a school should not be a school + technology, the school should change the way it thinks and be different with the technology. I've already noticed that our school is becoming known as that "old" school with lots of new technology. I don't want people to think we just have it sitting around and our teachers aren't doing anything differently now that we have it.
Before spring break, I had a lot of this in my head and took a few moments to write it down. I now have a big yellow sheet of paper on my wall with all of my thoughts about how I'm going to change the way the teachers here think about how technology should be used in the classroom. I immediately thought of that big yellow sheet when I was listening to Chris speak and was excited to hear him talk about the things I had already been considering.

I have a lot of ideas and hope to get more as I talk with others over the next few months.
First of all, I need to change the way I'm doing training. When I first got here, I found that most teachers just needed to be introduced. They weren't aware of the things that were out there for them and I needed to make them aware of what is available. We focused on Web 2.0 quite a bit. I"ve noticed this year a shift in how teachers are looking at things. Many are asking for more and they want to practice and play.

With that in mind, next year my trainings will be mostly hands on and the teachers will leave with some kind of product. They'll learn as a student would in the classroom. I'll play the part of the teacher and we'll focus on various disciplines throughout the year. I'm hoping that by modeling how the teacher should be in the classroom, we'll end up with a more seamless integration of technology at our school.

In each of my trainings, I hope to cover 3 important things:
1. What do you, as the teacher, NEED to know to do this project
2. What do you, as the teacher, need to be able to learn ALONG WITH your students
3. How do you foster the collaborative classroom atmosphere (tips, thoughts, sharing, etc.)

I'm hoping that by covering each of these a little in every session, not only will the teacher better understand the project and how it can be used in their classroom, but they can also begin to understand the importance of collaboration.

I'm currently working with my administrative team to make the theme of next year "collaboration". The new lab we're doing, the new teacher appraisal instrument and the PLC's all are focused on collaboration so I think it stands out as a theme to carry through the year. Announcing this at the beginning of the year and then mentioning it several times throughout will surely help in placing the focus in the right direction.

Tips for Starting a Second Life Program

Once people find out what I'm doing with second life at my school, I tend to get a lot of questions about getting started with a SL program. We are moving slowly here (on purpose), but I've learned quite a bit so far that I thought I'd share. I'm sure this list is only the beginning.

Talk to your technical team.
They will be highly involved in the success of implementation. I recently talked to mine again because Second Life is about to be a county-wide resource as opposed to it currently only being run in my school and maybe a little in one other. Because of this, there are many things to consider. What we have decided to do is block of a period of time to run Second Life on one machine, then run it on several simultaneously. The technical team will watch what happens with bandwidth etc. depending on the activities being done. This will help us move forward to determine how many people can be on at once and if it will affect any programs we're currently running.

Know what you're doing before you begin implementation...
then go learn a little more for good measure. I've said over and over that I can't believe how much there is to learn in Second Life. Just when I begin to think I really know how to do something, I learn something else. It will be imperative to know a lot before beginning to teach other people about second life because the questions that come up tend to be complicated at times.

Get your admin on board
They may be terrified at first, but find the most positive way to introduce it and explain it as fully as you possibly can. If there are complaints or questions about what students are doing in Second Life, they'll be the first person a parent calls, so they need to be fully aware of how it is being used and why it is a good educational resource.

Start small
Get a few teachers interested that will help spread the word. With something this big and this new, it's best to have a few people around that are willing to share their thoughts and ideas, so pick those people and help them get started first. Use this quickstart guide to help you

Check your computers for minimum requirements to run second life
One of the biggest problems I have had is our computers not being able to handle the graphics of second life. It takes a good graphics card and many school bought computers don't have that because they usually are not equipped with extra features. We ended up getting a mac lab at our school specifically for second life use. Check the requirements on the second life site to be sure your computers are ready.

Get a premium account
I've had to enter a few support tickets to fix little problems here and there. One of those problems, for example, dealt with allowing more than 5 accounts per ip address (which is a problem you'll most likely encounter). You have to have a paid account to enter those support tickets. Linden's support center is pretty good, so you will most likely need their help at some point in the process.

My Big Three

I was given the advice from Susan Wells to have a big three. In other words, focus on 3 big things and always know what those are so you know you're working toward your goals. I've been thinking about this for a while and after having feelings of being totally overwhelmed lately, I decided it was time to put it on paper. I think I cheated a little because I came up with two sets of big threes, one for work and one for other things. Once I look at them, they're all work related, but the three I put under work were directly related to my school. My school is my first priority, so I'll begin with those (in no particular order)
1. The collaboration center (AKA 21st Century Lab): This will be consuming most of my time from now, through the summer and a good chunk of my time through the course of next school year. Now I am doing a lot with budgeting and planning. Over the summer I'll be putting it together and then next year will be a lot of training to show our teachers how the lab should be used. It's a full time job in itself!
2. Second Life research. I'm putting a lot of time right now not only learning about second life, but also working to make sure it will function correctly at school. I'm also working with my administration and teachers to write a grant for getting our own island. Due to the fact that the island will be on the teen grid, I have spent and will spend quite a bit of time learning about the teen grid and everything associated with using it as an adult instructor.
3. Training-It's the end of the year and I always find a strong decline in attendance for my workshops. So, I would like to focus my trainings on important topics that relate to teachers even at the end of the year.
My "other" three could probably actually fit as subgroups into the 3 above are all ones that will change a bit over the next couple of months or even be eliminated, but serve as high priority right at this moment. These 3 involve preparing for our county's technology camp, finishing up the semester at my other job as a part time college instructor and preparing for my new job as an instructor for NCVPS!
And just so you know I don't work ALL of the time, I do have one final thing that trumps all others-to do something interesting for myself once a week-by myself or with friends-that doesn't involve sitting around the house or being on the computer! Everyone should have something like this as it serves as great stress relief!
So, I encourage everyone to create a big 3 (or six in my case!). Sometimes it helps to write it down and just see where you stand. It helped me refocus today-try it for yourself!

A new idea is hatching!

I've been working and dreaming with my principal for about a year and a half now to create a 21st century computer lab complete with a lab, animation stations, podcasting booths and whatever else we could dream up. It's made many changes over time but within the last few weeks we have made most of our final decisions.
Our room will include a full computer lab, 3 smartboards, animation stations, podcasting centers and ipod carts. The focus of the room will be to Create, Communicate and Collaborate. Several centers will be set up to allow small group projects where students become the focus of the learning environment. Upon describing this to someone, they replied by saying, "wow, sounds like it will be noisy in there"! They were exactly right! I expect noise and would be disappointed if it was silent during a visit. Not everyone would be excited about the noise factor, but I think it is essential in a room like this in the 21st century.
Today we received the computers for the room which really made it sink in that this is actually happening. It has only been in my head for so long, it's exciting to start seeing it come together. I will be posting more blogs about the creation, the drama and the excitement surrounding this construction, including photos, so stay tuned-plenty more to come!