A Day In The Life of 2.0

This posting was inspired by Joyce Valenza’s School Library Journal article titled “My 2.0 day and the response/rant about our cover argument” from October 15, 2009. Have you reflected on your digital 2.0 life and how it has transformed over the past couple years? What does your digital daily routine look like professionally (or personally)? How many times a day do you have to type in a user name and password? How many different user names and passwords do you manage? It is really quite interesting to list how the digital world impacts my daily routine.

First thing in the morning I check all four of my email accounts – two personal and two educational accounts. Are four email accounts too many? Once I arrive at school the 2.0 life really begins. I check in behind the scenes with the school blog, Technology Learning @Camilla. Are there new comments posted that required an administrative reply? From there I login to my professional Delicious account so that my laptop is ready to use the Delicious quick launch buttons in my browser.
On any given school day, I will login to most, if not all the following digital tools:
• Blogger
• Discovery Streaming
• LearnAlberta
• Promethean Planet
• VoiceThread
• Slideshare
• Podomatic or Podbeam
• Wikispaces

Throughout the day there are numerous web 2.0 tools, Internet resources and digital applications that are part of the regular technology landscape in my classrooms:
• Google Earth
• Wordle
• Audacity
• Photo Story 3

After the school day is finished and I have arrived home, I quickly boot up the laptops. It is now time to manage more digital accounts at home. Some of these applications are simply for personal use, some are an extension of my professional day that can only be managed at home.
• Teching Around with Web 2.0 Personal Blog
• Twitter
• Google Reader
• Google Docs
• Shelfari
• Skype
• Flickr
• Picasa
• ZoHo Notebook

How many Ning’s are too many Ning’s? It is not enough to belong to one educational Ning these days. Each time I read about the creation of a new Ning on Twitter, I suddenly find myself joining the community. I tend to follow some of my favourite Twitter colleagues into new social communities because I don’t want to miss out of the amazing discussions, resources, and sharing. Although I belong to a handful of social networks, I regularly manage four social networks:
• The Educator’s PLN
• Canadian 21st Century Teacher-Librarians
• Classroom 2.0
• Stenhouse Publishers


I have over forty web accounts, and that number is somewhat underestimated as there are many more web 2.0 accounts that I used and have forgotten to type up on my master list.

My day is digitally busy. The rapid growth of emerging technologies will continue to keep my 2.0 life in a state of typing in user names and passwords.

Is life now one big login?

My Personal Learning Network

Building my own personal learning network (PLN) has been professionally rewarding. Next to my graduate studies, my dedication to developing my PLN has been an invaluable investment. Connecting with technology professionals, educational experts and creative individuals through such networks as:
Twitter
EdTech Talk
Classroom 2.0
The Future of Education
Canadian 21st Century Teacher-Librarians

The opportunities to connect locally, provincially, nationally and globally 24/7 have open up dialogue for critical thinking conversations on a variety of educational topics to support my professional learning, which in turns allows new knowledge to be woven into my instructional practices. My PLN provides daily support, gives answers, asks questions, and shares resources.

Look beyond your classroom, your school, your district…there is a global PLN out there ready to
Connect, Communicate, Converse

"You can't stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes."
~Winnie the Pooh

Stenhouse Online Book Reviewers Club

I am pleased to announce that I will be part of an online book reviewers club for Stenhouse Publishers.

My online educational responsibilities include:
• Participation on the Stenhouse blog
• Posting book reviews and author information on this blog
• Hosting/participating in blog book tours

I look forward to this new partnership over the next school year and invite administrators, teachers and instructional coaches to join the Stenhouse Publishers Ning for lively discussions on new educational resources supporting professional development.

The first book I will be reading is A Sense of Belonging Sustaining and Retaining New Teachers by Jennifer Allen. Jennifer is a literacy specialist from Maine who has created professional development programs and workshops at the local and national levels.

Take the opportunity to browse the entire book online and then join the Ning discussion!

Twitter #edchat

Edchat has become an exciting collaborative conversation forum for educators via Twitter. Edchat discussions happen Tuesday’s on Twitter in two different time zones – 12pm and 7pm (ET).
• Follow the hashtag #edchat
• Each week hosts a new educational topic

There are great bloggers who have explained, in detail, Twitter and edchats. Here are just a few samples:
Teacher Reboot Camp
The Cool Cat Teacher
Blogging About the Web 2.0 Connected Classroom

I participated in my first edchat discussion on August 18th and was pleasantly surprised at the thought-provoking discussions with last Tuesday’s topic “What Objectives are Necessary for Effective Tech Integration?”
• Technology should become increasingly transparent
• Innovative educators needed
• Do innovative educators always equal good educators?
• Encourage and engage colleagues
• Teachers engaged in teaching; students engaged in learning
• Explore new resources and tools
• Focus on content, not the technology
• Tell admin, show admin, involve admin
• Tech needs to be adopted, not adapted!

I found myself continually refreshing my Twitter page as the conversations were lively and constantly evolving from people joining in throughout the evening. Is this kind of conversation worthwhile? Absolutely! I have added a number of new technology experts to my professional learning network (PLN), and have gained new followers who share in my educational interest in technology.

Dare to Tweet in #edchat…it will do your PLN good!

A Whole New Mind

A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule The Future is a book by Daniel H. Pink. This book was recommend reading from a few of my colleagues and while I am not quite finished reading the book, I am fascinated with Pink’s provocative commentary on our global future.

Chapter One, titled Right Brain Rising, gives readers a refresher of the misconceptions vs ‘the real stuff’ in the different roles between the two hemispheres of the brain.
We need both left and right brain approaches to live fulfilling, productive lives. So why does Daniel H. Pink feel the need to emphasize the right-brained approach?

“Last century, machines proved they could replace human back. This century, new technologies are proving they can replace human left brains” (p. 44). Automation and technological developments are shifting the emphasis in the workplace away from information-based, analytical focuses to narrative, storytelling, and empathetic right-brained thinking.

Pink outlines four defining ages in chapter three (p. 49):
Depicting the historical progression of society shows the evolution from left-brain domination to the right-brain rising.

In part two of the book, Pink introduces six senses essential in the Conceptual Age.
• Design
• Story
• Symphony
• Empathy
• Play
• Meaning

“These six senses increasingly will guide our lives and shape our world” (p. 67).

A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future will take readers on a fascinating journey exploring the future that we should no longer be waiting for, but instead embrace as it has already arrived.

A School Year in Review

Another academic school year is quickly coming to an end. It has been a busy one! Reflecting back to the beginning of last September, I was unsure of how I was going to get through what seemed like an overwhelming glance of the year at hand. The Fall began with my final regular graduate course titled Exploration of Web 2.0. A fantastic introduction to Web 2.0 tools alongside the creation of this blog as a partial requirement for the course. A plethora of new tools, applications, articles, reports, books were introduced as part of the professional learning. I found myself completely engaged in the twenty-first century participatory culture of Web 2.0 and new technologies.

Technology highlights of my academic school year and my last year of graduate studies include:
• Becoming a blogger
• Following blogs
• Streaming slideshows and creating collages in Flickr/Picasa
• Subscribing to Delicious as my main social booking account
• Creating podcasts using Audacity and PodOmatic
• Exploring virtual libraries
• Creating wikis in pbwiki
• Attending Internet Librarian 2008 Conference in Monterey,CA
• Using VoiceThread personally and professionally
• Attending Kaleidoscope 9 Children’s Literature Conference
• Becoming a Tweeter by joining the Twitter nation
• Setting up Google Reader as my aggregator for RSS feeds
• Using document cameras & Promethean Boards at school
• MEd Convocation Day, June 4th

There’s so much more technology learning to come.
I’m inspired to share more.
I’m motivated to learn more.

Twitter: What Are You Doing?

The Power of Twitter
Well, the secret of Twitter is really out! Last month, Twitter was revealed to millions more as Oprah sent out her first tweet on April 17th Friday’s Live Show. I suspect Twitter will be a little more crowded now because everything Oprah endorses explodes in popularity. Recently there have also been a number of ‘Twitter Wars’ between media moguls and celebrities, all competing for the title of Twitter King or Queen. It is easy to dismiss this tool as frivolous and a waste of time. Everyone has their own reason for using Twitter – personal, professional or both.
Although Twitter was developed in San Francisco in 2006, I have only been tweeting since 2008. I had a little trepidation at first, not knowing exactly what was worthy of saying in 140 characters or less. In the beginning I truly did not understand the power of this application. However, the more I use it, the more I understand Twitter’s power in building networks and facilitating professional connections. For the most part, I choose to follow people, institutions or industry experts working within the field of education (public, private, government), technology and media specialists, and Web 2.0 enthusiasts.

A couple of weeks ago, I came across a tweet from someone I was following stating that he had just updated his blog with a posting titled 3 Reasons Why Twitter Works in Education. The blog posting described Twitter in three words:
·Simple
·Communication
·Connections

Twitter is simple. It gives users quick, short updates leaving readers the choice to follow a link for extended reading, or skip over and continue browsing tweets.

Twitter is an instant communicative platform that networks and connects with others who may have similar interests, thus creating social and professional connections that establish online relationships which may prove to be professionally beneficial.

The University of Minnesota has officially sanctioned using Twitter as part of their Digital Media program as outlined by Terry Freedman in his article Twitter in the Classroom.

Tim O’Reilly has much to say in his commentary Why I Love Twitter. Six key points outline the “architectural features” that O’Reilly finds impressive – simple, cooperative, sustains natural social grouping with privacy support, provides alternate interfacing, and is an ever-evolving application. O’Reilly specifically describes more of Twitter’s benefits as being able to:
-pass along tidbits of news
-follow interesting people
-learn from others
-track interesting ideas
-shape the future

Local, national and international media has jumped on the Twitter train. Marshall Kirkpatrick gave interesting insight into How We Use Twitter for Journalism on the ReadWriteWeb last spring. I receive Twitter updates from my local media outlets such as the Edmonton Journal, CTV Edmonton news, and Global Edmonton.

To sum up, Twitter is a simple communicative outlet that allows people from around the globe to network and connect.

What about the educational implications of this Web 2.0 tool?