EdubloggerCon East BLC July 14th 2008!!

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Edubloggercon at NECC 2007
(That is me in the striped shirt)

The Info:
W00t!! Alan November has generously offered us a few meeting rooms at the Newton Marriot on Monday, July 14th before his fabulous Building Learning Communities Conference!!!

So mark your calendars and re-arrange your schedules. I hope you will be able to attend this absolutely FREE, collaborative, "unconference" by the people for the people. This conference is open to all educators interested in talking about technology. Alan is donating rooms and free wifi, the rest is up to us.

Edubloggercon at NECC in 2007 was an amazing event. A bunch of educators got together and talked about ideas. People volunteered to lead discussions. There were no presentations. There were no slide shows. We met face to face and continued the conversations we had been having Online.

The Story:
Ever since that experience I have wanted to arrange something on the east coast around the time of BLC. During our recent New England Tweetup we were talking about organizing another meeting, but we needed a place to meet. I decided it couldn't hurt to ask - so I emailed Jim at November Learning. At first he said he didn't think they had space, but he would ask Alan. I was disappointed, but not too surprised. I started researching other venues.

Just when I thought all was lost, Alan emailed me with his cell phone number (how cool is that!). I called him and we talked about the idea. He said he could give us a few rooms on the Monday before the conference and the rest is history. I'm so excited! It just goes to show, it never hurts to ask! I hope we can pull this off...

Image citation: vvsquared. "vwv_005." 23 June 2007. Online image. Flickr. 27 March 2008.

My Twitter Playground

Can you come out and play?

This week I have called on my Twitter neighborhood to help me try out two new tech tools. And the 'hood did not let me down!


1. Earlier this week I learned about grouptweet. Needing a group to see if it would work, I asked for some volunteers.

lizbdavis I've lost who tweeted this http://www.grouptweet.com/ Group Tweet - It looks like it has a lot of potential. Anyone want to try it with me? 01:47 PM April 09, 2008 from twhirl

Well, I got many takers and we had a great time setting up a group (@edutweets) and trying it out. Here are just a few.

	drctedd @lizbdavis I'll try it - it might be useful with classes and faculty groups 01:02 PM April 09, 2008 from twhirl in reply to lizbdavis
	georgygrrl @lizbdavis did you find someone? i am game! 01:56 PM April 09, 2008 from twhirl in reply to lizbdavis
	Deacs84 @lizbdavis Would love to experiment with Group Tweet. Lemme know. 01:51 PM April 09, 2008 from twhirl in reply to lizbdavis
	dstall @lizbdavis I'm Game!!! 12:50 PM April 09, 2008 from web in reply to lizbdavis

To use grouptweet:

1. Set up an account on Twitter (I set up @edutweets)
2. Register it on the grouptweet website
3. Tell your friends (the people you want to have in the group) to follow that account.
4. When anyone direct messages @edutweets, all of edutweets followers will see that tweet. If you don't protect updates, then anyone can join the group, and @edutweets doesn't have to follow them back.
5. To direct message @edutweets start your tweet with D edutweets
6. If you don't want to miss anything, you can subscribe to the RSS of @edutweets with friends: http://twitter.com/statuses/friends_timeline/14343998.atom

If you protect updates, then you will have to approve followers. I think that would work really well with kids. Create a group for your class and have the students follow the group.

This group is open, please follow @edutweets if you want to give it a try.

2. Last night I again asked for help trying out a collaborative Whiteboard space called Twiddla. Again, my tweeps were there for me.


lizbdavis Does anyone want to try twiddla with me? I'm trying to figure it out. Try this link: http://www.twiddla.com/15909 about 12 hours ago from twhirl

I had several takers. We chatted and explored the space. We asked questions and tried things out. It was a lot of fun. You can see a transcript of our chat here: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dfnmfqtd_321hcn4kn7x I think it really illustrates our learning process.

Here is summary of what we discovered.

• Anyone can join the space if it open.
• No one seemed to be in control of the space - all of us could erase the board, write on the board, bring up a webpage and change what was on the screen at any time.
• As the creator of the space, I didn't seem to have any more privileges than anyone else.
• The chat worked well, unfortunately, there isn't a way to pop it off the page so that you can see the whole page.
• You can move the chat window from right to left.
• We couldn't play videos from YouTube, but the embedded videos on my blog did play.
• We couldn't get the audio to work.
• Kids could use a space like this to collaborate on research. Search the Web, and chat.
• You could use it to demo something Online with distance learners.
• You could use Skype for the audio.

Twiddla is free and easy to use. It has a lot of potential. It will be interesting to see how it evolves. The space I created is still there (I'm not sure how long it will be there) if you want to click on the link and try it out.

Thanks to everyone who came out to play this week. It was a lot of fun! What did you think?
-Liz

My Greatest Hits

Taking Requests!
So far my most popular posts have been my screencasts which show how to use various Web 2.0 tools. I've decided to put them all together on one page, to make them easier to find. I am also taking requests. Is there a tool that you would like me make a screencast for? Let me know and I'll see what I can do.


Getting Started With Delicious



Networking with Delicious



Figuring out Flock




Getting to Know Diigo
I used Jing to record this screencast and the embed code makes the video way too big for my blog. Please click on the link above to watch this one.


Getting Started with Flickr



Getting Started with Twitter




Setting Up Your Google Reader Account




Adding Feeds in Google Reader



Managing your subscriptions in Google Reader

Learning to Learn

I've been thinking a lot lately about changing the way I deliver professional development. I really want to teach people, not just how to use a particular technology tool or piece of software, but also the skills to learn any technology tool or piece of software. Yesterday, while preparing for a workshop on podcasting, I came across this post Learning to Learn Software: Ten Heuristics, In it, Patrick Dickson shares some great ideas for how to go about learning new software.

I put together a few slides to try to illustrate visually the main points. I used them yesterday at the beginning of a training I was doing. It seemed to go over pretty well. So, in the spirit of learning new tools, I made my first VoiceThread using those slides. The pictures are of my son Ben and my daughter Abby (I particularly love the last picture of her). I think they did a great job of helping to illustrate my points.

Learning to Learn:

Two For Tuesday 4-8-08

Here are two quick links to check out.

1. Education is like a box of Chocolates - Find out why...

2. National Archives on Google - The National Archives has partnered with Google to share their video footage. Video includes NASA History of Space Flight Motion Pictures (1962-1981), United Newsreel Motion Pictures (1942-1945), and Department of the Interior Motion Pictures (1916-1970).

You are invited...

In my previous post, I wrote about submitting a chapter proposal for a book on Web 2.0. Robert, rightly, commented that a book on Web 2.0 is kind of an oxymoron. Sue Waters suggested that we tweet the idea and find out who else might be interested in collaborating on a chapter. And Aaron wrote: "Having knowledge is one thing, however sharing that knowledge is the BEST thing."

So, in an effort to share the knowledge (we are what we share), I created a Wikispace at: http://collectiveintelligence.wikispaces.com/

Whether or not this becomes a chapter in a book, I would like to invite you do the following:
1. Go to the Wikispace.
2. Join the space (so I have an easy way to contact you).
3. Create a page on the space using your name as the title of the page.
4. Include your name and some information about yourself on the page - a link to your blog, twitter page etc.
5. It would be nice if you could add a picture of yourself.
6. Answer this question: How has your learning, your intelligence, your life been changed, improved, and/or affected by the social web, social networking, Web 2.0 (or whatever you want to call it)?

Thanks for participating. I look forward to reading your responses.
-Liz

Jack of all trades, master of none

Recently, I was asked to submit a chapter proposal for a book on Web 2.0 technologies. While I am greatly honored by this requests, my first question is how could I fill up an entire chapter of a book? I know a little bit about a lot of things. Do I know a lot about any one thing?

I love writing this blog. It is a place for me to hash out my ideas, share what I am learning and get feedback from educators around the world. I learn as much from writing here as others learn from me. But my posts are short. I've never been a loquacious writer. When I was in college, I spent a lot of my time finding ways to stretch a three page paper into five required pages. My writing tends to be succinct and to the point. That is one thing I love about blogging. How do I turn this kind of writing into a chapter in a book? The idea is daunting and scary.

It is also a challenge that I'm going to try to take up. I have to come up with a chapter title, a focus, an objective and a knowledge area. (You too could submit a chapter proposal.) One idea I have is to write about the power of social networks like twitter, ning, this blog etc. to bring together the minds of educators around the world, which I touched on in previous blogs posts such as You are What you Share and Collective Intelligence.

What do you think? You are my collective intelligence. What would you like to read about in a book about Web 2.0? Could I fill a chapter about either of these topics? Is there something else you would be interested in reading about?

I know you won't let me down. Your responses could be the opening paragraphs of my chapter!