Resolve to Promote Truth

Photo courtesy photos-public-domain.com

OK educators. It's time to put the skills you have to work with ALL of the people in your lives, not just the ones you call your students. This may also include yourselves.

It's time to promote self-restraint. And critical thinking. And research skills.

It's time to be OK with gently correcting even the adults in your life.

Why this call to action? Because I firmly believe that until we can promote the idea that ALL of us, regardless of age, are responsible for conducting ourselves wisely online, convincing our young people to be responsible digital citizens will be an uphill, frustrating, and in the long run a losing battle.

An area where I believe we can easily make an impact is in the area of promoting the truth. Stated another way, let's resolve to

• Not pass along information without doing some quick fact checking. 
• If you don't have time to fact check, just don't pass the info along.
• Let people know when they are sharing incorrect information and ask them to delete and post a correction.
• In the process, teach others how to do their own quick fact checking.

An Example of How to Promote Truth

Following through on a resolution to promote truth is not all that difficult. Here is a scenario which played out for me earlier this fall:

• A friend posted an address on Facebook where people could send cards to wounded soldiers at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington D.C.
• Thinking it was a good idea, but wanting to be sure it would truly work, I went to my favorite rumor checking website, snopes.com, and searched for Walter Reed cards for soldiers and quickly found that the address shared by my friend would not work.
• I then posted a comment on my friend's Facebook post, sharing that the information was inaccurate and that Snopes is a good place to check on these types of things before sharing. Then, I gently suggested she might want to take it down and let the person who shared it with her know as well. (She did take it down!)

That's how easy it was. Instead of clicking Share without thought, I took about five extra minutes to confirm that what was being said was true. Hopefully, anyone else who saw this play out will  hesitate the next time they are about to share information and take a moment to check.

Develop Your Suspicion Muscle

One thing we all need to do is become more suspicious of the things we read online, especially the ones that are "feel good" (like sending Christmas cards to soldiers) or "cries for help" (like missing children alerts). Often these tales started out true. Many missing children posts began as truth. A lost stuffed animal's journey began as truth, but I continue to see the picture of the "missing" lion popping up on Facebook, even though the story has already had its happy ending.

Here are some of the types of posts that almost immediately make me pause and verify before sharing:

• Reports of the death of anyone famous
• Requests to help find missing people
• Photographs circulating during and after disasters (Just look at all the pics supposedly related to Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy. Anyone ever heard of Photoshop?)
• Any report of a scandal
• Stories/photographs that support a specific political point of view. (Even the views I agree with. Especially those! Why would I want to damage a cause I believe in by spreading falsehoods?)

It is hard to categorize everything that gives me pause, which nowadays is almost anything. But whenever I experience a mental "Hmmm..." alert after seeing something online, especially when social media is the first place I see it, I

• Head to Google where I specifically look for news references if it is a current event topic. And I try to find verification on two or more sites.
• And/Or I go to snopes.com if it seems to be something that might have been around for a while.

Whether I verify the information or not, if I choose to correct or reshare, I always include a link to a reliable source with the information. Again, hoping to model appropriate sharing for my online connections.

I Hate to Say it, but We Need to Trust Less

In the digital age, it is too easy to spread inaccurate information. Many of us who remember getting information pre-Internet have not made the mental transition from the days of print media and the days when news came to us only through networks on television. We trusted that what we read and heard from journalists had been verified. Frankly, many people, regardless of their age, are just gullible, assuming if it's online, it's true.

Today, anyone is capable of being a "journalist," of sharing the latest "news." People with zero journalistic training from your high school friend on Facebook to a social media specialist hired by a news or pseudo-news organization. Some of those specialists prioritize getting visits to their site and shares of their information far above sharing accurately. So it benefits us and those in our circles if we treat the information we encounter with healthy suspicion, and verify before we share.

Who's With Me?

As I write this, one year is ending and another is beginning. But no matter when you are reading it, I hope you will join me in a resolution to promote truth. 

I would love it if you would share in the comments below your thoughts on this topic, ways you verify information which finds you online, or information you shared a correction on because you found it to be false. It will be encouraging to know we have partners in the truth crusade! :-)

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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

EdTechSandyK's Top 5 Posts of 2013

Graphic Used With Permission

On January 1st this year, I took time to look over the top five posts on my blog from 2012. It was interesting to see which posts received the most hits, as I assume "most hits" = "resonated the most with readers." Because this was a helpful exercise for me at the end of 2012 / start of 2013, I thought I'd give it another go as 2013 ticks away its final hours and 2014 looms on the horizon.

So, I bring you (insert dramatic drum roll) the top five most visited (and hopefully read!) posts on my blog from 2013 as tracked by Blogger:

1. How to Decode a Tweet, 1/7/13 - I originally wrote this post and created the graphic for it because I needed it for a Twitter for Professional Development workshop that I was going to be co-leading the next month. I had used someone else's similar post in previous workshops, but Twitter had changed its layout enough that I felt an update was prudent. Little did I know this would become my most popular post of the year! I also learned a lesson from this post: If you go to the trouble to customize a graphic, put your name on it somewhere. I've seen the graphic passed around and re-used in numerous places over the last year without any credit or link to the original post provided.
   
   
2. iPad Basic Training for Teachers, 8/30/13 - After spending a spring and summer immersed in designing training for my school district's "iPads for Teachers" initiative, I thought it would be beneficial if I shared our process and online materials. I was right! In addition to receiving the second highest number of visitors on my blog, this post also generated requests for permission to link to the materials. In looking back over this post, I now realize that it is almost 2014, and we still need to get the materials updated to iOS 7 information. I could be discouraged by that, but instead, I'm going to look at it as job security and a chance to further practice my video tutorial making skills!
   
   
3. 10 Killer iPad Projects Students Will Love, 6/24/13 - This post is comprised of notes I took at an ISTE 2013 concurrent session. So, no original work for me, but a chance to further spread the great ideas and resources which Holly Dornak and Jessica Dyer of Lamar CISD took time to share with us at the conference.
   
   
4. My Favorite Videos for Describing Educators' Professional Use of Twitter, 10/20/13 - I talk about Twitter. A lot! And I am interested in others' experiences with learning via this microblogging tool. As a result, I am constantly saving resources that I can turn to when it is time to create a presentation or just shoot a link to someone to say, "Hey, this is what I'm trying to tell you about." After seeing a wonderful new video in October created by teacher and edtech graduate student Victoria Olson, I was inspired to compose a post mentioning some of my all time favorite Twitter explanation videos. The idea obviously appealed to the online audience, propelling this late-in-the-year post to the fourth most visited on my blog.
   
   
5. Your Facebook Privacy is YOUR Responsibility, Not Your Friends'..., 1/13/13 - Although I tried really hard to tone it down a bit, as I reread this post I can sense the frustration I was feeling when I wrote it. As an advocate for digital citizenship for people of all ages, I admit to becoming easily irritated by the inaccurate information that is constantly propagated online, and my patience in this area continues to erode. When I hit certain levels of frustration, they often get worked out in a blog post. Hopefully, between my moments of venting, some true enlightenment results for anyone who takes time to read. I'm soothed by the fact that this made my top five most-read list for 2013.

Another year has sped by. (They really do go faster each year!) As I look back on 2013, I see an iPad and social media focus in my top five posts. Much like 2012. Mobile learning and online connection continue to dominate my thoughts and the interests of my readers. Will 2014 bring any significant changes? I look forward to finding out with you!

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All original work in this post by Sandy Kendell is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Please see specifics on my re-use policy in the right-hand column of my blog before re-posting/re-using any of my blog content.

How to Decode a Tweet

When you first start using Twitter, one of the things you have to figure out is how to decode Tweets. What does each part represent? What does it mean when a word starts with a #?

Below is a Tweet as it might be displayed on the Twitter website when viewed on a computer. Note that not all Tweets might include all of these exact attributes. If you are using an app or third-party service like Hootsuite or TweetDeck to read your Tweets, they might look slightly different, but the parts will still be there somewhere. Scroll on down under the sample Tweet to see brief explanations of the parts! (Accurate as of the time of this post. Twitter has a habit of rearranging these things once in a while!)

1. Avatar - A photo or graphic which represents the person or company sending the Tweet. If you click the avatar, an abbreviated version of the Tweeter's profile will display, and from it you can visit their complete profile if you want to know more about them.

2. Tweeter's Name - In theory, this is the real name of the real person behind the Tweet. Some Twitter users decide to use their username or another unique name here. It depends on what they set up in their profile when they signed up for Twitter.

3. Twitter Username/Handle - The name a person is known by on Twitter. Some users use their real name again here. Others, like Mark Warren in the Tweet above, use a representative name. In this case, Mark chose @MagisterWarren, representing the fact that he is a Latin teacher.

4. Shortened URL - A large number of Tweets include links to websites the Tweeter feels will be useful to their followers or which explains more about what they are saying in the Tweet. URLs will almost always be shortened in some way to help leave more room for other information within the 140 character Tweet limit.

5. Tweet Text - The meat of the Tweet. All of the text in black is part of the "message" the Tweeter is conveying.

6. Hashtag - Hashtags help categorize the topic of a Tweet on Twitter. Using them can help others who are not following you find your content, and they help your followers quickly scan their Tweet streams to find topics of interest to them. Occasionally, hashtags are used #justforfun to make a comment. Hashtags are very useful but can be mysterious at first. I encourage you to learn more about them and use them. The best explanation of hashtags I've ever come across can be found here. 

7. Time and/or Date of Tweet - This just lets you know how long ago the Tweet was sent out. After 24 hours, it will display a date. (NOTE: You can also click the Time/Date of a Tweet to be taken to a unique web page where the Tweet "stands alone". This will allow you to make a link to a specific Tweet if you wish, like this: Click to read a past Tweet of  mine.)

8. RT - Indicates a "Re-Tweet", or re-posting of someone else's Tweet. Third party Twitter clients like Hootsuite make it easy to send out RTs in this way. On the Twitter website itself, if you use the Retweet feature, it will simply repost the Tweet "as-is" out to your followers, with no RT symbol in front. Sometimes, RTs are also indicated by quotation marks around the entire Tweet. Multiple possibilities - with time, you'll come to recognize them all!

9. Mention of Another Twitter User - When an "@" is placed in front of a word in a Tweet, Twitter assumes you are mentioning another Twitter user. You can click on that user's name/handle and see their latest Tweets.

It's good etiquette to mention the original Tweeter of a Tweet in an RT, as was done in the example above. Sometimes, you might start a Tweet with a mention of someone's handle to let them know you are speaking directly to them. If you do that, the Tweet still appears on your public page, but only shows up in the timeline of the person addressed and anyone who follows both you and that person. If you want to mention a user but want all of your followers to see it, make sure you put their name somewhere other than the start of the Tweet. See examples below.

10. Click to Reply - Click the Reply link to reply back to a Tweet you found interesting. It helps the recipient if you reference the original Tweet. For example "Really enjoyed the story on BYOD. Thank you for sharing!" instead of just "Great story. Thanks!"

11. Click to Retweet - Is there some great information in that Tweet you just read that your followers would benefit from? Click the "Retweet" link to spread the learning!

12. Click to Favorite - You can keep a list of Favorite Tweets. Maybe there is a link to an article you don't have time to read right now. "Favorite" it, then go to the Me page on your Twitter profile to access it later. You can then click Favorited to "unfavorite" the Tweet when you are done with it.

13. Advanced Options - Currently includes the ability to email a Tweet to someone (maybe if you do that often enough you'll convince someone to join Twitter) or copy embed code to embed a Tweet in another website (embedding allows the Tweet to remain "live" in the website, so people can reply, retweet, etc, directly from the site).

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Ok, there you have it! Probably more than you ever wanted to know about how to decode a Tweet! If you are new to Twitter, or even if you've been on it for a while, I hope this has helped you become more comfortable with the platform. Happy Tweeting!

Shoutout to The Connection blog. I used this Anatomy of a Tweet post in a workshop I taught last year, and based on its model, decided to write an updated version.

If this post interested you, you might also be interested in the resources I've put together in a LiveBinder on Twitter for Professional Learning, and another blog post I've written called Grow Your Twitter Network with a Spiffed Up Profile.

Whom Do You Network With on LinkedIn?

If you are active on the professional networking site LinkedIn, I have a question for you.

Whom do you connect with on Linked In?

The reason I'm asking is because my understanding of LinkedIn is it's a network primarily aimed at highlighting your professional experience and abilities. By that understanding, the people I connect with on there should be folks who know me well enough personally to be able to speak to my character and/or ability to execute my professional duties.

Recently, I've started getting requests to connect from people whom I recognize from Twitter but with whom I have never had interaction on a level which makes me feel I truly "know" them, nor do I feel they "know" me well enough to speak to my character or job abilities. If I were asked to recommend them for a job, I would not feel comfortable doing so, nor would I ask for a recommendation from them.

I have some exceptions to my personal rule for whom to connect with. I am connected on LinkedIn with a few folks whom I haven't seen in person in years, even going back to college. So if asked about them, I would have to speak to what I knew of them several years ago. But at least there was an in-person connection at one time.

Am I looking at LinkedIn too narrowly? Or am I being true to its original intent?

Whom do you connect with on LinkedIn, and why? I would really appreciate your thoughts. Thanks in advance!

Their Space: Educating Digitally Ethical Teens #sxswedu #theirspace

Notes from SXSWedu 2012 Concurrent Session


Kalmus (@TedKalmus) & de Haan (@TeachWithIntent) (TeachWithIntent.com)

Storify Archive of this Session (also embedded below): http://is.gd/ethicalyouth

Students like to track themselves online when shown how to do that. About three years ago presenters started to notice a shift to more social media use by middle schoolers. Had questions about how to deal with 10 and 11 year olds and their concrete thinking.

20% of the 6th graders they surveyed in their Seattle school had Facebook accounts. By high school, this rises to 90%. Smart phones also have a high adoption rate.

One of the things they think about is moving kids into a position of reflective growth - how to they see themselves as learners and what is the environment I'm moving in like? Then add an ethical layer - how do I operate in these environments. Help kids leverage all of the resources available to them as they assess where they are and what they want.

When students move outside of the classroom, they have to apply what they learn. That's why meta-cognition is so important.

Time and space do not have the same meaning for kids today that they do to us. The internal sense of change adolescents have is still out of sync with what is really happening around them.

2009 - Meeting of the Minds - important work from Common Sense Media on perceptions of social media ethics.

Cyberbullying is a difficult concept to define for adolescents, but if you talk about "flaming" or "posing", you can have more meaningful interaction. We latch on to what we recognize.

de Haan found a video via a Google Alert of a video shot on a school field trip of students setting a bush on fire, including students jumping over and through it. Also includes footage of teachers intervening, saying things they probably would not want on camera. Students also shared their names online.

These same students would tell you that at school they would never post their full names or identifying information. But that applies to school for them. It's not generalized to their outside of school behavior.

What were you thinking? - That's how we as adults react. We have to process the cognitive dissonance and lack of transference.

Kids between 11 and 14 go through the greatest period of brain development after age four. The parts of the brain that deal with planning and cause and effect are firing for the first time. They often refer to trial-and error tactics to figure things out, much like they did when they were toddlers. There is often superficial evaluation of online communities. Subject to a lot of polling feedback.

They are unaware of the digital tattoo - the permanence of data. This permanence can be a positive thing. It often has to be set before the students in very concrete ways to help them process what they are doing. The gaffes they commit in early teens can set the stage for what they do when they are 16, 17, etc.

A woman who works for a company that offers memberships to Tweens for movie editing noted that when they suspend accounts for inappropriate use, parents often step in and question the company's actions.

Presenters point out that parents have to be brought in on these conversations and helped to understand the consequences of online activity. In their school, they now have 8th graders who do presentations for parents (after a great deal of training).

If you ask a 10 year old if they have a digital identity, they will say no, even if they've been on Club Penguin. We are creating a division that does not exist for them. Digital identity is part of their total identity, not separate.

Young people still fallaciously think that the sender controls the message and that misrepresentation does not equal lying. Adults think their digital representations should line up with who they really are. Students are still finding their identities, so this idea does not resonate with them.

Digital Identity: A representation of self created by self or others, definded through accessible digital information, as perceived by a viewer (self or other).

Can you move fluidly back and forth between who you are online and who we are in real life? Teens have the opportunity and onus of branding themselves online.

We don't stop teaching kids about driving they day they get their driver's licenses. Students with the healthiest online identities have ongoing conversations with their parents, who are mentoring them as they cultivate their online presence.

Adults in children's lives need to be managers, coaches, and mentors.

A practical thing these educators have done with students: give them real world scenarios and have them classify as if someone's actions were being intentional or unintentional and whether it had a negative impact or positive impact. Ex: Your mom posts an old photo of you running naked through a sprinkler. Intentional to hurt? Unintentional? Negative or positive impact? This answer varies depending on the student. Same question can be asked in real-world situations, like sexting. (Photo of classification grid used with students: http://yfrog.com/kk1lmalj)

Another example: Use media to talk about perception, reality vs. unreality. Examples: Ender's Game, The Hunger Games, Inception, Matrix.

Navigating in the public space takes practice, reflection, and will include missteps.



Below is the online archive of this presentation:

Keeping in Touch and Touching Lives

Last Saturday, I received one of those phone calls no one ever wants to receive. On the other end of the connection was the husband of a dear friend of mine, calling to tell me that my friend's parents had just died in a car accident.

The accident happened four hours away from where I live, and due to other circumstances, my friend was already there when the accident took place. I couldn't be with her right away, and although I knew she was surrounded by family, friends, and church members who were taking care of her and her family's immediate needs, I wanted to connect with her. To tell her I loved her and was praying for her and find out what I could do.

Having been through the loss of my own parents (with this dear friend by my side), I was aware she would be inundated with phone calls and messages and would quickly hit a point where she was too exhausted to respond to them all. So even though I didn't expect an immediate response, I texted. I left voice mail. And I left a note on Facebook. I reached out through the digital pathways that have been built in our lives in recent years.

But it wasn't until I finally heard her voice on the phone a couple of days after the accident that I felt like we had really connected. Prior to that I knew she was safe and cared for, but it wasn't until I heard her voice that I really knew. And even the two phone conversations we were able to have during this awful week paled in comparison to the hug we were finally able to share yesterday. In this time of sorrow and loss, nothing could take the place of being with my friend.


Keeping in Touch

As much as I enjoy using social media - Facebook, Twitter, and this blog - both personally and professionally, I have long recognized that there is a level of interpersonal involvement which these pathways can never reach. This current experience with my friend has confirmed this for me once again and inspired me to encourage you to make sure you are investing in face-to-face relationships in your life.

If you're reading this blog, then you are involved in social media on some level. And you probably know there is great value in social media; I know I've grown tremendously as a professional in the last two years through the resources and contacts I've made via Twitter and I keep up on the events happening in my friends' lives through Facebook. But I hope we can all remember that if we become so involved in these avenues for connecting with others that we begin to neglect the flesh-and-blood, face-to-face relationships in our lives, we risk missing opportunities to build intimate relationships with people that can only grow through investments of time and in-person interactions.

When you think of the people whom you would want around you in a life crisis, or the people whose life crisis you would rush into at almost any cost, I am willing to bet that they are much more than a Twitter handle or never-met-in-real-life online friend to you. As you move forward in 2012, I encourage you to spend as much, if not more, time investing in in-person relationships as you do in your online relationships. Often, we are involved with our closest friends and family online as well as off; in these cases we must not make the mistake of thinking our online interactions take the place of or make up for a lack of in-person involvement. Be intentional this year in investing face-to-face time to strengthen existing relationships and build up new ones.

Touching Lives

A piece of encouragement for the educators who read this blog. Never, ever, ever, doubt your impact on the students entrusted to you each year and the colleagues with whom you serve. My dear friend's parents were both life-long educators. Her father a just retired teacher and school librarian of 40 years, and her mother a still-working elementary school teacher of over 30 years. Two friends and I arrived at the funeral thirty minutes early and could not find a seat. The funeral home was filled with family members and current and former students and colleagues who had been impacted by these two people who had invested in them. Their Facebook pages are covered with comments from former students who fondly remember books recommended, conversations had, and lessons learned.

Throughout this week, I have thought numerous times, "I hope they knew. I hope they knew the impact they had on their schools and their community." Sadly, I bet they didn't. I am convinced we should somehow come up with a way to have funerals for the living. It should not take death and grief and loss to make us realize how important others are to us and to share that importance with them.

One of the things I admired most about my friend's mom was her willingness to keep becoming a better educator and do what was best for her students throughout her career. Knowing I was in instructional technology, she could hardly wait to tell me that she had gotten an interactive whiteboard in her classroom a couple of years ago. Rarely did I ever see her when we didn't talk about something she was doing with her kids or how much she loved using and getting them to use that whiteboard. I wish now I had told her how much I admired her and how much she encouraged me. I have often thought of her, and will continue to do so, when I am working with anyone who is resistent to new technology.

Do you take time to tell people what they really mean to you? To let them know when they have done one special thing or when they've done numerous things over time to impact your life? As a second goal in 2012, I encourage you to be intentional in letting others know their value to you.

Now, go hug or call someone you love.

Educators - Be Careful What You Post Online

I follow with interest the stories of educators whose careers have been damaged or even lost because of an indiscreet post they make online. Or in some cases an indiscreet post someone else makes about them or shares from their profile. It remains to be seen how this Georgia teacher's case will pan out (unless I have missed a resolution somewhere in my research).

We can debate the ethics of teachers and social media and where the line of appropriate vs. inappropriate should be drawn, but in the end, the fact remains that for now even content posted on a private online profile can get you in trouble.

I follow these stories to stay informed myself and because in my position I am often asked about this topic. So in my most recent master's degree class when we received a group project assignment to create a public service announcement (PSA), I proposed the topic of reminding teachers to be careful what they post online. I have seen many resources for reminding kids to be careful of these things, but not as many examples for the grown-ups. My project group agreed it was a timely topic and worked to produce what I think is not a bad PSA for a group of video editing novices.

I hope this video might serve as a conversation starter for educators on this important topic. Please share it  if you think it will be useful in your sphere of influence. Also, please share in the comments if you have other resources for discussing this important topic with educators.

If you have an interest in this topic, you might also want to visit earlier posts I have made here and here.




This video is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Editing and/or remixing are prohibited.

Career Risks You Take When You Share Your Life Online

What you post online can have serious ramifications for your career. I've said it before, I'm saying it again, and I'm pretty sure this won't be the last time I write about it. My hope is that people will listen and consider what they post on their social/professional networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

I read and think a lot about this topic, so the CNN clip below caught my attention. Maybe it will catch yours too. It ranges in topics from Germany which is considering a restriction on the use of social network searches as part of their hiring practices, to percentages on how many employers use social networking sites to screen potential hires, to a Georgia teacher who was fired for photos she posted privately but which someone else copied and shared. It's worth four minutes of your time to watch it.

The moral of these stories? Nothing you post online, even to your super-locked-down-only-people-I-trust-with-my-life-can-see-it (and are you sure it's that locked down?) online profile/blog/etc. is ever truly private. So if you wouldn't want your current or future employer to see it, don't post it. It really is that simple.

My Twitter Journey So Far: Using Twitter as a Personal Educational Resource

Like many of you I started hearing buzz about Twitter this year. Everyone was on it. The local news station. The radio station. Technology gurus. Celebrities. But I didn't see any use for Twitter for me, an ed tech specialist with nothing to sell or promote. I signed on in March of 2009, but didn't do much with it.  I thought it was a mini-Facebook, with people constantly updating what they were doing, no matter how mundane. I really didn't need that much information about people I know, let alone strangers. I was getting that info from the people I wanted on Facebook already. The little I did explore led me to view Twitter pretty much like this.

Then, a couple of things happened. A friend of mine started getting into social media and using Twitter in the tourism and to a small extent the personal realm, and I heard her mention it once or twice. So, I followed her on Twitter. Interesting, but still not my thing, I didn't think. I logged on once a month, if that.

Next I attended a TCEA workshop on 21st Century learners in June. And they encouraged us to use Twitter to share brief thoughts on what we were learning that day. Then my previously mentioned friend sent me a link to a blog post on educational uses of Twitter. (And we made a bet about "if you'll try Twitter, I'll try this...." I won't out her on what she had to try, but it's innocent and fun!)

And before I knew it, I was hooked! The main way I am using Twitter is to find edtech resources. Organizations I trust, like TCEA and ISTE tweet (that's a Twitter post) resources all the time. And sometimes they RT (re-tweet or re-post; kind of like a quote) someone else's Twitter posts. So I started seeing who other good edtech resources were based on re-tweets and learning how to do Twitter searches for other edtech posters and followed them.

Eventually I got brave and did a couple of RTs. I even found resources independently and posted them. It's pretty exciting when someone re-tweets you for the first time...it means they found value in your resource. I'm a sucker for positive feedback and reinforcement!!!! I've even gained a few followers, which is fun and reinforcing as well.

So Twitter has become part of my toolkit for furthering my knowledge of my profession and sharing resources I find to be valuable. I'm tracking some folks who work with Moodle like Mary Cooch and Moodlerific as that is an initiative our district is just starting. I also looked for ed tech gurus I already knew about like Wes Fryer, David Warlick, and Miguel Guhlin. And I've discovered more ed tech leaders I personally hadn't heard of like David Ligon and John Evans. The people I also highly value are the folks who are classroom teachers and on-site K-12 practitioners of teaching and technology integration. There are too many to list and I wouldn't want to leave anyone out. They pass along the practical things that I know can be immediately useful to my colleagues.

And, just so I'm not all work and no play, I did stumble over a celeb I like to follow, becuase he posts pretty authentic stuff. You might recgonize Nathan Fillion from Firefly or Castle.

My latest Twitterventure has been experimenting with a couple of third party solutions for making Twitter more manageable. I am trying TweetDeck and HootSuite. You can see evidence of my HootSuite experiment in the right-hand column of this blog, where I've embedded code to track my latest Twitter posts as well as posts mentioning me.

I'll close this post with a list of websites that have been helpful for me in figuring out how Twitter works when I have questions. (As an aside, I found most, if not all, of these sites via posts on Twitter...)

• Introduction to Twitter for Educators
• A PowerPoint that breaks Twitter down into easily digestable bits!
• 100 Terrific Twitter Feeds for Teaching Advice
• A few suggestions for people to follow if you aren't sure where to start.
• The Ultimate Guide for Everything Twitter
• Twitter Demystified
• 5 Great Search Tips for Finding Cool Links Shared on Twitter
• 10 Basic Rules of Twitter (And How to Avoid Being a Twanker)

Hope this is helpful and you enjoy your own journey on Twitter, wherever you may be in the journey. Feel free to check me out on Twitter as well!

More on Social Networking Guidelines for Educators

A couple of months ago I posted ten social networking guidelines for educators that I had come up with in response to a request from colleagues in my district. Today I came across some more detailed guidelines in the making. One is a blog with several thoughtful comments, and the other a wiki that is being collaboratively created. A great amount of detail in both and much food for thought.

Guidelines for Educators Using Social Networking Sites
http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2009/8/7/guidelines-for-educators-using-social-networking-sites.html

Social Media Guidelines for Schools
http://socialmediaguidelines.pbworks.com/

Why We Can Never Educate Enough About Copyright and Online "Privacy"

Stumbled across this story on Yahoo! news this morning and thought it was a perfect example to use when trying to make the points to teachers and students that

1. Just because the picture is posted on the Internet does NOT mean you have permission to use it.
2. You give up control and privacy when you post anything on the Internet. Even if people aren't supposed to use your stuff without your permission, they still do and will.

The short synopsis is a family photo that a U.S. blogger posted on her blog and used on a few other sites like Facebook wound up being used for a life-size advertisement in a store window in the Chech Republic. Fortuntately this was a fairly innocent use of the photo, however, since it could bring profit to the store some money should have probably been made by the professional photographer who took the original photo and the family that was in it. Let alone maybe the family would like to have a say in what their likenesses are used to advertise?
For the full story, and for an example to share with teachers and students (or even just your friends who post things willy-nilly all over the web), check out these links:
Story of Stolen Picture at ExtraordinaryMommy.com
Yahoo! News Story

Top 10 Social Networking Guidelines for Educators Who Wish to Keep Their Career Intact

I put this together about two months ago at the request of some educational technology professionals I know who were curious about boundaries when it comes to what to post and do on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. I tweaked it just this week to present to a group of elementary (K-5) teachers. I'm not a lawyer or legal expert, but based on my observations over the past few years, here's my suggestions for teachers, particularly K-12 (but higher ed isn't exempt) who want to participate in social networks but still keep their privacy and their jobs.

1. Investigate the privacy settings on your social networking sites and USE them.

10 Privacy Settings Every Facebook User Should Knowhttp://www.allfacebook.com/2009/02/facebook-privacy/

How To Be Safe Online (MySpace) CBS News Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo3SOb8GFZY

MySpace Safety Tips and Settings
http://www.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=cms.viewpage&placement=safety_pagetips&sspage=4


2. Be mindful of what the things you post on your profile say about you – not just words and photos, but groups you belong to, “fun” items posted to your profile, etc. Would you want to discuss those things in person with your boss, students, students’ parents, or co-workers? What first impression does your profile pic give?

Keeping Face on Facebook: CBS News Video
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4906238n%3fsource=search_video

Everyone Video from the Ad Council
http://tinyurl.com/everyonevid


3. If you wouldn’t say it or do it or view it with your grandparent/parent/spouse/child/
students/clergy/boss/coworker, don’t post it anywhere on the Internet (or send it in an email for that matter…)

When Young Teachers Go Wild on the Web
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/27/AR2008042702213_pf.html


4. People’s standards differ – you might not care if people see a photo of you in a bar tossing one back with your after-work attire on, but the people (students, parents, colleagues) who see your profile might care.

Say Cheese: 12 Photos That Should Never Have Been Posted Online
http://www.pcworld.com/article/150920/say_cheese_12_photos_that_should_never_have_been_posted_online.html


5. It’s called the WORLD WIDE web for a reason. Courts have ruled that once you post it on the Internet, you have given up your expectation of privacy.

MySpace Musings Aren’t Private, Appeals Court Rules
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202429677896

6. Do not become online friends with students. Yours or anyone else’s. Period. Don’t become online friends with any minors you are not related to.

7. It is OK to not accept someone’s friend request. Or put them in a very limited group in your profile. Don’t succumb to a false sense of guilt!

8. Bashing your current or former workplace, coworkers, or supervisors online is a bad idea. It will bite you in one way or another.

9. Colleges and employers are Googling potential students and employees. Something posted 10 days or 10 years ago can come back to haunt you. Your digital footprint grows larger every year and it really is permanent. (Google yourself occasionally. You might be careful what you post, but are your friends or others careful? Think Michael Phelps.)

Social Networking Sites Can Affect Employment Searches
http://www.esubulletin.com/articles/news/2009/01/29/social-networking-sites-can-affect-employment-sear

10. Your job and/or career may hinge on the decisions you make about what words and photos you post, whom you are friends with online, how well you protect your online profiles, what others post about you, and what kinds of photos you allow to be taken of yourself.

NOTE: I published a brief follow-up to this post in August 2009.


Above List Copyright ©2009 All Rights Reserved. Permission is granted for use in educational settings not-for-profit. Please credit the author and let her know you're using it. Permission NOT granted for electronic reposting or publishing in any other medium without written consent of the author.