4. Leave out the conference hashtag if you’re talking to your friends.

3. Acknowledge the quotes you tweet – we want ideas to be traced back to their source.

2. Be thoughtful about retweeting with the conference hashtag – otherwise those following the conference hashtag stream will see the same tweet many times.

And the number 1 golden rule for Effective Tweeting at Conferences:

If you wouldn’t say it to their face, don’t tweet it!

It’s simple really.

Happy tweeting!

Image credit: whoswho

Earlier this afternoon, I was busily scrolling through my tweetdeck when I came across a tweet from Kim Cofino saying:

I found the link to the list of nominees, and proceeded to check them out. I love lists like this, as I always find some fabulous new people/blogs to follow.

Imagine my surprise to find that some very kind people had nominated Tip of the Iceberg for an award! I nearly fell off my chair!

I sent off a tweet to say:

@Edublogs (a.k.a Sue Waters) tweeted back right away, and let me in on who nominated me. I can’t thank Sylvia & Darcie enough for the gesture! You guys totally made my day!

Sue also made a super suggestion that I should set up an alert for Tip of the Iceberg, so that if anyone blogs about it, I get notified via Google Reader. I took Sue’s advice, and set up some alerts, so I won’t miss out on exciting stuff like this again!

Here’s the link Sue kindly passed on, which will give you all you need to know to set up alerts for your own blog.

Happy Blogging!

Online I’m a blogger. I have several blogs, documenting my work with students and my learning in technology education. I read other people’s blogs, comment on them and learn from them on a daily basis.

Online I’m a tweeter. Through Twitter, I have met a huge number of creative, talented, intelligent and inspiring people. I enjoy sharing information, ideas and random thoughts with many of them. I have certainly made new friends through Twitter.

Online I have followers. Although this fact never ceases to amaze me, there are people out there who read my blog and have me in their Google Reader! I can’t imagine a greater compliment than that!

Online people know me for my work. They know what I’m doing in my classroom, which tools I think are great, the highlights and challenges of teaching IT.

Online I help people find answers. I like being able to support newcomers to the online world I live in. I like being able to make a difference to people and help find solutions to their problems.

I have a very supportive group of family and friends, yet they seldom (if ever) read my blog posts. It appears am not alone in this: I put out the following tweet: Do your friends/family read your blog? Here are some responses:

That said, it’s important to get a balanced perspective on the issue. @nadinedickinson pointed out that her blog isn’t relevant to her friends/family, but it is for her coworkers.

If I take my particular situation, I am living overseas, and the vast majority of my friends are also teachers. Both of my parents are teachers. My sister is married to a teacher. I’m surrounded! My blog is particularly relevant to them as a group.

The intention of this post was not to moan about the number of friends/family members reading my blog, but rather highlight the fact that my friends/family have little idea about the extent of my online existence.

It makes me wonder what I don’t know about their lives.

I tried backchannel chat for the first time during keynote addresses at the EARCOS Teachers Conference: ETC09.

What is Backchannel Chat? It’s like note-taking at a lecture, but notes are shared with anyone who has the URL. They might be people in the room with you, but they could also be anywhere in the world. At ETC09, this meant that while the keynote speaker was presenting, a group of us were on our laptops, sharing notes about the presentation, though there were some people in different countries tuning in (see links to transcripts of our backchannel chat at the end of this post). We used TinyChat, which was really easy and straightforward to set up, though others have also recommended Chatzy.

Initially, I found it hard to keep up with the fast pace.  I struggled to answer a question from a friend beside me AND watch the speaker AND type AND listen. Was I focused? I was certainly concentrating. I hadn’t concentrated this hard on a keynote speech before, that’s for sure!

After a few minutes, I got the hang of it and managed to keep up enough to contribute to the discussion. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and now I’m completely sold.

10 reasons you should try backchannel chat:

1. Keeping up – The great thing about the chat was that if I got behind on what the speaker was saying, I could scroll back over the comments of the other participants and catch up that way.
2. Remaining on-track - I found @amichetti and @jutecht typed really quickly and managed to keep the discussion focused on the keynote, not just random thoughts. This was helpful for me as a person new to backchannel chatting, who didn’t yet know the etiquette.
3. Transferring knowledge - I had a better understanding of the keynote as a whole, because I was typing it – transferring it into another form. It was easier for me to remember later, rather than just aurally listening.
4. Staying Focused – I was more focused on what was being said because I felt I had to attend to contribute to the discussion. I wanted to pull my weight and not ride on others’ coat-tails.
5. Engagement – The chat had me not only focused, but totally engaged. The number of multiple intelligences addressed at one time was definitely higher than had I only been listening. As @amichetti suggested to me via Twitter, backchannel chats can be particularly engaging when the presentation is more content-focused rather than skill-driven.
6. Perspectives – I had the benefit of other people’s perspectives. This was fascinating. We all ‘heard’ things differently. When we transferred what we heard into our own words, different perspectives were offered.  Certain parts resonated more than others for each of us, due to our varied prior knowledge and experiences.
7. Clarification – if there was a word/phrase introduced that we were unclear of, one of us would look it up on wikipedia, so we were getting near-instant clarification of new vocabulary. I couldn’t have done that myself. @nadinedickinson told me (via Twitter) that she like the instant feedback that was possible during a backchannel chat.



8. Review – I benefited because I had material to review and look over later. Not only did I have my notes, but I had the notes of everyone else in the chat.
9. Divide and Conquer - people in our chat took on different roles. @Skardalien helped out by looking up words we were unsure of or videos that related to the topic. @amichetti was a speedy typist and great note-taker. What we learned together I felt was greater than we could have accomplished individually.
10. Fun – I really enjoyed the chance to connect with people during the keynote, rather than being a passive observer. I consider myself an interpersonal learner, and the backchannel chat allowed me to participate in the way I learn best – with others.

During one keynote, I received this tweet from @rhondacarrier: @klandmiles thanks for keeping us up-to-date with what is happening. Very useful for those of us that aren’t there #ETC09

Until that tweet came through, I wasn’t truly aware of the realm of influence of our chat. It stretched around the world! Our chat was helping other people learn across countries, as if they were there themselves. That certainly upped my levels of responsibility! I sat a bit straighter after that!
[Please check out Rhonda's blogpost on the uses of backchanneling for more information]

So how does this relate to my class? Earlier this academic year, I tested out the chat function in Studywiz with my Grade 4 students to discuss an essential agreement for blogging. I found that some of the kids who would normally not say anything, were the ones who had the most to say in a chat forum. That is HUGE! I need to consider different ways to conduct discussions and ensure I provide a range of options to cater to every child’s needs.

Tips: I would recommend using small groups so the kids can keep up with each other – 22 kids all typing at once makes a challenging chat to follow! I’d do 4 separate chats next time, so everyone can follow easily and participate effectively.

How does it relate to me as a workshop leader? I cringe now at how I made people turn their phones off during a PYP workshop I led in Jakarta recently. Next time I’d like to set up a backchannel chat as some people feel more comfortable asking questions and/or participating that way. It would give me a chance to check their understanding (and levels of focus!) later on, and perhaps clarify further any points where necessary.

I’m definitely going to look for ways to incorporate backchannel chat into my regular teaching repertoire. How about you?

Links to Backchannel Chats of Keynote speeches at ETC09 can be found on the following pages:
William Lishman – If We Are Not Part of the Solution We Are Part of the Problem
John Liu – “Earth’s Hope” – Responding To Climate Change – By Healing the Planet

Further reading: Ben Grundy’s post on Back-Channel Chat in Class

Photo Credit: FadderUri

Quite a lot, I’m beginning to think…

When I signed up with Twitter a year or so ago, I went with the username I have for my shared email account with my husband: klandmiles. It combined our names: mine (Keri-Lee) was shortened to KL and his name is Miles. K-L & Miles = klandmiles. It was easy to remember, we’ve been using that as our email address since 2001 when we moved overseas. I am usually the first to adopt a new tool etc, so I have kept the same username for each new tool I use (delicious, diigo etc).

I didn’t for a moment stop to think about what my username would say about me to others. I met @hitechhall and he said, “Oh, so you’re K – Landmiles!” and he wasn’t the only one! @Skardalien did the same thing, but I said, “No, it’s KL and Miles. This caused him to then ponder, “So how do you pronounce your surname? Is it Andmiles?”

This begs the question; can I really have a 2-person username in this day and age?

Some people I’ve talked to said they feel they’ve outgrown their username or don’t like it anymore. But do we have a choice?

It appears we do! While forcing helping to sign my husband up to Twitter, I found this message on the settings page:

“Change your Twitter user name anytime without affecting your existing updates, @replies, direct messages, or other data. After changing it, make sure to let your followers know so you’ll continue receiving all of your messages with your new user name.”

Do you take notice of people’s usernames? What do our usernames say about us? Do they even matter?

My final question is this: should I change my username or not? Ideas and suggestions welcome

He aha te mea nui?
He tangata,
He tangata,
He tangata.

What is the most important thing?
It is people,
it is people,
it is people.

At the end of this 3 day conference at EARCOS in Sabah, Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, I believe more than ever that this is true.

Sure, I had some great workshops with very knowledgeable and interesting people, but what I will take away most is the face-to-face connections and conversations I had with people.

In one of Jeff Utecht’s recent posts, he asked the question, “How do you connect: People first or Content first?” While the easy (and probably true) answer for me is a bit of both, I am really looking for a conversation, not merely a lecture. I choose people over content. We humans are social creatures, and strive to create social experiences. Content becomes more meaningful for me if I can interact and engage with it, AND when I feel I know the person providing the content.

Through the course of this conference, I can see some truly believe technology is anti-social. I think it facilitates different types of social interaction. We need balance; face-to-face, physical relationships are still crucially important (this conference proves that for me), but social interactions with people online are no less valid.

Technology is neutral. It’s not good or bad.

During the conference I put a face to the names of several people I tweet with: @mscofino, @jutecht, @amichetti and @Skardalien. I also met @nzchrissy, @hitechhall @msbecs, @jefflewis9, @sherrattsam, @cmrolfe & @ezevallos. I know that from now on, their tweets will be more meaningful to me because I know their faces. I’ve had a beer with most of them! We have a shared, common experience. I want to know what they have to say.

Thanks for the learning, friends! I look forward to continuing the conversation.

Photo credit: lawgeek

Photo credit: The Flooz

Some days I can’t help feeling like I’m just piggybacking. My best ideas with ICT have been borrowed from other people’s best ideas, and I’m merely reproducing them in a slightly different way. I don’t feel much like an innovator, especially not when compared with many of the well-known edubloggers out there. My links today were somebody else’s links yesterday. Sometimes I feel I’m a couple of steps behind.

One day I foolishly decided to try out this site which shows you who is following you on Twitter, and whether or not the people you follow are following you. If I ever wanted a slap to the ego, this was it! (Resist the temptation to do it yourself!) I felt a little deflated, like some of my ICT heroes didn’t even know I existed! But realistically, why would they? This blog is merely a couple of months old, I am just realising the power of tools such as Twitter, and have only been teaching ICT since September. In addition to that, I haven’t commented on enough blogs to make a blip on the surface yet (hey, I’m working on it!).

Just before I decided to send the invitations out to my pity-party, I thought, you know what? There are days when I get people coming up to me saying, “Where do you find all this great stuff?” and (even more surprisingly), “I’m learning so much from you,” and I realise it’s all relative. I have introduced people to some new tools this year, and for that I feel like I’ve made a difference, albeit on a smaller scale to some of the greats.

Whilst I am piggybacking on other people’s ideas, amazingly, some people are piggybacking on mine.

Photo credit

When I first signed up for Twitter I won’t lie; I wasn’t overly impressed. I didn’t know who to follow, I didn’t know what to say. After all, surely the ’status update’ function of Facebook would do the same thing.

I persevered, followed more people, shared some interesting things I found and then all of a sudden I started getting replies and direct messages! I tell you, that made me feel a lot better about Twitter on the whole.

The next step was when one of the people I followed shared this link to 25+ Incredibly Useful Twitter tools. One of the tools mentioned was Twhirl. I downloaded it and found it certainly enhanced my Twitter experience. I could now share photos, shorten urls and see who had replied to me all on one interface. Nice!

Another pivotal Twitter moment for me was when I got really excited about a lesson I was doing using digital microscopes, posted a tweet about it and received some replies straight away. They asked to see a photo so I obliged, and more replies followed.

I use Twitter not for updating my status, but rather as a place to share great tech links and ideas I stumble across, a place for daily professional development by checking out the links of others, and a place to connect with people who are not yet friends, but I hope they will be someday.

So why not look me up? I’m klandmiles on Twitter.