A recent post of mine dealt with why I felt that Twitter was not a tool that I'd choose to use with my students. I regret that it took the tone that it did, but maybe that's a good thing, as it resulted in the most number of comments I've ever had. A couple agreed with me. Others took exception.

One person commented and I responded and then he commented back. It's that second message that has begun to sway my opinion on the matter. Nate Kogan is the one who took the time to tel me of his experience using Twitter with his students. I thought it was so good that I DM'd him on Twitter as well as emailing him via his blog and asked permission to turn his comment into its own post so that you could see another side to the story. I thought it deserved more exposure than just sitting there in the comments. He agreed, so here it is:

"Jim,

I did read your response and I appreciate your feedback. While I recognize the logistical hassles involved in getting Twitter set up with a class, I think that the tool does help facilitate communication with students in a more consistent and authentic way. For instance, I had my students create Twitter accounts for our final exam review, which they enjoyed and I think found productive.

However, what I didn't anticipate was the way in which they used Twitter to DM and message me throughout the weekend leading up to the final exam to ask question, seek clarification, and get feedback about their ideas. Moreover, the public nature of some of their questions enabled students to receive answers from their peers rather than exclusively from me. I think students found Twitter to be a more amenable, and immediate, medium for communication with me, as I responded faster than via email and was able to check and respond pretty quickly via my phone. Additionally, I found the 140 characters constraint to be a useful one, as it forced both me and my students to be direct and concise in our questions and responses. Of course larger, more complex issues could be dealt with via email, but for those concerns students typically DMed me that they sent me an email, which I could then check.

Perhaps for an exclusive backchannel a website like Chatzy or Today's Meet would be better than Twitter in terms of creating a centralized archive of the conversation. However, by using specially selected hastags, one can use Twitter search to then essentially recreate that day's specific backchannel and its contents.

As for your point about privacy and the public nature of the communication, I actually found that element of Twitter to have an interesting effect on the student's behavior. One student in particular noted to me that since he began communicating with some of his teachers and older relatives via various forms of social media (including Twitter), he found himself being more thoughtful about how he wrote, punctuated, and structured his messages. Direct engagement and experience with this particular form of media (e.g. that which is necessarily public) helped this student make important realizations about how we present ourselves in various venues and the lasting effects those presentations of self could have. In this case, I think the student's personal experience with Twitter proved far more useful in educating him about the powers and perils of social media than any pedantic speaker could have.

Thanks again for your post. These types of exchanges are really valuable and important ones to have, and are ones, I hope, that help people clarify and refine their thinking about these tools in the classroom.

Best,

Nate"

My sincere thanks to Nate for his thoughts and his permission to use them.

I was going to embed these, but I thought you should read the article, too. Here's a short intro from the article: "Two ASCD videos took home prizes at the 30th Annual Telly Awards and at the U.S. International Film and Video Festival last month. The winning videos focus on hot topics in education: 21st century skills and Robert Marzano’s Art and Science of Teaching instructional framework."

The videos on this page are clips from the full versions which you can purchase. It's just nice to see two videos about education winning some recognition, don't you think?

You're right, this is NOT a scientific survey. But, the results are interesting, nonetheless. Add your vote here (http://twtpoll.com/r/oid21q) and see the new results.

I asked the question, "The reason my school blocks web 2.0 tools is due to the following:" I didn't want to use the term 'web 2.0 tools', but I figured that would be a good umbrella term.

As of this writing, here are the results:
48% said the sites were blocked out of fear of lawsuits regarding CIPA
25% said that the Curriculum Department wasn't convinced of their value
26% said that it's because the default filter settings blocked them, and they don't override anything

Did you see that, Mr Jupp? "What lawsuits?", indeed!

I think the part that disturbs me the most is the last figure. I think that many of those votes could have gone into the first category, don't you? It's unbelievable that someone would simply say, "We don't change our filter" just out of laziness, although I was told one time that they didn't change the settings because, "We don't want to start going down that road." ARGH! If you can pass the blame onto someone else, "It's the IU's fault. They set up the filter." then you can wash your hands of any responsibility. (IU= "Intermediate Unit" Regional Service Center?) But, doesn't it sound like an underlying fear of lawsuits there? If they leave the filter alone, someone else gets the blame. If they change it, now THEY are on the hook.

I've said that I'm not a fan of this gentleman, but I do like his quote that says something like, "We have filtering policies that treat our staff and our students like either morons or felons." I was giving a workshop at an IU recently and blogs were blocked to all staff, though nobody could tell me why. Back in 2007 I wrote about an IU who wanted to hire Will Richardson to come talk to their teachers, but they couldn't find his contact information. Why? His blog was blocked - even for the adults in the IU. Seriously! Many of the schools in my area use a filter that allows different filters by permissions determined at login. Login as a teacher and get more rights than a student. Yet, some of the tech folks don't use it. They don't even tell their teachers that they have that ability. "I don't want to get started with that." You may have heard me scream that day. ;-)

I still believe that if anything is going to bring down the Brick and Mortar schools it's going to be this kind of issue. Curriculum is based soley with the focus on the state tests and shaped by the fear of a lawsuit. That's a limitation that a home schooled student doesn't have They CAN use social bookmarking sites to collect and organize the sites they find. (Did I tell you that one school blocks Diigo and Delicious because they said that the bookmarked sites get around their filter? Huh?) They CAN write a blog and READ one, too. Imagine that! They CAN set up an account on a site and build something meaningful there. They can USE the web and all its tools as a personal learning environment. How, do you think, our students see the school-provided web?

Oh well. Jump on over there to take the poll yourself. It closes on Wednesday.

Twitter with students?

I'm just not sure I see a fit for twitter in schools. Promoting it with teachers also, then, promotes the idea of sitting behind your desk glued to the twitter stream, and Heaven knows we don't need any more of that. Skype, at least, isn't a stream and therefore you don't have to be watching it in order to use it.

And I know I'm swimming against the current with this one, too, but I don't think it's a tool for students at all. I do hear folks talking about it but I just don't see it being used effectively. Sometimes I think that folks dream of the following as being the kinds of conversations that students would have using twitter:

S1: In Bio listening to a great lecture on cell division. She ROCKS!
S2: Reading "Chapter 7" for Mr Wilson. Not my favorite so far but I'll get through it
S3: Great quote from Mr B: "History is written by the winners." He said it's not his original quote, tho'
S4: @S1 Mrs D is awesome! Looking forward to 5th period when I'll hear it, too
S4: @S2 Tell me about it. I've got to read it tonight. But I'm a fast reader.
S2: Anyone know a good website to help me to understand Chapter 7?
S1: @S3 Yeah, I heard that quote before, too. Hold on and I'll look it up for you.

Now, THIS is what would PROBABLY happen if students used twitter:
S1: wht's 4 lunch? I'm staving!
S2: NFW I'm readg that @#$ Chapter 7. Hes got 2 B Sh*ttin' me!
S3: "History is writn by th winners?" DUH!
S4: I get out of her class 5th period, dude! S*cks 2 B U!
S4: @S1 its only 9:30 dude! U cnt B hungry alrdy U pig!
S2: Any1 know if any of ths @#$% in Ch 7 will B on the test?
S1: @S3 No duh! Who ELSE wld write it. Hes so lame!

We just CAN'T project our learning styles and our love of our PLN onto the students. Just doesn't work - IMHO.

:-)

This article was tweeted by @smartbrief today: http://ow.ly/gBsO It's the story about a district that is trying to get its best and brightest students to come to school more often. "While the attendance rate for the district is very good, Stockman said, 26.6 percent of the Top 50 students in the district’s seven high schools have missed between 10 and 19 days of school and 6.3 percent missed 20 days or more."

When you do the math, this isn't a lot of kids we're talking about. What is 6.3% of 50, anyway? 3.15? It must be either an exceptionally large student that makes up the .15 or a VERY small one. But, the point, of course, is that this district is making the statement that the only place that a student can learn (properly?) is in school. Note, however, that the article does mention that many of these students are taking online courses, as well.

How about this quote from the article, "'We have students who miss 50 days of school and graduate in the Top 50 of their class. And we know the reasons. A lot of them are working on Florida Virtual School to get (Advanced Placement) and honors credits.'"

I wonder if the reason for this fuss doesn't have more to do with NCLB and the attendance requirement than it doesw any question about the nature and quality of the education. Ya think?