Reinventing Yourself

by lisa_thumann | Jul 16, 2010 | BLC | 0 comments

Reinventing Yourself

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Would you want to?

If you could stay exactly who you are in the physical world, but reinvent your digital identity, would you?

As I was sitting is Michael Wesch’s phenomenal keynote yesterday morning, I started thinking some more about my digital identity and jotted down some questions.

What would I do if I could go to a new school and reinvent myself?
Would I erase everything from the Cloud?
Would I include pictures of my children, family and friends online?
Would I share all of my lessons, presentations and my blog?

So I was watching the Tweets this morning from #BLC10 and saw the link for a site from MIT fly by. I had been meaning to check it out and when I got to the Keynote, I pulled it up and, unfortunately, got a little nauseous as I watched my life unfold before my eyes. http://personas.media.mit.edu/personasWeb.html

One of the many statements that Michael Wesch said that will stay with me was that we should make our place in the world. If you aren’t leaving breadcrumbs for your students, your friends, family and followers, why not? If you could reinvent yourself, what would you leave out, if anything? What would you add? Just some things to think about.

Web 2.0 Smackdown at EdubloggerCon East

by lisa_thumann | Jul 13, 2010 | BLC | 0 comments

Web 2.0 Smackdown at EdubloggerCon East

« Let the Learning Begin

Creating Ideas with Style »

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Edubloggercon East 2010

Yesterday was the 3rd Annual EdubloggerCon East. Among the sessions facilitated during the day, was our Web 2.0 Smackdown which we streamed and archived. Here’s a link to the archive as well as all the tools shared. Thank you to all that participated both in-person as well as virtually. Enjoy!

Instapaper http://www.instapaper.com/

Readability https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/46442/

yolink http://yolink.com/education/

SweetSearch http://www.sweetsearch.com/

Read 2 Me (ipad App) http://www.whatsoniphone.com/reviews/read2me-review

isock (ipad App) http://www.commonsensemedia.org/mobile-app-reviews/isock-talking-sock

Access My Library http://www.accessmylibrary.com/

Toondoo http://www.toondoo.com/

Evernote http://www.evernote.com/ (specifically for it’s handwriting recognition capabilities)

Delicious http://delicious.com – (specifically using it to tag copyright-friendly images for student projects)

Packrati.us http://packrati.us/

TutPup http://tutpup.com/

Intel Thinking Tools http://www.intel.com/about/corporateresponsibility/education/k12/tools.htm

IPEVO Point 2 vView usb camera – http://www.ipevo.com/Point-2-View-USB-Camera_p_70.html

Cast.org – The Science Writer – http://sciencewriter.cast.org/welcome;jsessionid=4987B5B2A1837E13741DC957D698372D

Connect The Dots – http://connectthedots.aldoshoes.com/

Voicethread Site License – Specifically for groups to manage accounts on Voicethread.com – using VT to give feedback for 200 students – great idea

Google Squared – http://www.google.com/squared

Paper.li – http://paper.li/

Twitter Tim.es – http://twittertim.es/

Mashpedia – http://mashpedia.com/

Cross posted on ThumannResources.com by Lisa Thumann

Foursquare, More Square, We Square, Your Square

by lisa_thumann | Jul 11, 2010 | BLC | 0 comments

Foursquare, More Square, We Square, Your Square

« Another “Unconference” – Edubloggercon East at BLC10

Let the Learning Begin »

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I started using foursquare back in January during Educon when a few friends checked into my car. I didn’t really get it, (if you don’t either watch this video) but I thought it was funny and I wanted to join in. I signed up for an account and found that it was really easy to use from my Droid, so I started creating venues and checking in when I would travel for work and go to different schools in NJ.

I soon realized that I could send my check-ins to Twitter (which I rarely do) and to Facebo0k. Foursquare actually became a great tool for me to add status updates to my Facebook page and I soon realized that many of my ed tech friends were using it there as well. I figured that anyone that didn’t want to see those posts would just hide them.

After using foursquare so much at ISTE10 and even presenting about it in the Social Butterfly Lounge, I decided I might review a few basics as many have an interest in it on their way to BLC10 this week.

Here’s a A How To on foursquare. This one will answer many of the simple questions you might have that you are hesitant to ask an existing foursquare user.

How to pick your Mayorship battles is one that some folks I know (present company included) should take a look at. Chris Craft has coined the phrase “fauxsquaring” based on a recent competition for the Mayorship of a specific venue. This article provides some reasonable guidelines.

As of tonight, Alec Couros is the Mayor of BLC10. There will be some competition as we all arrive tomorrow for pre-conferences and EubloggerCon East.

How to be cool (and not uncool) on foursquare is something every foursquare user should read after they’ve earned their first few badges. As I’ve already pointed out, there are some guidelines to follow.

So if you can have some fun with it, look at it as a way to track where you’ve been, possibly get a free coffee or a coupon for your troubles, then you’re in for a treat. If you’re look for educational value, look here as I don’t plan on using foursquare in the classroom any time soon.

Cross posted on ThumannResources.com by Lisa Thumann

Another “Unconference” – Edubloggercon East at BLC10

by lisa_thumann | Jul 9, 2010 | BLC | 0 comments

Another “Unconference” – Edubloggercon East at BLC10

« An Interview with Rahaf Harfoush – Part 2 of 2

Foursquare, More Square, We Square, Your Square »

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I heard many educators last week at ISTE10 ask what an “unconference” was. Since so many hadn’t attended EdubloggerCon on Saturday, I could understand how they had trouble grasping the concept, especially after going back and looking through the Tweets with the hashtag.

Since Liz Davis and I have spent some time over the last few days making sure that everything is set for EdubloggerCon East in Boston this Monday, I thought I would break down, in simple terms, what my take on an unconference is, since there seems to be some different definitions floating around.

What is an unconference?

A participant driven gathering of people talking about a common theme
Examples include edcamp, barcamp and edubloggercon

Why would you want to attend one?

Everyone at an unconference has a voice. Here you would get to hear from educators you might not typically learn or share with at other more formal events.
You don’t have to feel obligated to stay in a session. Feel free to apply the “Rule of Two Feet”. If you feel you have joined a discussion that does not meet your needs, let your feet take you to another discussion.
There are no requests for proposals (RFP’s) for an unconference. You just put your name and session idea on a wiki or chart paper. These are just conversations and there is no need to have a formal presentation as you and your group should be having a conversations. Perhaps you’d like to start one.
You get to meet some of the people that you communicate with on Twitter, Plurk, in Nings out in the Edublogosphere.
Unconferences are typically FREE

How can you participate?

Unconferences are usually advertised via Twitter, conference sites, blogs, wikis. (Since they are free to attend, they don’t have any funding for formal advertising.)
You can participate in person, via the backchannel, or they are usually Ustreamed.
Come to the unconference in person. No one is ever turned away.

Having said all this, EdubloggerCon East is scheduled for this Monday, July 12. For the 3rd year, Alan November and the November Learning team have graciously donated space to this free unconference. Liz and I set up a wiki, communicated with Jennifer Beine with regards to how much space we think we are going to need and the rest is really up to the attendees.

This year session topics include:

Unconferences for everybody: edcamp
Renaming/Rethinking 21st Century Learning
Design Simplicity or “The Beauty of the Widened Vertical Scroll Bar”

There are several others listed on the session grid and I’m hoping additional attendees will come forward and fill in the blanks that morning. We’ll be streaming at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ebce10 and you can follow us on Twitter using the #ebce10 hashtag.

Cross posted on ThumannResources.com by Lisa Thumann