Twitter & teaching

Twitter tips n tricks

How to set up a Twitter account
Twitter.com

Getting started with Twitter
Managing Twitter
Basics of using Twitter
How to use Hashtags
Unfollowing & blocking
Tools
Tweetdeck tutorial (you need your admin to install or get it on your iPhone)
Website for Tweetdeck
Why use Twitter?

1. Back chat in conferences. Using hastags you can share comments on presentations, keep up with sessions you didn't go to or whole conferences you can't attend.
2. Personal learning network (PLN). Keep up with professionals in your field. For an interesting blog on PLNs see here or a YouTube clip here.
3. Pedagogy. Setting students assignments that require them to follow tweeters, hashtags etc and then sort through the information.

Further reading
A Teacher's guide to Twitter
Back to Tools and Techniques

Blended learning &pedagogy

Curt Bonk part 1
Curt Bonk part 2

Planning and running online courses
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8
Part 9
Part 10
Part 11


A nice series of videos on planning and running online classes of about 10 mins each. These are for pure online courses but have material very applicable to blended learning as well. Below is a selection (hence the numbers refer to the video in their correct order). See the full list with slides here.
1. Planning an online course - not making the "Taj Mahal" of all courses but planning a course that makes the best of the medium, making the most of what is already available, emphasis on guiding and discussing, organising and sequencing the material.
2. Managing an online course: general - the general managment of an online course, inicluding your various roles (social, pedgogical, etc), time managment of the course, updating and re-use of info and resources, explicit grading strategies, use of guest lecturers/presenters, etc.
3. Managing an online course: discussion forums - strategies for running forums (note Moodle has several options); getting participants to engage, relflect, take ownership etc, role of facilitator to weave, summarise, set discourse pattern, asking open questions, interaction protocols, assigning participant roles (moderator, weavers, etc), group/pair activities,
4. Providing feedback - constructive feedback, use of peers and experts, being selective and not being overwhelmed, use of cut and paste for common feedback elements
8. Online interactions - thinking about online relationships beyond instructor to student, including use of peers and experts, role of the types of tasks, getting students to reflect on interactions using blogs, etc

Blended learning - What is it?, implimentation, and the future.

19. Wikis - quick, collaborative documents

20. Blogs - how to use, including Twitter

TED
What we're learning from online education

Web
5 great eLearning boredom busters

Blog post
Why teachers should blog

A book about all this
The theory and practice of online learning

Use of video
When and when not to use video