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The Power of Twitter – Math help from over 200 people…
This past Tuesday one of my daughters was working on her Math homework in my office. Two of the problems said for her to collect data from a class. For the first, my tech club was still available so she quickly polled the students and tallied the results for her graph. But for the second of the data collection questions, there were no students in my classroom or office.
My first instinct was to tell her to make up the data – the point of the problem was for her to make a pictograph. But instead, I quickly – as in less than five minutes! – created a form on Google and posted on my Twitter account a request for people to respond to that survey. Meghan, Madelynn and I each entered our own choices into the form. By the time we left my office at 5:10pm, we had 40 responses. That was less than an hour later. By the time she did that last problem at home, there were 188 responses. And they came from all over the world! She and her sister sat slack-jawed watching the spreadsheet continue to populate with answers. I edited her form to show that the question was done, but responses kept coming. I did a search on Twitter and my little request for participation had been retweeted 17 times. As of the writing of this blog posting, there are 258 responses for nearly every state in the Union, Canada, the UK, New Zealand, Australia,Thailand, Spain, Germany, Russia, and the middle East!
I had wanted to map the results for my daughter in Google Earth, so she could see where all of the responses came from. I was more than a little overwhelmed, though, at having to manually add in SO many places. As if I wasn’t already tickled enough with my Twitter network, I posted what I thought was a rhetorical question, “wish there was a way to upload list of locations to Google Maps and it would put flags everywhere. Does anything do that?” Within minutes, @glovely had sent me a link to MapAList which pulled the data straight from my Google Spreadsheet! Unfortunately, I had to wait a few hours for our tech services department to unblock the site (*grumble* but at least they were fast about it). In the meantime, @xmath2007 sent me a link to a Google code site that also pulled data from Google spreadsheets. This was awesome too, but I hadn’t recorded location data in a way that would make this one work for me.
Eventually, MapAList was unblocked and I was able to produce a map flagged all responses through the form for which I had location data! And I didn’t even have to go back and reformat any of the entries.
If I had any doubt in the power of Twitter, it would have all been erased by this, but then, I never had any doubt.
Thank you Twitterverse. Thank you for turning a math homework global and making the world a little flatter for my daughter.
Episode 41
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We know it’s been a while, but we’re back! This episode is packed with links that we’ve been wanting to share with you. And special thanks to Anna’s Mom and Dad who let us arrive unexpectedly and use their wireless this morning. Long story, but you’ll hear it on the podcast…and we have to get this posted, so it’s not as edited…hope you can bear with us!
What Could It Mean
http://whatcoulditmean.wikispaces.com/
Using VoiceThread, contribute a single photo of your country depicting a unique tradition, custom, routine, etc. Students post their thoughts on what that image represents.
VoiceThread Revisited
http://ed.voicethread.com
Providing a secure, collaborative environment for educators and students. $10 fee, but that’s almost free.
Kerpoof
http://www.kerpoof.com
http://www.kerpoof.com/teach
What is Kerpoof? Kerpoof is all about having fun, discovering things, and being creative. Here are just a few ways you can use Kerpoof:
- Make artwork (even if you aren’t good at drawing!)
- Make an animated movie (really! it’s easy!)
- Earn Koins which you will soon be able to spend in The Kerpoof Store
- Make a printed card, t-shirt, or mug
- Tell a story
- Make a drawing
- Vote on the movies, stories, and drawings that other people have made
Linked to Texas and Washington standards; committed to being kid-friendly! Educator page has ideas for using the site as well as lesson plans and other resources.
Panwapa
http://www.panwapa.com
Developed by the educators behind Sesame Street, geared towards 4 to 7 year olds with the intent to promote global awareness. Awareness of the wider world, appreciating similarities and valuing differences, taking responsibility for one’s behaviors, community participation and willingness to take action, and understanding of and responsiveness to economic disparity. Several languages, video and print. Lesson plans coming soon.
Levelator
http://www.conversationsnetwork.org/
Free software that runs on Windows, OS X (universal binary), or Linux (Ubuntu) that adjusts the audio levels within your podcast or other audio file for variations from one speaker to the next, for example. It’s magic–levels of both people speaking are magically “levelled” out–your podcasts (or any audio recording) will sound professional!
Gigapan
http://share.gigapan.org/easter.php?window_height=697&window_width=1297
GigaPan consists of three technological developments: a robotic camera mount for capturing very high-resolution (gigapixel and up) panoramic images using a standard digital camera; custom software for constructing very high-resolution gigapixel panoramas; and, a new type of website for exploring, sharing and commenting on gigapixel panoramas and the detail our users will discover within them. The GigaPan website allows hosting and sharing all kinds of panoramas, and so the robotic GigaPan mount is recommended but is certainly not required to be part of this community. Think digital online “Where’s Waldo”.
HP Project Idea
http://tiny.cc/j3KGo
Do a scavenger hunt with your students. Make it a Math hunt. Find an example of 4/5th. Or find a parallelogram. Extra points for using an original example.
100 Ways to Use Your iPod to Learn
Sorry guys! We were so wowed by all the links that we didn’t read the comments all the way through! “ipod-hacker” apparently plagiarized this article from the Online Educational Database. Please see the original article:
http://oedb.org/library/beginning-online-learning/100-ways-to-use-your-ipod-to-learn-and-study-better
http://the-ipod-hacker.blogspot.com/2008/02/100-ways-to-use-your-ipod-to-learn-and.html
Lists of study guides, tutorials, podcasts, applications, and other downloads to help users get the most out of their iPod and really use it as a learning tool. Some services are for charge, while others are free.
Poll Everywhere
http://www.polleverywhere.com
Now free accounts come with 1000 votes per month! Much more user friendly for educators–thanks for listening!
2008 SIGTel Online Learning Award Competition
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yteachers_community/message/112
Looking for original, online learning activity. Awardees will be honored at NECC 2008 and SIGTel will publish the winning entries, and the respective authors’ reflections in its online publication, SIGTel Bulletin, and archive the work as exemplary projects on the SIGTel Web area.
Students 2.0 and Student Voice
http://students2oh.org/
Many thanks to two students who contributed their voice to Anna’s professional learning at her campus. Check out their thoughts online and find ways to hear your own students.
Arthus: http://myfla.ws/
Lindseak: http://lindseak.wordpress.com
