The TWAIN blog

I posted a newsletter to all staff in my district today and I wanted to open this blog post to them. Share what you think of the newsletter, comments, commentary, suggestions, etc.

Did you try out any of the websites?
If you checked out a site, what ways could you use it in your classes?

Any fears about using Web 2.0 tools?

Summer training ideas?

Anyone else blogging out there? How about a wiki? Would you be interested in learning more about these tools?

Feel free to join the discussion by adding a comment. I would love to hear from you!

To post a comment, under this post are some words in smaller print. Click on the word Comment to add your voice. You can post the name Anonymous if you don’t want your name to appear. You must enter an email address though (it doesn’t show me who, I promise!). The email is just to verify that you aren’t a spammer.

A coworker shared this link with me from New York Times writer, David Pogue.

Pogue is one of my favorite podcasters because he shows off new technology in such a quick and humorous way. I highly recommend you visit iTunes to subscribe to his podcasts.’

The article is titled “Twittering Tips for Beginners” and it comes from David’s column in the NYT for January 15, 2009.

In his brief outline of the program, David provides some tips for the new user:

1) Don’t just go to the site. Use an app to monitor your Tweets (and yes, he explains what Tweets are!) or feed them to your phone.

2) There are public and private Tweets.

3) Don’t feel you must respond to every Tweet. Nor do you have to subscribe to everyone.

4) Don’t Tweet about what you are doing right now! Use this resource to post interesting questions, links, articles, discussions. People don’t care about the mundane experiences you are experiencing because they are experiencing their own. (Amen!)

He also relates some insight into how Twitter has been used for even some basic troubleshooting help on a computer.

It is a good article and it can be helpful to explain to the use of Twitter to a broader audience than just technology geeks. A good addition to this may be to also share the Common Craft video on Twitter.

This isn’t about seniors in high school. This post is about seniors from the Greatest Generation or the Silent Generation who are now senior citizens. I am happy to report that I have been asked to provide some community education lessons for our residents here in town. What an exciting idea!! I really would like to get them involved in some Web 2.0 and cloud computing resources they can use at home.

What would be some ideal tools they could use? What types of course offerings could you offer to such a diverse group of people? I really would like some input into this topic! I can think of many resources (iTunes, NING, document clouds, etc.) that I would consider for this type of presentation. Can you share others?