Social Networking Stories

1. I invited the following members of my Personal Learning Network today for our Regular Online Get-together.

Online Teacher Trainees

1. Subramanya (Skype Name: subramanya8554)
2. Raghunath (Skype Name: raghunathan123)
3. Marina (Skype Name: marinakurian)

Online Teacher Hopefuls

1. Geetha (Skype Name: geetha.gnanasekar1)
2. Diptey (Skype Name: diptiey.majumdar

Online Mathematics Teacher

1. Martim (Skype Name: ktmartin15)

Martin, as an online teacher explained how he became an online teacher. A one day training "using Skype in the classroom" by Sebastian Panakal and a few hours on Skype with sympathetic supportive learners did the trick!

He is looking for learners from all over the world. He has thirty plus years experience as a Mathematics Teacher for K-12. He offers FREE sessions to evaluate mutual compatibility. Parents / students may contact him over his Skype Name: ktmartin15


I decided to role model Educational Networking. I logged on to my Personal Learning Network, Hello Little World Skypers.

Too late for Dr. Jayan. He is offline.

Vincent Mespoulet from France was online. A few months ago Vincent was in Paris, UNESCO for a conference about how to teach Ethics in schools. I invited Vincent to Life Long Learning Convention 2012.

Yasir from Pakistan too was online. Niceties over, I started my educational networking. 

Kathie has a 100 parents ready to interact with us!! Wow!

SNEHOM: Social NEtworking HOMe

Social Networking Home

View more presentations from eSchool Kerala.

A Social Educator embraces networks of teachers and learners to create academic value. Your PLN connects pupils to expertise. You enable learners to form networks to generate new sources of innovation, foster creativity, and establish greater reach and exposure to new educational opportunities. You establish a foundational level of trust across these learning networks and, thus, a willingness to openly share information. You empower these networks with the collaborative, gaming and analytical tools needed for members to engage each other and creatively solve educational challenges. A key element to the success of a Social Networking is trust. First, you need a certain level of trust to empower yourself to share your ideas and expertise – and you must demonstrate this trust by rewarding the behavior. By the same token, you must trust your network to maintain an open dialogue with them.

Follow your heart when you network and you will be empowered by your social network.

Reflections for Learning Deeper

Thanks to Blogs, we can reflect our learning and connect our experiences with the lessons.
We can even use News clippings/ Web page clippings/video/audio etc on our blogs:

Purpose of a Learner's blog

1. Learners write a blog to record 
2. Their opinion of the class to give feedback to teacher and co-learners.
3. Their reflections on what was taught
4. To create their own meaning to ideas discussed and points explained

Resource named Alison
Alison is a WikiEducator Content that helps in life long learning.

Members here can use the content to learn together and then use the same method to teach and earn.
The content is regularly updated to include new topics and fields of knowledge relevant to day to day business

Resouce collections
I also explained in depth about the links that link to the links given. The aggregated information rich links must be treasured by the members using a Social Bookmarking program viz. http://delicious.com/rajettan

P2PU
Teachers and learners can join here and co-learn.

I have joined a Mathematics training program here, by Maria Drjkova.

Watching Educational networking in action
The back channelling was interesting. I could watch networking among members here, inviting each other to connect and contribute.

Watching the little girl in Marina. Marina's personal power may be the adorable little girl she still nurtures inside.
Marina may need a little more time to get used to the method as she has to unlearn her years of practise as a teacher

Introduced Pretty May, an extension to Skype, that records the conversation
Introduced Vod Burner, an extension ot Skype that records the video

Marina will explain today about digital and visual literacy as she is given the challenge to Google it.

Reghunathan and Subramanya have been giving motivational push to Marina.
Introduced URL shortener like www.bit.ly and www.goo.gl that enables us to shorten the URL for distribution through Twitter

Points for discussion today

1. Around the world and here in the India., education increasingly promotes curricula and teaching methods that foster economic growth over personal growth. Our schools promote marketability and maximize profitability, rather than critical thinking, personal accountability, tolerance, cooperation, and compassion. And it's always the humanities that get cut in a crunch.
2. A democratic society demands broad knowledge, informed judgment, equitable distribution -- in short, a kind of morality that does not come from the study of science, technology, economics, and marketing.
3. Computational thinking will be a fundamental skill used by everybody in the middle of 21st century
4. Computational creativity can happen only when we use it effectively until tech is used like electricity.
5. Computing and computers will enable the spread of computational thinking

Connected Learning

16 Jan - Participants at my Personal Learning Network

1. Diptey, Kolkatta
2. Geetha, Chennai
3. Subramanya, Karnataka
4. Raghunath, Kerala
5. Marina, Kerala

I invited Geetha to explain Twitter to the group and sent the following resources. Various links relevant to the session and gift links were sent.
Resource for English language trainers: http://cooltoolsfor21stcenturylearners.wikispaces.com/CoolTools+Vocabulary
I added more links inviting the team to help Geetha, expecting the team to complement her explanations with the details from the following websites.

1. http://stumpteacher.blogspot.com/2010/12/twitter-tutorial.html   
2. http://www.whiteboardblog.co.uk/2011/05/ten-twitter-tips-for-teachers/
3. http://primarytech.global2.vic.edu.au/2011/04/04/top-10-twitter-tips/    
4. http://www.creativeeducation.co.uk/blog/index.php/twitter-for-teachers

Added a link on how to extend Skype as a conference tool
http://murcha.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/10-ways-to-take-skype-beyond-meet-and-greet/


Anyone can use Alison as training material to teach paying students online: http://alison.com/course/all.php
Resource for teaching Math: 

1. http://illuminations.nctm.org/
2. http://mathsfirst.massey.ac.nz/links.htm

English Resource

1. http://efllecturer.blogspot.com/2011/10/shakira-and-beyonce-contrasting-writing.html 
2. http://app.sliderocket.com/app/FullPlayer.aspx?id=47DD1A50-1289-90A6-448A-6A98602818D9

Chemistry
http://www.periodicvideos.com/


Twitter video from Common Craft: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o
Further videos of Common Craft can be searched and watched I added

Using Delicious for link building: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyFDlKmesMA
Online Teaching Platform: http://wiziq.com
Online Whiteboard extension for Skype: http://idroo.com


Sebastian Panakal's blog: 
http://rajettan-eteaching.blogspot.com
http://snehom.pbworks.com


The team will learn on how to use Twitter today and teach each other. The complementary learning is sure to bring results sooner.


Please click on each link to learn: how an average graduate can teach using the links and the collection of resources available at each link.
http://wikieducator.org/Learning_to_Teach_Online