This year I was asked to walk a group of 60 educators and administrators through the steps to using our new “student success database”. The goal of the day was to have school-based teams collaborate on how to best use this tool to improve student success, including some actual planning. Some participants had already attended sessions on the mechanics of the database, others had never heard of it before. It was an extremely varied group. We wanted to encourage the discussion that resulted in having some experts in each team at the table and so were hesitant to split the group up based on experience. We also wanted to respect the “experts” time and allow them to move their own learning forward. However, we needed the large room to be quiet enough for those who had never seen the program before to follow along.

To differentiate for the group I decided to provide an “official” back channel conversation for the group. This is something anyone reading this post likely does naturally during most sessions you attend.

The dilemma was that many participants were not over technologically savvy, nor did they use twitter. To ensure everyone felt comfortable and confident, I searched for the easiest way to set up a conversation. I stumbled upon twiducate.com. We decided that it worked because I could set up accounts for participants ahead of time and it was as simple as login and post comments.

After running into the common problem of blocking (anyone in the group who was on the guest network, not on the admin network was blocked), we got it going. I walked the group through using the database, while I heard the clicking of keyboards followed by giggles and snickers around the room.

The risks I took in having this conversation that I couldn’t follow easily were far less than the benefits. Everyone in the room was engaged. For the first time (I’ve ever witnessed) a certain Vice-Principal (friend) put down her blackberry and wasn’t texting jokes to someone at another table. They were making comments about how they would use the database in their school, what improvements they would like to see and concerns they had. Of course, there was the required post about when drinks would be served and picking on one good-natured VP. Ultimately, it got us where we wanted to go with smiles.

And the added bonus? “What was that website?”, “Could you show me how to use that with a class?”, “Would you come and show my teachers how to do that?”, “That would be really cool in a XXXX class”, “What a neat site!”. We demonstrated something new to some educators.

Twiducate served its purpose well in creating an a place to chat for relative “newbies”. I think it is a good alternative when your entire group doesn’t use twitter, and have laptops with them.

- Jaclyn Calder

Penetanguishene, Ontario, Canada

Student Success Teacher

www.jaccalder.com

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Inspired by IT mother’s post , I just had to try Twiducate so I “borrowed” a class from another teacher. We had a mixture of TodaysMeet and Twitter in the class and it was a complete success. We started from a simple issue, which the students would answer, then they would comment on someone else’s post, and finally they were free to write about just anything. The students were involved and realized that there were advantages to communicate in this new manner. Here are some reflections from the students:

• We can talk more easily instead of say something to the class.
• That you may say what you think.
• It is easier to talk to everyone here
• I think it’s a great site = D
• It is easier to say something and it is more fun.
• You do not speak aloud.
• It is easier than talking to the class: D and you will get better answers.
• You can write down things here that you don´t dare say in class.
• It can be embarrassing to sit and talk in groups.
• It is easier to say what you think here than to say things aloud to the class.

It was interesting to see that the students could borrow ideas from each other – What do my friends say? What do they write about? While I could hear the bubbling of interest and curiosity from the students, I wondered why they think it´s so “scary” to talk with and view their friends. The reflections from the students show that it feels good for them to have their thoughts say in a more “anonymous” way. This means that we, who works in school, must find other ways to let students talk in smaller or larger groups.

Finally, my colleague was enthused when he saw how the students communicated and now he will sign up for his own account:) I also told him that he can use the Twiducate eg parent meetings.

-Marie Andersson, Sweden

Twitter: @opedagogen

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There is a buzz around twitter about the uses of twiducate as well as its benefits. I wanted to share a few articles:

http://grade1ad.litcircuits.com/2010/06/10/twiducate-take-2/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

http://grade1.litcircuits.com/2010/06/07/twiducate/

http://www.killerstartups.com/Web-App-Tools/twiducate-com-bringing-education-to-a-new-level

Not much visually has been done as of late. Mostly behind the scenes stuff including security fixes etc.

Canada is now the most active country using twiducate which is great! YES – twiducate is Canadian.

I get emails a lot asking who / where we are from. I teach in south western Ontario in a public school near Lake Erie halfway between Windsor and London. I teach grade 8 and rotary science.

Yours in Education,

Brian

Now over 10,000 teachers and students are using twiducate. Hard to believe it is only 4 months old. I haven’t had much time for updates as we are heavy into term 3 at school. I hope to make some changes in the summer…Please be patient.

-Brian

A mobile version of twiducate has been launched today.

If you have a mobile device, check it out at http://m.twiducate.com.

There has been a lot for request for this and it has been in the works for sometime. The difficulty is always with which options makes the mobile version and which get cut. We will leave it as it is for now and listen closely to the feedback and reactions!

http://m.twiducate.com

According to Google Analytics, (and I know March is not quite over YET) twiducate has received 15,000 visitors this month viewing 175,000 pages. Each person averages 10+ pageviews and stays for 9 minutes. Fortunately our bounce rate is low (19% – or at least I THINK it is low). Most importantly, 36% of this months visitors were new.

Is this a great feat? I’m not sure, but the site was just launched at the end of 2009. Keep in mind many schools were out for March / Spring Break as well.

Lets compare the stats to February:

8000 visitors, 100,000 pageviews, 20% bounce rate

The site is growing, since our numbers doubled this month (and there are still a few days left).

Hopefully we do the same in April! Or even triple the stats from February.

7600+ twiducate accounts now exist and 25,000 posts have been sent in classrooms all over the world.

This is a breakdown by country for March:

(Country)(Visitors)(Avg Pageviews)(Avg Time)(New Visits)(Bounce)

The sidebar of your network will now list the number of people online in your network. To see who they are, look for the blue box around their avatars.

6200+ accounts as of now. Help spread the word!

Sorry for the duplicate emails recently.

Seems to be a problem with the mailing list. Looking into it. Until fixed, we won’t bother you anymore with updates….PROMISE!