Species Twiducatus Edchatnz (No Birds Were Harmed in the Making Of This)

Twiducatus Edchatnz

Appearance: 

Twitter birds come in all shapes and sizes and many coats, but like a combination of black and bright colours. The female is usually identified by its avatar; she normally takes selfies from above in order to minimise chin flesh.  The male usually takes selfies from below in order to maximise height and may well wear a hat to disguise early loss of feathers.

Also distinguishable by having a small coloured, backlit device appendages attached to hands and heads down; a risky business for this species, as it may walk into things.

Spectacled Twiducatus

Habitat:

Enjoys flocking in brightly coloured Modern Learning Environments, with coloured bean bags, stools and various multi-level furniture items.  If these are unavailable, is not adverse to meeting on virtual cloud spaces and can swim in fast-moving streams.

Favoured habitat of Twiducatus

Feeding Habits:

Feeds by diving in and out of streams where it follows other Twitter birds and consumes their links. Works cooperatively however, by ensuring stream is freshly supplied with new links.

Also found in cafes where eating procedure involves firstly tweeting photos of coffee froth and beautifully styled cake arrangements, in order to impress other twitter birds with success as a hunter and collector of delicious foodstuffs.

Noisy flock of Twiducatus feeding in early morning light.

Reproductive habit:

The twitter bird begins as an unhatched egg which is nurtured by more mature Twitter birds.  They help it to develop feathers and a suitable profile without which it will not survive; survival is dependent on being followed and following other Twitter birds.

Young of Twiducatus

The Twitter bird then goes through several stages before it is fully mature:

At the curious stage, the new Twitter bird is affectionately tagged as a "lurker" and is allowed to watch more mature members of the species feeding and resupplying the stream.  The most mature members of the species who are successful stream divers, are also affectionately tagged as "queen".

Language:

In flocks will hug and shriek.  Ordinarily it communicates with shortened text forms and hashtags. It cannot utter anything with more than 140 characters to ensure that communication is quick and that all members of the flock can utter a tweet in the chorus.

Committee Chorus

How to catch a Twitter bird:

Twitter birds are attracted by uttering abbreviations and by giving them brightly coloured and shiny tools.  GAFE, UDL and MLE are current favourites as are LCD screens especially if accompanied by smart phones. 3D printers, ipads and Chromebooks are equally successful in capturing their attention.

Global Flock Numbers - Is It At Risk?

Twitter bird numbers, especially the subspecies Twiducatus, which we have highlighted here, are currently undergoing a rapid expansion in numbers.  There is a possibility that similar species such as Snapshoticus, Instagraminfinitum and Facebookaddictus might subsume the species, but there is no indication of that at present as the Twiducatus is enjoying global growth; it can feed at any time of day or night and in any geographical area or climate, as long as wifi is present in the atmosphere.

Odd birds are all accepted by the flock, ensuring that the flock maintains variety and a wide range of ideas. 

Flying With Your Flock - #edchatnz

By D. Dibenski (images.fws.gov ([1])) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I love language. That's one of the reasons I tweet.  I love the crafting that goes into the "pithy epithet" of 140 characters.

I love collective nouns.  A school of fish. A pride of lions. A herd of cats. A bowl of nuts.

I love being part of a collective noun.  A thought that came from Danielle Myburgh at the start of the conference was the challenge of being "the lone nut": the person not afraid to take risks, to go against the crowd, to make a change for the positive, to sing in the silences and dance in the stillness.

A lot of twiducators seem to feel like lone nuts in their schools.  They are fired up about the learning through Twitter, and the power of using other digital technologies for connection and collaboration. They want to find out more about modern learning environments, digital literacy, blogging, gaming and coding.  And sometimes - maybe more than sometimes - they want to share and no one wants to listen.

More than once I've listened to educators who feel that frustration.  It might be good to stand out from the crowd, but being an outlier is a lonely thing.

So opportunities like #edchatnz are great for us. It truly is a place where we swim with the Twitter stream instead of feeling like we are battling against the rapids.

And we like the opportunity to feel that collective togetherness by being in the bowl - in the flock of Twitter birds.  Some of the birds are sharing sky space like the lovely folk of the Hobsonville Point schools, who opened their wings and shared their nests. (Apologies for the mashed metaphors, but I am enjoying myself).

For a weekend we are no longer the lonely nut or the ugly duckling; we've found our flock and we can't stop the singing in our heads.

Replying to Reid...the #edchatnz Blogging Meme

If you get included in the blogging meme: copy/paste the questions and instructions into your own blog then fill out your own answers. Share on twitter tagging 5 friends.

1. How did you attend the #Edchatnz Conference? (Face 2 Face, followed online or didn’t)

It was a MUST attend for me. I'm one of the early #edchatnz crowd – and well, the “queen” it would appear – so one must make an effort! I love @MissDtheTeacher and what she has done to BITS and wouldn’t have missed it.

I told my team, leapt in the car after a meeting on Thursday afternoon, and drove the three hours to Auckland where my lovely tweep friend @CaroBush was hosting “the girls”. We went to #Educafe with @EmmaWinder25 and @andrewcowie and had the most marvellous think tank time…but I digress; that’s another post.

Next morning it was on the road to HPSS with @CaroBush, @digitallearnin and @annagerrit – and I think we were first there!



2. How many others attended from your school or organisation?

Just me.



3. How many #Edchatnz challenges did you complete?

Hmmm – certainly #selfies, #grelfies, #melfies and #twofies.

Also assisted @digitallearnin with the dance challenge in @andrewcowie’s digital literacy breakout.  She held the camera while I yelled at everyone, “Get up! Dance! It’s a challenge! DO IT!”



4. Who are 3 people that you connected with and what did you learn from them?

@boonman who is a well-known advertising face (had to ask him if he really was himself) but did his best work on our Twitter video. Funny guy! Smarter looking in real life. (He he.)
@AKeenReader who reminded me that we all have an influence on each other and it’s so important to make those connections and have that support.
@mattynicholl whose whole face lights up when he greets someone.

But I want to say EVERYONE!  I really get pleasure from meeting all the tweeps I talk to online, reconnecting with people I now regard as friends, new tweeps I didn’t already know and anyone who shares my passion for learning and sharing. So I could just add my “following” list!



5. What session are you gutted that you missed?

I would have liked to see @geomouldy in action, @nanogirl, and @rosmaceachern, who was talking about being a learning coach in this different school environment.



6. Who is one person that you would like to have taken to Edchatnz and what key thing would they have learned?

I can’t choose one. The people who should go might not be ready to go.  The teachers at school who would love to go but have small children or Saturday sport commitments and put their kids first.  The people who don’t get the whole connected, collaborative, online environment and being a global citizen.

I’d love people to see what an amazing network is forming through Twitter: my staffroom of choice, where hierarchies don’t exist, people share the same vision for learning and get each other.



6. Is there a person you didn't get to meet/chat with (F2F/online) that you wished you had? Why?

Yes – some names that constantly pop up on my feed like @DanceWellNZ, @nanogirl and the Ngatea lot who I promised @Neil_NPS I would look for.

I love putting the faces to the names. @nanogirl has been an inspiration in science and with her handling of the media.

I have to say though, that I met a huge bunch of tweeps! Yay! Lots of #grelfies and #huggingandshrieking to prove it.



7. What is the next book you are going to read and why?

I need to finish “Boy Writers” by Ralph Fletcher, which is inspirational and down to earth. He is a father of boys and a teacher of writing; Gail Loane recommended the book to me.

Next will be the #edubookchatnz choice, “Key Competencies for the Future” by Rosemary Hipkins et al.



8. What is one thing you plan to do to continue the Education Revolution you learnt about at #EdchatNZ?

Lots of things were reinforced.  I think that not being worried about being the lone nut is the most important thing. We aren't lone nuts and I'm already spreading the good salt.  The NZ Curriculum document is a good one, and I need to keep reminding folk what it says.

I'll continue to look at gaming with Minecraft and coding.



9. Will you take a risk and hand your students a blank canvas?

I try to now. My NAPP inquiry was about boys and writing and I am fascinated by the “feminisation” of education; some say it doesn’t exist. I think it does. One thing is less teacher talk, more discovery.



Who do I tag with this meme:

@CaroBush
@digitallearnin
@annagerrit
@LaSampsonater
@Belchick1

So What's So Cool About Coding?

So I've jumped in...I'm a learner too.  I've started an elective class in our arts and culture timeslot in a Friday, and I'm doing code.org, where we work through projects.  At Educamp Auckland two Saturdays ago, Lesley Sampson aka @LaSampsonator decided to brave the "smackdown" and suggest we start a teachers' club.  Obviously other teachers are feeling like me.

Last night, very timely, the #aussieED chat was on coding; what a full and rigorous discussion! One of the best chats for resource sharing I've been part of, and a HUGE number of resources to go through:

I've now completed my first two exercises in code.org, and feel chuffed that I've both made the time and completed the exercises.  They aren't that easy. I'm obviously not as logical or spatially skilled as I'd like;  I can see the benefit for my students for improving both problem solving skills, algebraic thinking, angles, estimation and following a logical sequence.  Maybe it's not a good idea to do this late at night...

My first two classes with the group of Tech Wizards have started well.  The boys - yes, all boys - are right into it and I'm nearly redundant.  So far they are working on Tynker.com which has been successful because I can set up a class, give the students individual passwords, then check out their work on a collective gallery page. I think we'll move on quickly, and there are one or two who want to move into more complex sites which I need to check out.

It's also a great opportunity to watch kids learn and think about aspects like letting them find out about the info.  So we're experimenting with shared Google docs, forms and self help videos.

Click on the picture to go to the video!

A mention in a tweet brought a collaboration with Craig Kemp aka @mrkempnz in Singapore. Because we are doing similar things with similar groups, we thought the kids could communicate through a doc or form.  So far so good.

I'll post again when we are further along!

#educamptt How to Spend a Saturday Learning - Here, There, Anywhere!

While I didn't drive up to Educamp Tai Tokerau, I WAS there!

It was a fantastic experience sharing and contributing to the smackdown, and facilitating two workshops with the amazing Monika Kern (@BeLchick).

Spur of the moment stuff: I sat amongst the washing at home (well, almost) and talked about Coding and Minecraft with groups of teachers. Had a momentary panic about not having prepared resources but in the end, went with the flow. Being a talking head was enough.

What an amazing experience! No special outfit, no travelling for hours to Northland from here, no accommodation costs. And I managed to do some chores in between.(Well, the bed got made.)

But here I still am...storifying and blogging.  Sometimes you just have days like that!