tomasandersen44blog
"Never before had a contest held so much promise – or so much danger." 39 Clues: One False Note
Week 1 in Reflection: How Have I Been of Use? #etlead #gamifi-ed
I have been helpful in the following ways:
1) Helped classmates discover tweetdeck to manage their twitter discussions.
2) Show classmates how to find and use Livetext. I know the university tried to get people to take a brief “course” in it, but I think it was a failed effort.
3) Volunteered some classmates to help me host a twitter session on Thursday at 4:30! We’ll see how it goes. I plan to use tips from the online site Social Media Examiner. Hopefully we rock some worlds!
4) I examined some classmates blogs, and found some great resources, with some anecdotal replies by myself.
5)Now for the constructive side of things. The twitter sessions need to have a scheduled cadence, and people need to be asked not to deviate from the topic, with a Good of the Order period in the last 15 minutes. I think all side conversations and joking around needs to be held off. Also, I feel that the sessions could even be shortened if those conversations were held off, leaving opportunity for specific help to classmates in the last half hour.
6) A single class session showing students each and every source of material/assignments at the beginning would help alleviate a lot of stressful comments and conversations later on. This meeting would consist strictly of show and tell by the instructor(s) with little deviation. For example in the beginning of the program we were shown by our initial instructor(s) how to use eliminate and it’s tools. This would be an evolution of that process.
Thanks to everyone who helped answer my questions, and replied to my blog as well! I wish us all the best of luck!
tomasandersen44blog 
Thanks again Tomas! You are an Ed Tech leader!
I know just enough to do some damage, that’s all.
For Twitter sessions, I like having a set of questions to be sure, but sometimes room for a little side chatter provides some really interesting perspectives on things and an opportunity for others to see two people hash out some topic. I don’t see much of a way we could shorten it from an hour to 30m and not have room for people to fully explore ideas. I also find that what you might perceive as time which could be more efficiently used actually gives me an opportunity to read some of the links that people are posting. There’s a balance I suppose.
That said I really enjoyed tonight’s session and got a lot out of it. Everyone had something to contribute tonight. It’s a little stressful being on the synchronous “Twitter stage”, unable to see others’ faces, and trying to keep it moving, meaningful, and respectful to the class’s time, and I appreciate you and Leslie leading the session.