Curriculum21 - Mapping the Global Classroom of the Future

Professional Development: Got a Twitter Minute?

by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano
cross posted to the Langwitches Blog

Funny how a Learning Network trail can lead one to unexpected destinations 🙂 Follow along the bread crumbs to see where the trail came from and what it led to…

1. I shared a presentation on Sketchnoting For Learning
2. Sharon Bowman, left a comment on slideshare and tweeted the link

3. I followed the link to Sharon’s website, and purchased one of her books titled: The Ten Minute Trainer: 150 Ways to Teach it Quick & Make it Stick.

As a professional development provider, I enjoyed her suggestions of 1-minute activities with the objectives of:

• understanding
• reflecting
• reviewing
• focusing
• articulating one’s own thinking
• making thinking visible
• creating connections
• sharing

Sharon used analog material, such as paper, pencil, index cards, sticky notes and face to face dialogue and conversation in her workshops. There is NOTHING wrong with that and EVERYTHING right with her approach to take lecture type presentations and divide them into small easier digestible chunks, then give the attendees time to review, reflect, discuss and share what they learned.

“shorter segments of instruction are better than long ones, and learners remember more when they are involved in the learning”

4. My thoughts turned to ideas how we could amplify these short activities beyond the attendees of the workshop and at the same time include an activity that:

• exposes participants to network literacy
• helps them contribute to and build a Personal Learning Network
• collaborates and connects with a larger number of other workshop attendees, as well as a potential global audience
• documents their learning beyond the physical time of the workshop
• supports reviewing, reflecting, discussing and sharing their learning

5. Many of Sharon’s activities seemed to be a natural fit for amplifying them into Twitter activities, embedding the SAME learning objectives she has for her analog activities.

6. I sketched the following notes

7. I look forward to sharing the following 1-minute activities at my next workshop as an option for attendees in addition to some of the analog ones.

Connections

• Share something you already know about the workshop topic
• use the #workshop hashtag
• follow someone who is also using the #workshop hashtag

Pair Share

• share the most important fact or concept you just learning in the last 10 minutes
• tweet it out and specifically @mention someone else

Shout Out

• shout out a number between 1-10
• tweet (that amount) of ways that can impact your practice
• use #workshop hashtag

Doodles

• Make up a metaphor of the most important concept you learned
• sketch the metaphor
• take a photo and tweet it using #workshop hashtag

Signal

• make a noise signal, if you have a “tweetable moment”
• articulate and share your tweetable moment
• tweet it out
• use the #workshop hashtag

Time Sponges

• tweet out two things you want to learn at the workshop
• reply to someone else’s tweet by answering their question

Think & Write

• tweet one sentence that summarized the information you heard about
• use #workshop hashtag

Exit Ticket

• Tweet 1 opinion about an issue related to what you learned
• tweet a question you sill have. “How about…”
• use @workshop hashtag

Action Plan

• tweet out a sentence starting with “I plan to…” with what you learned
• share how you will hold yourself accountable