A VLE, or learning platform, is an online system that allows teachers and trainers to share educational materials and communicate with their learners via the web. Usually with built in tools to create engaging learning content. We all know that, but if you have one, is its use fit for purpose? There has always been a […]

This #BYOD4L week has literally flown by, with really rich discussions each evening. I'll cut to the chase with this post and get the visuals out...There were 614 Tweets last night, back up from Day 3 and similar to the numbers of Day 2. From the bigger picture, there again appears to be less reliance on the central facilitators, as more people are gaining confidence and engaging with others. Lave & Wenger might define this as progressing from Legitimate Periphery Participation through to Full Participation / Membership within the Community of Practice. We'd seen Rod's progress in yesterday's post which also resembled this.As you'll see, @SamIllingworth was the key player last night. He used #BYOD4LChat hashtag in 82 tweets last night (of course he may have tweeted and not used the hashtag as well). His significance in the network last night was actually not just related to the number of tweets, but the number of replies (29) and mentions (33). This would suggest Sam played a really key part in linking people together last night, and you can really see that by the number of incoming and outgoing edges in the diagram below.I thought it might also be nice to use Martin Hawksey's TAGs Explorer in a bit more detail this time to demonstrate the tool. So in the example video below, I've taken a couple of minutes to look into SamIllingworth's tweets last night in more depth, and replayed his personal timeline....A Storify of the Day 4 Tweetchat is available here....Peter@Reedyreedles$nbsp;The Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

Originally posted on Mrs. McCallum's Education Commons:Deborah McCallum:  My ideas for taking basic reading response forms through the SAMR - from Substitution to Redefinition. Deborah McCallum Originally posted on Mrs. McCallum's Education Commons: View original Tagged: Big Ideas in Education, edtech, Reading responses, SAMR

For a while there, I believed that the FELTAG report might be just the kick up the backside so richly deserved by the management of many Learning Providers to engage in the use of current technology.  I still believe that the objective will be achieved, but I fear that it may be later than the original […]

So Day 5 of the #BYOD4L event focussed on the theme of Creating, and took a slightly different format. Chrissi & Sue flipped this tweetchat around a little and got participants thinking a bit more than in previous tweetchats, by having us asking the questions instead of them.It was interesting and there was a lot of buzz about - something quite surprising as it was the last twetchat at the end of a long week. So I think that is testament to the job they done in formulating the chat and facilitating it.There were just over 600 tweets which appears to be around the mean for the week (higher on Monday, lower on Tuesday). Sam Illingworth once again won the prize for most influential tweeter in the tweetchat. What is also very obvious to see, is that there is a lot of two-way interaction. The Betweenness Centrality issue I discussed earlier in the week appears to be less prevalent in this tweetchat - that is, the network didn't rely too heavily on just one or two people. Rather, the network acted in a more distributed, non-centralised way.I'm planning on creating an overall picture of the week, so hang fire...How are you interpreting these viusals?Peter@Reedyreedles$nbsp;The Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

Incorporating edtech into our curriculum is essential, and can be integrated into the planning and assessment of our students. First, it is essential to develop an action plan. Know what it is you are going to teach, when, and how. Create your long range plan, but be flexible and allow for student needs and inquiry to […]

How would you feel if you went to… a doctors and, while waiting for your appointment, discovered that the doctor hadn’t had any Professional development 4 practitioner training since they qualified in the 70’s? Or, perhaps even worse if you went to… the dentist and had to have a filling, only to find she was […]

So the #BYOD4L event has come and gone in the blink of an eye. It's gone so fast yet at the same time has been pretty tiring. I've used Martin Hawkey's TAGS Explorer to produce Social Network Analysis visuals for each day on the #BYOD4L event this past week:Day 1 - Monday: ConnectingDay 2 - Tuesday: CommunicatingDay 3 - Wednesday: CuratingDay 4 - Thursday: CollaboratingDay 5 - Friday: CreatingAlthough I've had a few anomalies that have needed rectifying this week, the tool is actually very easy to use and provides a ton of interesting information for analysis. This post hopes to provide some analysis for the whole week's worth of tweetchats (that is, any tweet that has included the #byod4lchat hashtag).There were over 3000 tweets sent over the course of the week (that included the hashtag at any time of day, not just restricted to the live tweetchats). The tweets came from 135 unique users. Quite a few of those users only tweeted a few times, but I don't think that's necessarily a problem. If the event has engaged anybody at all and encouraged thinking and reflection about using devices and apps, then surely that's a positive. There was also some cross-fertilisation with the #edenchat hashtag (n=33).Over the course of those 3000 tweets, 242 contained a link, which suggests the tweetchats were not simply a conversation, but also included the sharing of 'knowledge', or at least branching out those discussions to wider sources and views.The bigger picture view of the network looks like one giant, close knit ball of wool. There's probably not all that much you make out from it actually...I've zoomed in a touch to try to see the connections a bit, but the sheer volume of tweets, as well as the number of recipients makes it extremely difficult to make sense of anything. From what I can gather in this image, although many of the bigger names were connecting with each other, they were also playing a key role in facilitating and networking with a lot of participants, who were not necessarily the same. This is really important, as if they were communicating with the same people, the network could easily be seen as a clique. In actual fact, and as I blogged in previous posts, this event has demonstrated Lave & Wenger's Communities of Practice quite well, including the different roles that feature.The top tweeters for the week are as follows:1. @SamIllingworth2. @BYOD4L3. +Chrissi Nerantzi4. @julieGillin5. +Sue Beckingham6. @amandaksykes7. +Andrew Middleton8. +Neil Withnell9. @jimpettiward10. +David HopkinsI was only number 11 :-(I'm sure Sam will be organising a party for tonight to celebrate his Top Tweeter Award! In terms of the number of tweets sent throughout the week, Monday was the chat with the highest number of tweets.Monday = 788Tuesday = 583Wednesday = 477Thursday = 614Friday = 607ResourcesYou can view the interactive version of the network diagram (above).You can use this searchable twitter archive (as part of the TAGS tool) to search for an individual's tweets.Peter@Reedyreedles$nbsp;The Reed Diaries by Peter Reed is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License

On Saturday, whilst shopping, I met the first checkout on an iPad. The staff scanned the barcode on items with it and then it remotely contacted the till. Essentially this freed them up to be able to walk around the shop and interact with customers. This morning walking into the office there was the ubiquitous […]

Traditional versus Digital Literacy How do you know what strategies are appropriate for teaching traditional literacy? Are the strategies different than those that promote digital literacy? We all know about learning goals and success criteria, rubrics, assessment for learning, etc., etc., But it never ceases to amaze me of deep and focused our strategies go […]