If you’re an educator, looking for a reason to get up to speed on Twitter, take a look at Edchat. This is a live event that happens each Tuesday at two times – 12pm EST/ 5pm GMT and 7pm EST/ 12pm GM - on Twitter. Educators from all over the world chime in with their answers to a question, proposed by the organizers, Stephen Anderson, Tom Whitby, andShelly Terrell.
Here is Shelly’s blog post, describing Edchat. Each week, the Edchat topic is voted on by the group. You can send suggestions to Shelly, Tom or Stephen and then, on Monday of each week, they post five possible topics. The topic with the most votes becomes the Edchat topic for that Tuesday. Any Tweet that bears the hashtag - #edchat - will appear in the stream. You can either search on the hashtag to pick up the stream, run it through an RSS feed, or if you’re using Tweetdeck(a sort of dashboard for Twitter), you can set up a column just for that steam. Here’s a video tutorial on how to use Tweetdeck to monitor the stream.
If you have questions about how it works, you can get in touch with the moderators. For the 12pm EST #Edchat the moderators are @ShellTerrell and @Rliberni. For the 7pm EST Edchat the moderators are @MBTeach, @KylePace, and @TomWhitby.
People pose questions and answer them. They contribute suggestions, links, anecdotes, and arguments. It’s a very lively bunch. In addition to the quality of the Tweets (mostly quite high), what struck me most was the power of the medium. Here I was, in my own home, listening to 1000′s of smart, savvy educators – from all over the world – chime in on a conversation about a topic that interested me. It’s the kind of experience you live for when you attend a national conference – that chance meet up in hallway or over a beer, where a group of interesting professionals gather for a few moments and exchange really helpful ideas about something important. But this “meet up” was scheduled and it included 1000′s – and I didn’t have to get on a plane to listen in. A global brainstorming session, with (according to “what the trend“) 3500 contributions.
I was also struck by the courtesy of the group. People responded to each other, supported concerns, and thanked each other for suggestions. No flamers here – what a welcome change.
Of course, it’s not perfect. During the hour that I sat, scanning my Tweetdeck stream, I found myself getting irritated over the number of retweets (people forwarding on a Tweet they liked), resulting in bombardment with the same Tweet over and over again. As you’d expect, there are a few spammers or advertisers that get in there (not too bad). There are a few ridiculous comments that don’t bear mentioning. But, on the whole, there’s some extremely good stuff. I would say that, over the course of the hour, I learned a large handful of things I’d never heard before, laughed over a few very poignant stories, linked out to at least 50 different web sites (most of which were extremely useful), and choose 4 or 5 new people to follow in my regular Twitter stream. There were teachers taking polls (trying to get a feel for opinions or patterns), teachers trolling for ideas (first day suggestions, how to use classroom blogs,
Fortunately, the organizers have developed a wiki site to accompany their Twitter live event. There, you’ll not only find a directory of all the active Edchat participants (including their email addresses and interests) but a complete transcript of each Edchat session, listed by date. Here’s the transcript from this week’s Edchat session, ”Should teachers have students write blogs, develop class web sites/wikis, create student PLNs?”
To help with the retweeting problem, I turned to Paper.Li, which is a nifty online tool that turns a particular Twitter stream into an online newspaper, complete with categories and highlights. You can read more about Paper.Li in this blogpost of mine, from a few weeks ago. This was a great way to read the #Edchat stream because it eliminates the redundancies, promoting most mentioned items to headline status. Great way to see all the videos together as well. Here’s what this week’s Edchat looks like in Paper.Li:
The organizers have also started a Personal Learning Network (PLN), using Ning, for those educators who want to continue the conversation. On the Ning site, I see that some educators have formed subgroups to start projects at their own schools or carry on a conversation about a related topic. Nice. And here’s where I get to repeat a frequent (not-original) conclusion of mine – these participatory media tools are so much more powerful when they are used in combination with each other. In this case…. Twitter, a Ning site, and a wiki. Magic.
Last week I introduced a group of young people to a new world of wonder. It has been a short time since I noticed doing that, but in reality I have enjoyed a lifetime of “new world” introductions. You see, I spent the majority of my life (so far,) as a biology teacher. Though I retired from the high school classroom 4 years ago, I still teach. Sometimes I teach groups of students that visit the Lake Metroparks Environmental Learning Center (that is in Lake County in northern Ohio.) Sometimes I teach my granddaughter Maddie, and sometimes I simply teach people that happen to be standing next to me. But this week I was reminded of how exciting it can be to learn too. I work with a group of third through fifth grade honors or gifted students from a local school district. I guess they are “gifted” because they have been tested and identified as “cognitively gifted,” but I think they are gifted because they show up every Tuesday afternoon, after a full day of school, with notebook in one hand, snack in one hand, camera in one hand, and usually some other artifact in one hand. They accomplish this because they are third through fifth graders, they have an almost unmeasureable amount of energy, they are gifted, AND they are curious!! This week I gave them access to the microscope. This week I gave them access to new worlds. Their energy, and their curiosity did not disappoint. I decided to start their adventure with some microscope basics. I wanted them to appreciate how special this exploration tool is. I wanted their journey to be less frustrating and more successful. I wanted them to be able to see and to measure with the microscope. They were ready, willing and very able to explore new worlds. The world I introduced them to was an import from my small, backyard pond. As I left for the Environmental Learning Center I stopped and collected a bagful of pond water and a few handfuls of hair-like filamentous algae. The major genera in my pond is *Cladophora. (Sometimes called “pond scum,” but I prefer Cladophora.) 
My favorite thing to see in pond samples is, in fact the alga types. I love the green color and the ability to see into the cellular landscape. I love seeing the intercellular spaces and the dots of color in the chloroplasts. I love trying to “notice” the nucleus in the cell. I say “notice” because that is what you do when you start a journey into the microscopic world. Often the new adventurer will fail to notice what is clearly there. “Can I get a new sample?” “There isn’t anything in mine!”. I go over to take a look at this “empty” field of view. “Wow!” I scream. “Look at this!”.
I tend to “notice” more stuff. Of course I see the algae. I describe the cellular boundaries, the cell walls, the membrane, the chloroplasts, the nucleus (if lucky and the lighting just right.) Then I look beyond the strands of algae and “notice” the hundreds or thousands of euglena scooting around the filaments. They are small. We have the 10X objective employed, but visible if only you are willing to “notice.” occasionally a much bigger paramecium swims by. I go crazy! By this time the young explorer wants her microscope back. They want to “notice” what’s on the slide too. New worlds, new wonders! Then we load up the slide with some daphnia. Daphnia is what these scientists want. They are big enough to be easily observed.
They are complex enough to look like real pond monsters. Daphnia are small microscopic crustaceans. They have a heart, gills, a digestive system, an eye spot AND they are “see-through.”. Perfect for a young scientist to get excited by this new world. They can see something happening. Thirty-four years teaching biology, four years of undergrad biology classes, two classes of biology in high school, and I still get goofy when I see a captured daphnia on it’s side, heart pumping, gills waving, food moving through the intestines, living its little life on the microscope slide for all to see.
Well, not really, but now that I wrote about it I cannot get the image out of my mind!! So there it is. One hawk, one picture, a waterfall of thoughts.
So there I was – standing in the middle of a small riffle just upstream of the confluence of Big Creek and the Grand River in Eastern Lake County, Ohio. I was in the Grand, but I could see the waters of Big Creek joining the Grand river watershed just over my right shoulder. The water was clear enough to see the river bottom AND the Steelhead Trout that were just starting their downstream run back to Lake Erie after spending the Fall and Winter upstream. Northern Ohio was having a very unusual March heatwave. A week after a quick snowfall, the temperatures were pushing almost 85 degrees (F). The last days of March in Northern Ohio are often mild (the proverbial lamb,) but mild around here in March is usually in the 60’s, not the 80’s. El Nino weather patterns make strange shifts in lots of measurements. Some places get extreme rain, some higher temperatures and data shows a change in the patterns of tornados and hurricanes too. Here we were rewarded with a short lived summer. The rivers that flow into Lake Erie alternated between too low to be fished and too high and muddy to be fished this past year. Of course, the dedicated, dyed-in-the-wool, fishermen’s fly casters go out no matter what the river looks like. I am as much an observer of fish as I am a catcher of fish. I do enjoy the activity of fly fishing. 
Casting to a particular pool. Avoiding this log or that shrub. It may be as much about my fishing skills, but fish watching is pretty entertaining too. That is what I was doing while standing in the middle of the Grand River last week—fish watching. I was trying to catch a steelhead or two, but studying them was pretty good too.
Steelhead trout on their spawning run (both up stream and down,) are not really interested in eating. Eating is what they have been doing all summer in the lake. Occasionally they will attack a floating bug or nymph (as much from habit as from hunger,) and that is what a Steelhead trout catcher is hoping for. The particular large fish I was watching did not seem to want to attack anything other that other trout that happened by. I nymphed, I egged, I streamered, but mostly I watched. But that was ok. What a scene I was watching. The fish I was “playing” with was probably a 3 year old (maybe 2 years since the size of a fish under water is a bit difficult to accurately estimate due to the tendency of water to magnify,) 24 inches or so and wonderful to observe. As smaller fish entered the pool the “resident” cleared them out. A short rest seemed to be fine, but only a short one. If a smaller trout stayed too long, it was scooted away. If too many smaller fish entered the pool, even a short stay was not allowed. I was casting to the rest stop, but mostly I was watching the residents. Occasionally I would hear a noisy splash behind me. Not a big splash, but kind of a splatter. In fact, a series of splatters. As I turned to see the cause of the noise I saw a younger fish making its way down the riffle. Sometimes they start down a shallow section of the river instead of staying in the deeper runs. When this happens they need to “skitter” along the gravel and rocky riffle areas. This creates a splashing noise and is great to watch. Of course, if I was really just trying to get fish I could simply net the skittering fish, but I was here to watch and appreciate as much as I was to catch fish. And appreciate I did! I have been watching the tremendous new television series on the discovery Channel. This series called LIFE, is wonderful. But I was IN this “Life” episode, so I just watched. When I view the Discovery version of “LIFE” I am amazed. The photography is remarkable even if the narrator’s explanations leave a little to be desired (in the US version, Opera Winfrey is the narrator.) I have found a few too many explanations of wonderful design as the reason for a particular animal’s shape, color, structure or success to be comfortable. I’m not sure how Sir David Attenborough narrates, but I’m sure the BBC version discusses the evolutionary processes a bit more accurately. But here I stand in the middle of a river, watching my own episode of LIFE. That’s what this essay is all about. We all need to watch the episodes of LIFE all around us. Whether the tapping of a pileated woodpecker, or the hunting of a red shouldered hawk, the hunting practice of Fitzroy (my cat,) or fledging of a house wren, LIFE is all around us. Paying attention to the world around us is actually the theme of my Australian friend’s entire blog. It is called “Paying Ready Attention” and can be found at 
