This new feature should really help if you want to provide an easy way for a bunch of people to subscribe to a set of twitter users all at once. You could maintain, for example, a list of K-12 science teacher twitter users. Make as many groups as you want and simply provide the URLs in a blog post, on a wiki page, or in a Google Docs document.

Leave a comment if there’s another feature you’d like. I’ll see what I can do to put it in. Please let me know if you find a bug.

It seemed like an innocent enough question at the time, but when Steve Dembo (teach42) posted a tweet last week looking for a way to import a list of Twitter names to follow I decided to run with it. It seemed like a straightforward programming challenge, and after a little twittering back and forth with Dave Briccetti I had it pretty much worked out in my head.

Twitterator, then, is a really simple web application that takes a list of twitter usernames and allows you to follow them in one fell swoop. Take a look and see what you think. I have to warn you though. This is a pretty basic CGI script, and it’s not going to be particularly fast. It depends on Twitter.com’s servers being available which can be a bit of a crapshoot. Using Twitterator may cause dizziness, shortness of breath, locusts, giant meteors, and (wait for it) sexual dysfunction. Tell you doctor if you’re using Twitterator. Don’t taunt Twitterator!

I think this could be pretty useful for training sessions. For example, you could keep a list of twitter usernames in a file on the Internet somewhere and use that URL to follow those people. You could keep lists organized by academic subject or whatever else works for you. Once the file exists at a certain URL, a bunch of people could start following those people within minutes of creating their Twitter accounts. You can also paste in a bunch of usernames manually from a blog post, wiki page, or some other source. I tried to make it as bulletproof as reasonably possible, but you’ll have to ensure that the usernames are listed one per line.

Feel free to leave suggestions for improvements or creative uses in the comments. I hope everyone finds Twitterator useful. It’s fun to exercise my programming chops once in a while, and if this brings Dembo one step closer to world domination then it’s all been worth it.

Update: All Twitterator links have been updated to point to the new URL.

I’ll post my slides here after my talk, but for now you can follow this links to learn more about ITIL:

• ITIL homepage
• Wikipedia article on ITIL
• ITIL Community Forum
• I did my ITIL certification at the U. of MN, but I think the ITIL program at New Horizons of Minnesota is better.

Update: Here’s a link to my slides from this talk. I think most of them will make sense on their own, but anyone who looks at them will obviously miss some key things that were discussed in my talk at the conference.

Kurt wants us to take action in three areas:

• 21st Century Skills
• Robust support systems that function “just in time.”
• Innovative teaching and learning to keep pace in an increasingly digital world.

Kurt visited Minnesota a couple weeks before his keynote (something I’ve never seen before) and stopped to visit some schools.

• He saw the 1-to-1 program at Oak-Land Junior High School in Stillwater.
• Andy Weaver at using technology to study falcons.
• American Indian Magnet School and World Cultures Magnet School in St. Paul.
• New Country School
• Scot Hovan, Kate Noreen, and Patrick Crothers at Mahtomedi High School
• Dave Casey at Buffalo Community Middle School who is doing amazing things with his social studies students
• Edina Public Schools
• Northrop Urban Environmental Learning Center in Minneapolis

What trends did he see?

• Relentless, intense passion
• Support system (technical and teching and learning)
• More school-wide integration

Kurt observed some transitions underway in Minnesota and elsewhere:

• From purchased licenses to Web 2.0 and open source
• Application-based to Web-based and mobile learning
• Isolated and offline to collaborative and online
• Copyrighted content to shared content
• Submitting reports to blogs and web publishing

What is the future of technology in education? It’s already here, it’s just not in every school yet.

How can we move forward?

• Step 1: Where are we?
• Step 2: Reach a broad consensus on a clear message (vision or goal).
• Step 3: Meet them where they are and use your “bag of tricks” to move resources toward achieving the vision.

Kurt talked about how to advocate for your vision. Prepare a “One-pager” that you can give to key decision makers. Include the following things and customize your one-pager for each audience.

• Name
• Compelling vision
• Brief overview of history
• Rationale (why is this essential)
• Funding request (include recurring and non-recurring costs)
• Research base

Also, develop an “elevator pitch” that you can deliver to a decision maker in 30 seconds in any setting. One of Kurt’s recommendations: “Make your friends before you need them.”

Learn more about virtualization

• An Introduction to Virtualization by Amit Singh
• The Pros and Cons of Virtualization
• Server virtualization at InfoWorld
• Intro to Virtualizaton and Virtualization Part 2 from Security Now! with Steve Gibson and Leo Laporte

I’m trying to find a way to work with a wiki with my students. We’re trying to do some collaborative writing type activities. I want them to work in real time in the same document so a wiki seemed perfect. However, because we don’t allow email access I need them to do it without registering as a user of the wiki (the only way I know would require an email address to register). I tried it with several different types of wikis, but every time some peoples’ work was lost. It seemed like when someone saved what they had entered, it deleted what someone else had typed. I thought working in a table might help since they would have a specific place to type and not actually be entering in the same space, but that didn’t show any real improvement. Unfortunately, we don’t have Moodle at this time – maybe next year – since that would probably eliminate our registration problems.

My strategy has alway been to divide up the wiki editing into smaller chunks of content on multiple wiki pages to reduce the chances of editing collisions. It’s far from a perfect solution. Google Docs would work, but the lack of student email accounts would prevent that.

Is there a better solution out there? Is there a wiki engine that support simultaneous edits gracefully? I’m all ears.

Blogging

• The Savvy Technologist
• Lewis Elementary School (Principal Tim Lauer)
• Getting started with blogging: WordPress.com, Blogger

Google Maps mashups

• Housing Maps
• Chicago Crime

Tag searching

• IL-TCE postings
• Blog posts tagged “iltce2007″
• Flickr photos tagged “erosion”

Wikipedia

• Darfur conflict
• The Giver by Lois Lowry
• The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo

Other

• Twitter
• Ohmynews
• Google Docs and Spreadsheet
• Craigslist
• Creative Commons-licensed photos at Flickr
• Creative Commons

Update: I popped into Steve Dembo’s presentation to hear what Web 2.0 apps he’s using these days. Here is his top10freesites wiki.

Amber asked how Jimmy would respond to people who say that Wikipedia can’t be trusted (at 31:41 of the recording). He replied:

People do need to approach Wikipedia with some understanding of where it comes from and how to use it. Certainly if you’re a regular user of Wikipedia and you’ve tested it against your other knowledge and against other sources, most people will report it’s actually really pretty good overall. At the same time because it is live editing and anything can be changed at any time you have to be a little cautious. If you read something a little crazy or suspicious you should always check it out. And there are a lot of techniques as an advanced user. You can look in the history. You can look at the discussion page to see if some point has been debated. Check the references at the bottom. You can always tag something. If it sounds suspicious to you, tag it with a tag that says this fact needs a cite or something.

One of Leo’s interns who happens to be a sophomore in high school asked how Jimmy would recommend convincing schools to accept Wikipedia as a trusted source (at 53:02 of the recording). Jimmy’s advice:

Be careful how you use Wikipedia. It really isn’t a trusted source. It really is edited real-time and it could be full of mistakes. That really isn’t the right role for an encyclopedia in the educational process. I think it basically should be fine in schools, it should be acceptable, to add a footnote saying I did a lot of my preliminary research in Wikipedia just to acknowledge where you got a lot of knowledge. But in terms of citing specific facts, you really should go to the sources and look it up there. Because that’s what you’re supposed to be doing. The encyclopedia is supposed to give you the broad overview not be a primary research tool.

This is exactly the advice I give when asked. Perhaps having the quote right from the horse’s mouth will be useful.

Blogging

• Mabryonline.org with Dr. Tim Tyson
• Lewis Elementary School (Principal Tim Lauer)

Google Maps mashups

• Housing Maps
• Chicago Crime
• Google Sketchup examples

Technorati searching

• TIES postings
• Blog posts tagged “ties2006″
• Flickr photos tagged “holidazzle”

Wikipedia

• Darfur conflict
• The Giver by Lois Lowry
• The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo

Other

• Google Docs and Spreadsheet
• Craigs list

ties, ties2006, web2.0

• Moodle, online learning management system
• Audacity, audio editing
• Inkscape, vector drawing
• Scribus, desktop publishing
• OpenOffice.org, office suite
• NeoOffice, Mac version of OpenOffice.org
• Linux, free Unix-like OS
• Creative Commons
• Open Source
• Flickr, online photo sharing
• Wikipedia, world’s biggest encyclopedia
• VLC, media player
• Drupal, content management system
• Joomla, content management system
• WordPress, blogging platform
• GIMPShop, Photoshop-like image editing
• Edubuntu, Linux distribution targeted for K–12
• Request Tracker, trouble ticketing system

Update: Here are a few more links to products that came up during the session.

• Jahshaka, video editing and effects
• Loudblog, audio blogging and podcasting
• dirCaster, easy podcasting
• Stellarium, awesome astronomy software
• Clam Antivirus, server-based virus scanning

ties, ties2006