Twitter Bootcamp: Resource for #HumanMOOC

The Week 2 topic for #HumanMOOC is social presence and community building. There's been some great social present via the #HumanMOOC hashtag at Twitter, so I wanted to offer as a resource to share for Week 2 the TWITTER BOOTCAMP that I am working on right now for a January Academic Technology Expo at my school. I hope the materials and activities can be useful to people who have never used Twitter before and even for people who use it a lot. I use Twitter a lot, and I am also learning new things all the time from other users.

So... if you have never used Twitter or have a dormant Twitter account, you might find the Bootcamp useful in developing a fun and productive Twitter presence in conjunction with #HumanMOOC. The materials go step by step, starting with the basics of Twitter (Stage 1 and Stage 2), some recommended tools and add-ons (Stage 3), and then a Twitter project — building a Twitter widget for your LMS or blog (Stage 4). You can contact me with any questions you have (@OnlineCrsLady), and you can also ask your #HumanMOOC Twitter Buddies (see below for more information about that Twitter list).

And... if you are a regular user of Twitter, you might find some new tips and tools in the Bootcamp materials. Even better, you could help me out by sharing YOUR favorite tips and tools, the key ingredients that have made Twitter a useful social learning space for you. Please comment anywhere with your input — the Bootcamp takes the form of a blog so you can comment on the posts there, or you can comment at this blog post, or at Twitter!

#OUTechExpo AND #HumanMOOC. The materials have a University-of-Oklahoma focus (that's where I work), and they are designed for our Technology Expo in January, so that's the #OUTechExpo hashtag that you will see mentioned.  Yet I am sure we could make good use of these materials for #HumanMOOC also — just jiggle the instructions in your mind, substituting #HumanMOOC for #OUTechExpo.

WILL YOU BE A BUDDY? If you are already using Twitter, you could help others in #HumanMOOC to get started in using Twitter and building their personal learning network. I'm making a list of Twitter Buddies for #HumanMOOC, and if you would like me to add your name to that list, that would be super! Being a "Twitter buddy" should not be much work; it's really just about being willing to follow people while they are getting started, replying to their tweets, sharing ideas, and answering questions. You can see the growing list of HumanMOOC Twitter Buddies below.

And THANKS in advance for any feedback people might have about the Bootcamp materials. All 40 posts are done, more or less (I just finished a couple of days ago on the first drafts for them all), and I am working hard on polishing them in time for my school's Expo in January. Some of the posts are in pretty good shape, and some still have gaps. Let me know if there is anything at all that is not clear or not working, and I'll try to be quick to fix it!

Meanwhile, I use Twitter every day and it's an invaluable tool for my own learning and also for my teaching. I hope it's something that can be useful for you too!

(see full-sized graphic at TeachThought)

BUDDIES WIDGET. Below is a widget with the #HumanMOOC Twitter Buddies list. The widget shows their most recent tweets; here is the Members list. Want to be a Twitter Buddy? Just let me know (@OnlineCrsLady).

Notice that this list is not just people's #HumanMOOC tweets; instead, the widget displays all their tweets (except for replies). That way you can see how people are using Twitter not just for the course experience, but in other ways too!

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Tweets from https://twitter.com/OnlineCrsLady/lists/humanmooc-buddies

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OUTechExpo Twitter Bootcamp... Thinking about #HumanMOOC

So, here's some info about my "Twitter Bootcamp" project for those of you participating in #HumanMOOC. I would be really glad to hear from #HumanMOOC participants about this project (see requests below), and I would also be really happy if this could be a useful resource for anyone in #HumanMOOC who has not been using Twitter who would like to give it a try. The Bootcamp materials are designed with a focus for my school (University of Oklahoma) and our upcoming Academic Tech Expo on January 15 (#OUTechExpo), but just substitute #HumanMOOC where I've got our OU hashtag, and voila: it's a #HumanMOOC Twitter Bootcamp.

I'm putting the materials at the blog we already have for our #OpenTeachingOU chats: Twitter Bootcamp. The Bootcamp consists of four "days" of activities leading up to our Expo on January 15, but the activities can be completed by anyone at any time; there's nothing synchronous about it at all. That's why I'm actually calling it "steps" instead of "day" — I don't want anybody to think they have to wait until January 11, and you can spend as much or as little time on the activities as suits your needs. The references you will see there to January 11-12-13-14 are just as a lead-in to our Tech Expo which takes place on January 15

FOUR STEPS. The idea is to walk people through some Twitter basics (Step 1 is done; I'm working on Step 2 now), then some Twitter tools and add-ons (Step 3... I'd love to learn about other tools people use; still tentative list), and then a Twitter project (Step 4); since we use D2L at my school, the Twitter project I'm going to focus on there is adding a Twitter widget to a D2L course homepage, although Twitter widgets can be adapted to all kinds of other uses (in other LMS, in blogs, websites, etc.).

With BUDDIES! Hopefully, the people publicizing our Expo will be publicizing the Bootcamp also (it's different than anything we've done for the Expo before, since it's totally asynchronous and in the open), and I'm also going to try to run a "Buddy" system too. For the Buddy idea, during the week of January 4, I'm going to contact the serious users of Twitter at my school (there really are not that many), and urge them to find one other person in their workgroup who is not actively using Twitter right now and offer to be their "buddy" while they are doing the Bootcamp activities. Of course, I am going to be a "buddy" to anybody working through the materials also, but I was thinking it would be really good to have a buddy who actually knows you, who shares your specific professional interests, etc.

#HumanMOOC Buddies too. Meanwhile, for #HumanMOOC, I am glad to be a Twitter buddy to anyone who wants to work through these activities during the #HumanMOOC event; since I am spending this winter break at home, not traveling, I'll probably do a good job of keeping up with the #HumanMOOC hashtag at Twitter.

DIIGO. I'm also working on collecting Twitter sources in a Diigo. My use of Diigo is kind of chaotic, but for this I am trying to be super-organized, so I plan to tag everything carefully and add descriptions. You can see what I have collected so far here: Diigo - Twitter.

HELP WANTED. I would really appreciate people's feedback:
* If you are new to Twitter and want to give the Bootcamp activities a try, that would be great; let me know what you think! You can comment on any of the blog posts or tweet me @OnlineCrsLady (or send me an email if you prefer: laurakgibbs@gmail.com).
* If you are a Twitter pro, let me know what strategies have made Twitter a success for you! I'd also be really grateful for ideas about what tools and add-ons to focus on; I'm not really that adventurous myself, so I'm relying to some extent here on what I see my friends online using successfully; my own use of Twitter is pretty mainstream.
* If you have Twitter resources to recommend that I can add to my Diigo Library, that would be fabulous: if you tweet those with the #HumanMOOC hashtag, that would work. So far I've been doing pretty well at keeping up with #HumanMOOC hashtag.

Okay, now I'm going to get to work on the Step 2 materials: my goal is to finish those today! :-)

(Sylvia Duckworth and the Growth Mindset cats)

Winter Break Projects: Twitter, Self-Efficacy, HEART

I've got three big projects that I am working on during our (brief) winter break, and luckily they are all three related to the #HumanMOOC as well, so I will be using this blog to document those projects and share them out with the HumanMOOCers also. Here are the three projects:

* Twitter Bootcamp. This is something I am doing for the Academic Tech Expo at my school (University of Oklahoma) which takes place on January 15; since I am not there in person for the Expo (I like in NC), I'm creating this pre-Expo asynchronous experience, hoping to bring more people to Twitter and... ideally... foster a Twitter backchannel for the Expo. I'm putting the materials at the existing blog for our #OpenTeachingOU chats, and I'll write some more in a separate post about my hopes for this project... and perhaps the Bootcamp can even be useful to participants in HumanMOOC who would like to learn / learn more about Twitter.
I'll label posts about this project both HumanMOOC and Twitter Bootcamp.

* Laura Ritchie's new book: Self-Efficacy. I'm writing a review of Laura Ritchie's book, and I'm so excited about what I am learning there that I need to take some detailed notes before I write the actual review. I'll be sharing those notes here, and I think they will be of interest to other HumanMOOCers also. Laura is active at Twitter and other social media spaces, so I'm sure we can bring her in to answer questions, share ideas. I just finished the book; now I need to re-read and take notes (no Kindle, alas, so the note-taking is kind of time-consuming).
I'll label those posts both HumanMOOC and Self-Efficacy.

* Learn by HEART. In addition to lots of little changes to my classes for the new semester, I have one BIG change, which is building on the Growth Mindset project from my last semester (such a big success! best new component that I have added to my classes in many years) to add some additional types of challenges for students to do: HEART: Health/Happiness, Empathy, Attention, Reading, and Time. This will still be a work in progress when the semester gets started, but since I am feeling confident about this based on the students' reaction to Growth Mindset, I am not worried about building that with the students' help as the semester goes along.
I'll label those posts both HumanMOOC and Learn by HEART.

Today is the first Monday that I am not "at work" ... and instead just working on projects I am really excited about. School starts officially on January 18, and I am opening my classes one week early as usual on January 11 which is also the day Twitter Bootcamp "starts" (insofar as an asynchronous thing "starts") ... which gives me almost FOUR GLORIOUS WEEKS to work on this stuff.

And since last semester went really well, I don't even need a few days to recover. I had a totally fun weekend... and now I am ready to enjoy the break by learning all kinds of new things. Whoo-hoo!