Since my last post was all about Twitter, here is another one listing some great hashtags to follow to get the most out of Twitter.

20 Twitter Hashtags Every Teacher Should Know About | Edudemic.

Plenty of colleges are getting tuned in to all of the great things you can do with Twitter, but unfortunately, many high schools are still held back by restrictive social media policies. However, the lucky few who are able to take advantage of Twitter are already doing amazing things. Chatting with students in Pakistan, reporting high school football on the fly, and supplementing classroom discussion are just a few of the great ways high schools have made use of Twitter. Read on, and we’ll explore 20 innovative ways high schools are making use of this great social media tool.

20 Innovative Ways High Schools Are Using Twitter – Best Colleges Online.

Found this enlightening article about the pros of using social media with your students.  Food for thought:
Mentoring Your Students in Social Media or Vice Versa

I stumbled on this amazing site for those of us who have embraced texting as a major mode of communication. ClassParrot is a website for teachers. It allows them to send text messages back and forth with students and parents, without revealing anybody’s phone numbers. Think of it as a private texting service just for you, your students and parents.  Teachers, students, and parents can never see each other’s phone numbers, protecting the privacy of everyone involved.

• Are you an advisor and need to get an announcement to your class quickly? Text them all with ClassParrot.
• Need to remind your Math class of an upcoming assignment or test? Text them a reminder with ClassParrot.
• Are you a coach who needs to get a schedule change to all your players? Text them all with ClassParrot.

And it is free (You can send up to 500 messages a month)!  You can also conduct polls with your students via text for instant results (overnight in our case since they can’t use them, in class).

Why text you ask? Because students prefer text messaging to email, and because they actually pay attention to texts. Open rate for email is 22%. Open rate for text messages is 98%!  Unlike managing course details online, or checking email, texting doesn’t require that your students learn any new behaviors. They already text! And they like it!

Starting is simple: Add one or all of your classes. We’ll assign a unique, private code to each class.

Students Text The Code: With any type of cell phone, your students (and their parents!) can simply text the unique code to ClassParrot.

Start Communicating!: Broadcast reminders, updates, info & notices to your students (and their parents). Students can text back directly.

Just click here to get started.

Tech & Learning has put together a great list of the Top 20 Social Networks for Education.  If you haven’t seen these, take a moment to visit a few and unleash the power of social networking.  And while you are at it, don’t forget to follow @sapublicschools on Twitter and Like! us on Facebook.

I’ve got Google Wave invites to give away to the first eight (8) educators who comment on this post! (Please include your school or how you are involved with education in your comment.)

What is Google Wave?  Watch below to get an idea:

Click here to view the embedded video.

While Wave is still very much beta and makes my head spin thinking about it, I am using it everyday and can see to potential for learning.  I am even including this in my PIP as a PLN.

Please be patient waiting for your invite.  As Goolge states, “Invitations will not be sent immediately. We have a lot of stamps to lick.”

Happy waving!

Official Update to the popular video for Fall 2009

Click here to view the embedded video.

Heard of Delicious?  Diigo?  No?  There are just two of the most popular sites providing social bookmarking services.  Social Bookmarking is a method for you to store, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web pages on the Internet.  And lucky for us, the good folks at Common Craft have created a simple video to explain what this is all about.

Click here to view the embedded video.

After watching the video, stop by the school’s Delicious and Diigo accounts for some link goodness.  The school’s Diigo account is somewhat limited so stop by mine for a better example of what it looks like.

Note:  Diigo has special education accounts for teachers and classrooms, so be sure to visit.

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• Yahoo Bookmarking Site Delicious ‘Freshens Up’ (blogs.wsj.com)
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• Diigo – Web Highlighter and Sticky Notes, a delicious killer? (academicproductivity.com)

The US Marines issued an order Monday that bans social media sites including Twitter, Facebook and MySpace on its network.

The sites increase the risk of sensitive information leaking out to adversaries, the order explains.

Read the full article here: US Marines Banned From Social Media Sites.

Most people use Twitter, the top micro-blogging service, the same way they use Facebook status updates — as a narcissistic mini-diary of their lives’ mundane events. But Twitter can be

more than a distraction and time killer. In fact, it can follow breaking news, set alarms and reminders, track packages, and stay organized. Here are five ways to get more out of Twitter than just updates on what your friends’ cats are doing.

5 Ways That Twitter Can Make Your Life Better.