#edchatie has had some memorable chats throughout the year, mostly with a technology edge, e.g. Integrating Technology into the Classroom and Technology on a Budget. However, there have been other chats where the focus was on our profession, similar to tonight’s one. The chats have focused on government cuts to the education system, bullying and the Teaching Council.

21st Century Learning gets a few mentions from time to time and the theme of Learning Spaces came up more than once. We’ve also investigated digital textbooks and BYOD (Bring your own Device) to school.

The next #edchatie will take place on 27th August and topics can be put forward a few days beforehand. If you haven’t been on #edchatie yet, get a Twitter account now and start your journey. It’s becoming a cliché already because almost every teacher will say it, Twitter is the best CPD a teacher can get.

It is run on Twitter, a microblogging service, which is used by lots of teachers to share resources, ideas and news. Every week, Fred asks Twitter users to suggest topics for the chat. These topics are listed on a web site and participants vote for the topic they would like to chat about. The topic chosen is the one with most votes. The next step is the chat itself, which runs from 8:30 to 9:30pm every Monday night. In order to join in, you need to use the hashtag #edchatie and use some sort of Twitter client to filter this hashtag. Twitterchat and Tweetdeck are two popular services.

Over the last 50 chats, an increasing amount of teachers have started to join in topics ranging from “why is there such a bad public image of educators” to “share your favourite educational software.” Twitter only allows 140 characters including the 9 characters that make up #edchatie and conversations are quick and snappy. As there are so many people tweeting at the same time, there’s always lots of conversations going on at the same time.

Depending on the topic, conversations can go down very interesting routes. For example, many initiatives have been launched on the back of an edchatie. For example, the programming language, Scratch, is often promoted as a great learning tool and many Irish teachers are beginning to use it in classrooms.

The 50th edchatie was all about technology on a budget. It was definitely the busiest edchat ever and there was a huge amount of ideas shared. Have a look at the full transcript here and from the first tweet, you get the idea that there were some brilliant insights from some fantastic teachers!

Edchatie takes place every Monday from 8:30pm to 9:30pm and is free to join. Anseo’s first article on the first Edchatie is here. It’s interesting to see how far it’s come in less than a year.

The Edublog Awards are an annual event for celebrating, you’ve guessed it, educational blogs. Anseo.net was a happy recipient of the “most influential blog post” a couple of years ago and we’re hoping to do well this year as we’ve been nominated again (thanks by the way!) This year our nominations have a distinctly Irish flavour. So without further ado:

Best individual blog –> The Inside Lane – Nigel Lane’s blog is our first nomination. Nigel is probably the most prolific Irish teacher blogger right now – certainly on Tumblr. Nigel blogs about issues in Irish education, his own classroom practice and reblogs some inspiring edtech articles. This is a blog that every Irish primary teacher should have on their reading list.

Best individual tweeter –> @fboss – This was a very tough one as there are so many great tweachers in Ireland. However Fred Boss set up #edchatie and has helped run some fantastic Twitter projects throughout the year. A worthy nominee in our opinion.

Best group blog –> Irish Teachers’ Blog – Nigel Lane is a relatively new teacher but his influence to educational technology has been immense. He has already published a book charting a day in the life of Twitter users and has given some great talks at conferences. This latest venture is an aggregate blog of over 25 Irish educators around the country. Nigel’s only flaw is that he is a Blackburn Rovers supporter.

Best new blog –> Irish Teachers’ Blog – See above.

Best class blog –> Michael’s Class Blog – A new blog by Irish primary teacher and his 3rd and 4th class. It is jaw-dropping how often this blog is updated and you can see that the kids in this class are active in all that goes on in the blog. Lucky kids to have such a great teacher!

Best student blog –> The School Stuff – Similarly, this class are very lucky too. Their teacher has given the students free reign to tell us all about what they learn everyday. You can see the amount of learning that goes on in this class each day from the fantastic descriptions the children give about life in 5th and 6th class.

Best ed tech / resource sharing blog –> Seomra Ranga – Irish teachers have this site bookmarked more than any other. Now in its 4th year, Damien Quinn’s site has grown to offer hundreds of resources for free to teachers around the country.

Most influential blog post –> Tweets and Sweets – This article shows how a simple Twitter interaction became one of the most inspiring pieces of collaborative learning between two schools on either side of the Arlantic Ocean.

Best twitter hashtag –> #edchatie – created by @fboss, this weekly edchat with an Irish flavour is one of the main reasons Irish teachers sign up to Twitter. Sometimes it’s the catalyst for teachers to start using technology in their classrooms.

Best teacher blog –> A Crucial Week – A new blog run by a Newly Qualified Teacher (NQT) which is kept up to date really well. It gives some super teaching tips as well as gaining an insight into the world of the Irish education system.

Best School Administrator blog –> Fintan’s Blog –  This principal frequently writes about issues relating to his school and surrounding area. Always honest, it’s a great insight to some of the work that Irish principals face each day.

Best free web tool –> Twitter – Without question, Twitter has fast become our number one source of educational content. Not a day goes by where we don’t learn something new from our PLN.

Best educational use of audio / video / visual / podcast –> SCC English –  St. Columba’s College lead the way in Ireland for educational podcasts. Not just useful to Irish students, these podcasts would help any English student in their schoolwork.

Best educational use of a social network —> Carlow Educate Together NS – Carlow Educate Together have used Facebook to interact with parents for a couple of years now. It has now become one of the central places for parents to interact with the school. During the “snowmageddon” which gripped Ireland early in the year, the school was able to update parents regularly with opening and closing times. They also sent some fun projects to families to help them pass the time as well as learn things.

(From EdchatIE) Firstly, a poll is set up to look for input from all on topics for discussion.  Once that poll has closed the topics are set and then put up for a vote.  The topic that gets the most votes will become the topic for the edchat on the chosen night.

After that, on the following Monday night, the conversation begins.  Anyone can join in the chat by writing a tweet, (a Twitter message), and as long as the hashtag #edchatIE is in the tweet, everybody reading the conversation will be able to see it.

Generally, most Twitter chats begin with people introducing themselves before the  chosen topic is discussed.  Often the Twitter web site, itself, isn’t the easiest way to follow an #edchatie conversation and an app such as Twitterdeck or Hootsuite can be more effective.  One simply has to follow the hashtag #edchatie and as the conversation continues, the tweets update automatically.

At the end of the chat, the organiser takes all the tweets that have been contributed and often places them on a wiki or blog for everyone to see.

The very first #edchatIE took place on 7th March 2011 and the topic chosen for the conversation was “Examples of how a little technology in class can go a long way.”

There were 69 contributors who offered almost 500 tweets over the hour! There were some great contributions and all of them can be found in the transcript: http://edchatie.pbworks.com/f/session_001_ordered_07-03-2011.pdf

Anyone is welcome to join in the #edChatIE conversation.  For more information, go to http://edchatie.pbworks.com/ and join the crowd every Monday at 8:30pm.