twittering

TWITTER is often portrayed as somewhat pointless, people telling you minute details of their not necessarily interesting lives. However for me it's probably my most important professional development tool.
Its power lies in conversations, not monologues. It's about collaborative learning, making connections and discovering new ideas, tools and ways of thinking.

My advice to make the most of Twitter...

• follow at least 50 people (otherwise you'll be talking to yourself)
• to find who to follow, look at other people's lists and on Twitter4teachers
• add yourself to Twitter4teachers
• use hashtags - like #edchat or #tlcat
• try a Twitter client like Tweetdeck (which also has mobile apps)
• Tweet!
  

perfect pictures

tired of low quality random photos on google image search? worried about infringing someone's copyright?
try FLICKR CC BLUE MOUNTAINS, my favourite place for finding creative commons (images that you don't need to ask permission to use - though you still usually need to cite).
it searches the huge flickr database of great quality tagged photos.
linking directly to FLICKR means you know who took the photo and when, information you need for your bibliography. awesome.

clear not cloudy

looking for an alternative to iMovie (especially if you're a PC user)? want to edit collaboratively in the cloud?
WEVIDEO may be the answer - a simple, easy to use, web 2.0 tool that allows you to upload, edit and share video without the need for software or mailing huge files.
Upload your finished work to youtube or your favourite social network. If you do a lot of videoing you might want to upgrade your account, there are various packages available.