Since childhood, we have all wanted to know how popular we are, right? Whether or not you want to admit it, we know….oh we know!

What about me?

There are various tools out there that will help you measure your influence on the interwebz. Many people use the services of Klout. This is a fantastic service, but I see only one real drawback to the service…you must sign up.

But I am sooo sick of signing up for services!

Me too! It seems like every site that you visit these days makes you sign up for a free account. You fill out the form and then what happens? Give a password.

I’m sick of stupid hackers!

What invariably happens is that you use the same password over and over for all of these different sites.

Then the hackers come after you.

I’ve had my gmail account and yahoo account hacked three times lately and I’m really sick of it. I am almost ready to go back to the pen and paper to communicated.

Tweet Grader is different!

I highly suggest that you check out Tweet Grader if you have never seen it. Once you arrive on the very simplistic and minimalistic homepage, you will be asked to enter the twitter username and sit back and you will receive a score out of 100.

Give it a try and see how your tweets are influencing others today.

Is it really already December 22? That seems wild to me. As I have yet to start my shopping, Ive been doing a little bit of thinking on the subject.

Procrastination 101

Ill begin this post with a little admission…..I procrastinate on virtually everything that I do. In college I found that it helped me to do so. I always worked better under the gun and produced a much higher-quality work feeling all of that pressure. So it may as come to no surprise that I always buy all of my gifts on December 24 AND I never file income taxes until April 15. It’s stressful but fun to me.

Two quick tips to buying late and getting something yourself in return

I am a big believer in gift cards. Unless I know exactly what my loved one wants. then I tend to stay clear of the choices on my own. Buying for a 33 year old woman and 20 year old college student, I realized long ago that I don’t have what it takes.

1. If you want to not only cop out and get the card (which I will be going), there are many advantages to buying store gift cards. But be careful where you buy them! If you purchase from any major grocery store, you are likely to earn points that are good toward gasoline purchases. With the price of gas…thats a win, win if I every saw one.
2. If you are a part of a workplace union, investigate what special deals they have negotiated for their members with large companies. You can often save a ton of money when purchasing threw them. Whoever said that the union gave you nothing in return for those high dues?
3. Check giftcards.com. able to purchase giftcards from this site and redeem them for a plethora of restaurnts. But the best part is this…you buy these cards at less than face value!

My Takeway…

Get online now and get shopping. Time has not run out. And there are big saving to be had. Best of luck!

Many of us out there are involved with various non-profit groups that work to make the lives better of some sector of society. Personally, I work with a fantastic group called Friends of the Shelter. When you are involved in this type of work, it is imperative that you use every tool available to meet, and hopefully exceed, your fundraising goals.

So what should I do?

Facebook is a great tool to engage your community of supporters. There are two very important points to remember when using this social media platform for your non-profit group.

1. You need to consistently work to grow your fan page. There needs to be a compelling reason for Joe Blow to “like” your page. You might considering offering  a new fan something in exchange for liking your page. This could be additional content, a free ebook download. This is limited only by your imagination.
2. Once you get that person to click the almighty “LIKE” button, you need to keep her/him engaged. It is of the utmost importance that you interact with your community on facebook. Post updates, but even more importantly  RESPOND to comments. Your fans need to know that this is an active page and that someone actually cares what they think. Having 1,000 fans isn’t going to matter if they feel disconnected from you and your group.

Now what?

Once you have gotten your target audience to like the page AND you have gotten them engaged on the facebook page, the next step is to take their hard earned money!

More on that tomorrow. Stay tuned!

It’s been a few days since I promised to bring another set of tools that I suggest you try in your classrooms, so let’s go ahead and get started, shall we?

A quick FYI

There has of late been many stories in the news of school districts that are limiting the use of social interaction between educators and their students by defining the dos and dont’s of their districts.

It is my belief that this is happening because school districts have yet to fully understand the capacity that these new tools being educators to deliver content in a new and exciting fashion that taps into the energy and enthusiasm that our youth have for social media.

So a couple of words of advice…

1. Join committees and work with your school district to craft reasonable policies that allow these powerful content delivery systems to be used in a prudent way to raise the bar for all students.
2. Don’t allow these committees to be formed by people that truly do not understand how these tools can be used inside and outside of the classroom to keep students connected to the curriculum in a much more dynamic fashion.
3. Use your common sense. Just like you would not invite a student to your home, talk to them on the phone, or tell them about your personal problems, keep them out of your private social media accounts. Your personal facebook page is no place to allow your students. If you can’t keep it professional, go to your board of education, no make that run, and surrender your teaching license.

So with all of that being said, time for some new tools.

A few tools to help you deliver content in a new format

Let’s face it. Kids are connected to their cell phones, twitter, and facebook. Why not harness that energy to be used to deliver your content in a new and interesting format?

1. EDU 2.0 - For those of us that have taken courses lately, having recently graduated or for licensure renewal purposes, are likely to be familiar with content management systems like Blackboard. EDU 2.0, released in 2006,  is something similar to that, but dedicated to help educators, students, and parents. It is a platform that helps take the classroom learning into the home. This site can hold lesson plans, documents and worksheets, and students can submit assignments online. There are grade-books, PowerPoints, you name it. Give it a try!
2. Edublogs – If you are reading this article, you are on a blog. Blogs are a great way to foster interest in a topic and gauge the amount of learning that your students are achieving. On Edubogs, you as the teacher could post a question to the class and ask students to respond to the question at home for homework. You might also have them interact with one another in the comments section to further measure what they have learned. This site brings you a safe platform with many safety features that will make you feel comfortable using it in the classroom

My takeaway…

Twitter is still my favorite. It allows so many different functions that could be harnessed in the classroom. I’ll leave you with this article from the New York Times entitled Students Speaking Up In Class, Using Social Media.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences in the comments below. Thanks!

We all have days in which we want to throw up our hands and scream SERENITY NOW! But there is one piece of advice I’d like to give you is that

Twitter is not a qualified therapist 

You know that this happens to you all of the time. You read through your twitter feed and see that same person, let’s call  her Betsy, that is complaining about life and you roll your eyes and think, man what a loser.

Sometimes you actually need help!

Think of it in these terms…Is twitter really the place to vent your every gripe about the world?

Talking about your problems in the interwebz is not a problem in and of itself. Sometimes you can pose an answer and get some great feedback.

“Should I wear this skin tight outfit on a first date tonight with this new guy I met?” No, you’re too old and big boned.

“Man my stomach hurts!” Try not inhaling the wholes bag of rolos next time. (That may or may not be related to my current situation).

Sometimes you need the professionals

Listen. We all have problems and social media can be used to give us those pick me ups.

What’s my takeaway?

Sometimes you need to call in the big guns. Take a look at your twitter stream and see what are the topics that you generally touch upon? If its mostly negative, get some help. It’s great to have twitter contacts and they maybe super supportive but a lot of these people don’t actually know you and can’t give you the real tools to find that balance and hapiness for which we all strive.

For disclosure purposes…I havent found that balance either but am working with someone that is helping me get there.

Aren’t we all do-it-yourselfers with the explosion of youtube videos?

What’s the problem?

The bathtub faucet had been a little leaky in the spare bathroom and I had planned on calling a plumber to come check it  out. Well, as luck would have it, on Thanksgiving Day, it got worse. I mean, would you expect anything else? Your bags are packed to leave town and boom…problem.

So what is someone who would rather not be charged triple the normal rate of a plumber on a holiday to do in this situation? RUN to the laptop and get on youtube baby.

What did I learn?

There are a lot of bad videos out there on youtube. But, if you keep up your search, and are patient, you can fix common things at a fraction of the cost of a professional.

What is my takeaway?

Yes, you can do many things around the house yourself, and perhaps you should. If you are diligent and patient, you too can do a great deal of this stuff.

If you happen to have a similar problem this Christmas, can I help you out? Yes. But be prepared to pay me triple the normal rate.

Have a fantastic weekend!

Happy Cyber Monday!

Can I really finish my Christmas shopping without leaving my bed?

Yes, you can! If you missed the Black Friday sales, which really you shouldn’t have…they seemed to start right after dinner on Thanksgiving, then you are just in time for Cyber Monday.

Should I be spending money online?

If you are anything like me, you hate to stand in lines at the big box stores and have to put the guy next to you into some kind of choke hold because he is purchasing two X-Box 360 and now there are none left. I mean, come on, he was being selfish, right? Your kid wants one too!

I am lazy AND a little anti-social

If there is a way for me to avoid a crowd of people that are just a little too happy to be spending hundreds of dollars this holiday season, I’m game. If I can do this all from the comfort of my own bed, even better.

Security

As always, you should be a little weary of using your debit or credit cards online. After all, there is always a chance that the numbers could get stolen. Use your common sense, and make sure that if you are going to shop your little hearts out today, that you do so at stores that have secure sites.

The take away

I’ll be avoiding the stores for the most parts and will partake a little of the online fun. If you find sites that offer free-shipping, than what’s the harm? How about you? Do you prefer the in-store experience or do you prefer getting this all done while still in pajamas?

Don’t waste your time!

Being social is a lot of work! Don’t get me wrong, it is fun work, but work nonetheless. It is important to constantly think of your online audience and what they might want to know about, or find interesting.

You might check-in places on facebook, yelp, gowalla, foursquare, etc. Some might consider it the stalker’s dream come true. So while it is fun, do be a little careful while you are at it.

One of the worst things that you can do is to spend your precious and valuable time cultivating an online image for yourself only to have it destroyed  by the photos that your ex-husband just posted of you online from your honeymoon. They say any PR is good PR, but I don’t buy into that.

What’s a blogger to do?

There are many resources available for bloggers and writers to use that cost you nothing to use. Really you might say? Oh yea….free of charge. And aren’t those the best kind of tools to use?

One of my favorites, and easiest to use, is Google Alerts. Most of us these days are already using some form of “The Google” in our daily lives. We are using gmail, google apps, google maps, you name it! The sky is the limit. Soon we will probably be paid in some sort of GMoney.

Setting up an alert on Google Alerts is very easy and extremely important to do. 

 Follow these simple instructions:

1. Type something into the input field (i.e. your name)

2. Then select the options that you wish. I suggest leaving the default options.

3. Enter your email address.

Now sit back and wait for a daily report of who is talking about you.

You will need to play around with the search parameters until you find what will work best for you. For example, I have it search “Lesson In Humility” since it is the title of my blog. Well, as you can imagine, a lot of people use that phrase on a daily basis, so that alert isn’t very useful for me. You might start with your name and see how that goes.

Remember this is just one of many tools made available to all of us online. Keep your online presence focused on what you want, not what others might put out there.

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Have a fantastic day!

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First of all….Happy Halloween!

Sometimes as a blogger, you feel like you are spending all of this time to create  great content, yet it feels that only your mom and dad are reading…and even they aren’t leaving comments!

What do I do to get a little blog love?

If you browse some of the top websites that focus on blogging or social media, they list several ideas: leave comments on other blogs that pertain to your niche, tweet the heck out of your posts, cross-post on facebook, etc.  Check sites like mashable.

Final advice?

Don’t fret. It is likely that more people are reading than you realize. And beg mom and dad for a comment here or there!