When the Twigmore team approached me to teach a class, I thought, wow, that would be fun and, because I would use an avatar, I wouldn’t have to wear a tie.  As I was preparing for the class I was so overloaded with ideas that I thought I would never be able to narrow them down to a one-hour class.  Nevertheless, with help from the Twigmore team, my random thoughts evolved into a well-rounded presentation.  But then the practice session began.  It was very cool to be walking around the virtual classroom and I really felt I was speaking to actual students in a real classroom.  However, it felt very much like I was speaking “to” and not “with” the audience.

We had the practice session and it went fairly well, but something was just not right.  When we were discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the session, it became clear to all that what worked best was engagement with the audience.  Instead of fixating on the original intention for the class, we quickly changed direction, ran with this focus and turned my class into more of an “office hours” session.  This was such an improvement, perfect for my style, and much more interactive for everybody.  It allowed the participants to be part of a discussion group rather than simply hear what I guessed they wanted to hear.

Twigmore is unlike anything out there.  The service provides great information in a way that is exciting and fun for the discussion leaders and engaging for the session participants.  The service’s ability to incorporate everybody’s input puts it ahead of the pack. The bottom line is that I really didn’t “teach” a class – I led a discussion.

Rande Bryzelak is a nutrition thought leader and guest contributor to the Twigmore Blog. He recently led a “Top Twigs: Nutrition Myths” session.

“My students who are not used to hearing such a bass timbre could not believe what the instrument sounded like with a good high quality amplifier…”

I encourage all of you to help others twig in a personal way through Donorschoose.org!

As an example, I chose to contribute to the “Bass Guitar with No Sound” project. This project caught my eye because I grew up humming bass lines and wanting to play the bass guitar, but only getting that chance later in life. I love the fact that I can help a group of students to follow their dreams and twig a musical instrument. We at Twigmore like this kind of grassroots initiative – improving one classroom at a time!

e School News piece on students putting their tech skills to work in the community through the Service & Technology Academic Resource Team (START) program.  The program, launched by the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) and Microsoft Corp., aims to create a new kind of collaboration between students and teachers through technology-focused service learning.  Partnerships between companies like Microsoft and the US public school system make a lot of sense.

However, with the advancement of mobile technology, is the mobile phone replacing the laptop? Today, the mobile phone is no longer used simply for making phone calls or sending text message but rather it has become a universal application device that provides networking between users. Companies like Apple iPhone, Google Android, Palm OS among others have introduced multiple applications to their platform that can enhance education in schools. There are applications for higher education like Lexi Comp, a multiple mobile OS application used by Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine among other medical schools for Medical students; this application provides easy access to pharmacology and toxicology information. There are networking applications like Blackboard mobile that can give students access to teachers to views and submit assignments as well as blog amongst classmates on a specific topic in specific classes. There are even applications like Monkey Preschool, a program for kids as young as three to use phones to learn about matching, counting, reading and more.

With advancements in technology, the new decade will definitely bring a new range of advanced mobile technology and high intensity education applications. Don’t be surprised if soon the iPhone is on your child’s list of items required for school. Maybe we’ll see a Twigmore app for mobile phones thus furthering phone use for education.

One of the most significant changes from when I applied to college in 1991 is that applications can now be submitted electronically.  Back then, it was all hard copies.  Those who didn’t have access to a typewriter felt thoroughly doomed!  They risked appearing sloppy or, even worse, lazy if they wrote the application by hand.  Nowadays, students can take advantage of the Common Application or the Universal Application, both standard forms that can be submitted online to many colleges.  Applicants can open an account, fill in the blanks, cut/paste/revise, save changes along the way, and send the forms out electronically to multiple schools with one click of the mouse.  Voila!  Ten schools receive your application instantly.  It’s quite a change from making copies at the corner hardware store, hand writing (or typing) the application, stuffing envelopes, weighing each one to find out correct postage, and going to the post office to send via an overnight carrier.

Yes, when it comes to completing those applications, just about everything can be done electronically now — including “signing” the application on the dotted line at the end.