Microblogging

Until this course, I have only used Twitter for social networking, or so I thought. As I scroll through my twitter feed on my personal account I notice that I follow friends, celebrities, news sources, and politics. I have realized that I use twitter not only for social networking and catching up with friends, but as a way to stay informed on what is going on in my area and the world. If I can use it to follow politics then why not use it to follow educational topics as well? Through my professional twitter account I have noticed the power twitter can hold in an educational setting.

The article, "Over25 Ways To Teach With Twitter" sheds light on the value of microblogging in the classroom. This article suggests 25 ways for teachers to use twitter a few include; asking for recommendations, writing a book list, sharing new studies, starting a twitter book club, and to posting requests for people to speak at your events. These ideas can go both ways, as a teacher you can write a book list and also view other educators book lists for idea. Twitter can connect you with educators from all over the world at all different steps in their educational path. This can make a diverse array of opinions available to you and enhance your educational knowledge.

The article, "Teaching With Twitter" also provides suggestions that are more geared toward students. One of the suggestions in this article is to post "twitter pals" where students find a penpal via twitter from another culture and share ideas with them. This can be very useful for ESL students to learn about American culture as well as practice utilizing the English Language. This can also help connect students with other students in their school to get to know them on a personal level and have interactions with them.

I think that microblogging can be very useful in an academic setting as long is it is utilize properly and safely. The internet is a big place, which can be a good thing or a bad thing.

I followed the #edtech chat on Monday September 30th from 8:00pm-9:00pm. I thought it was very interesting to be involved in a live chat. I am a very big twitter user and oftentimes I use my twitter to follow different hashtags or to communicate with other people who are at the same event as me (ex: concerts). I never thought of using twitter educationally. I created a separate account for my twitter for this course because my personal account is private. My account is private so my students can't follow me. I think twitter can be a great place for professional development but currently, as a college student, I use my twitter heavily for my personal life and I do not think it is appropriate to be mixing the two, I like to keep them separate. I feel much more comfortable that way. On my personal account I would like to add microbloggers to follow as well as other ESL/EDtech related twitter accounts. I also want to check in on some live chats, maybe to just view and not participate on my personal account. I think that the live chats keep educators current in the field. It made me feel like a part of the current education world which is important for an aspiring teacher.

Here is a link to my professional twitter account.

Classroom 2.0

A great resource for educators interested in technology is classroom 2.0! This site is a social networking site for "Social Media, and Participative Technologies in the classroom." This site provides virtual conferences to enhance educators knowledge of technology. This website allows its members to interact with one another through the means of social networking. It is a great way to meet fellow educators and enhance your knowledge with perspectives from all over the world with varying degrees of experiences and interests. There are different groups that you can join to interact with others who share similar interests. This is a great way for any practicing teacher or teacher candidate to enhance their knowledge and expose themselves to new practices.

A Technological Revolution Is A Means For An Educational Revolution

Education Change Challenge

 

This video addresses the issue of the classroom changing and how educators need to adapt to this change. As educators, we learn to differentiate instruction, and we know that all learners are different, no two learners learn the same way. This video questions why we put 25 kids in a classroom for 6 hours a day and teach to them all on the same level even though we know they all learn differently. The classroom has not changed much from 100 years ago, but in today's day in age our resources have grown immensely. As educators we need to take advantage of the world around us and teach our students how to function in the modern world, we must use these modern resources. Students are surrounded by technology and live in the technological age, we must teach to their interests in order to make our instruction relevant.The video leaves us with a very significant question, "Are we preparing students for my age or for theirs?". This is an important question we must ask ourselves as teachers. Even though technology may not be every teachers comfort zone, it is our students. Are we teaching for ourselves to comfortable, or for them?

Social Media Revolution 2011

This video addresses the social media revolution that is taking place in our world. It expresses the ideas of how important social media has become in the new age. Social media not only effects who we are online, but also our offline behavior. Social media is a means of acquiring information, meeting new people, and staying in touch with old friends. The limits to social media and the aspects of the internet are almost endless. As educators, this information is very relevant because we need to take advantage of all that social media has to offer and how it can enhance our learners. The amount of users on twitter and facebook are bigger than populations of some countries. There is a great chance that our students will be utilizing these social outlets and we should be generating our instruction to incorporate what our students are doing online. Social media is all around us, so why not bring it into the classroom?