Twitter can be useful to teachers (EDM613 Wk1 #3)

By -

A few months ago I found out about Twitter and created an account. My wife did the same thing at that time and after about 15 minutes of exploration neither of us was convinced that there was anything worthwhile in it. She said "Let me know when you find something useful to do with it" and was done. It has taken a while and although I still haven't found a reason for her to use it, it has become a valuable tool in my learning as an educator.


The list of those I follow has taken time to build. It began with people I knew (not many Twitters!) and through online real-time discussion forums such as educhat and Classroom 2.0 has grown to include teachers throughout the world. The people I follow generally have suggestions and ideas of web tools to use in the classroom (and beyond) with my students. I recently received a tweet about a kindergarden teacher sending tweets during the school day keeping the parents in the loop and encouraging them to ask their children about the specific activity when they get home. My bookmarks have increased to the hundreds and more keep coming everyday. As a matter of fact, I had to avoid checking them (I use a collection tool called Tweetdeck) recently so that I could get my school work complete. While "What are you doing?" can be very trivial and a waste of time coming from the wrong person, it can be valuable and extremely inspiring coming from the right teacher.

Comments

  1. jbbJune 20, 2009 at 8:27 PM

    I've been on Twitter for over two years, I think. Because I've felt like it's part of my job to keep up with the latest happenings in the tech and media world Twitter was a natural and I use it like a kind of RSS feed, subscribing to the voices that I normally would listen to or watch on podcasts. It's only been in the last year that I've actually had anyone who I knew who'd respond to my tweets. But, I get far more responses from friends in Facebook responding to my comments/status (which is fed through my tweets). We live in weird times.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Boost Learning in Presentations and Games

By -
For those teachers who use games for learning and review, it's apparent the rise in engagement that they bring to the classroom. But, does this engagement and enthusiasm always lead to learning? According to research by neuroscientist Paul Howard-Jones, adding an element of chance can help further increase the chances of learning. It's just a matter of adding it at the right time. For instance, the addition of a simple 50/50 chance of losing all points associated with a correct answer leads to more effective learning. But where in the process does the learning peak? I asked Howard-Jones via email and it turns out that the following sequence works well: student/team answers question student/team is given a 50/50 chance to "double or nothing" their points correct answer is revealed It turns out that even if they lose points or answer incorrectly, the learning is still at a peak because of the state of mind of ALL the students involved. Good or bad, even those who a
Read more

How do students know what they know? (an effective exit slip)

By -
I remember sitting in class a few (plus!) years ago and at times totally following what was going on. It could have been almost any subject but there were times when it seemed to click.  At least I thought so. Then I got home and started the homework. Different story. It just wasn't that clear anymore and I realized that I didn't quite get it the way I thought. This was not exclusive to homework as it also happened at times on quizzes and tests. I thought I had studied enough (which, admittedly was what I always thought) but it did not pan out. I want my students to avoid this problem and the trick is for them to answer the question: "How do I know when I really know it?" But how? I recently saw a tweet for a webinar run by Ray Jimenez, who is a great webinar presenter by the way, entitled "Learners Don't Know What They Don't Know." Of course, I was excited to get the long-awaited answer to my question in one interesting hour but, ironically e
Read more

Are We Testing Enough?

By -
As I watched my sons play a new video game the other day, it occurred to me that maybe the problem isn't that we are assessing students too much, it's that we are assessing them too little. Look at gaming environments. Players are constantly being assessed, challenged, and tested. They adjust and maneuver or crash and/or die. Then they get back up and begin the process all over again. It's demanding but the gamers are resilient. I have often wondered how this type of learning could be transfered to the literature classroom. An obvious possibility would be to create time periods or even particular settings so that students could experience them first hand. Imagine going into the house from Poe's "The Black Cat" and interacting with the characters. I am not sure what the "game" would be - stop the murder, find the body, or even attempt to throw a dead cat through the window? What fun! My parent/teacher conferences would be standing room only. While thi
Read more