Microblogging

50 Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom

There are endless ways to use Twitter in the classroom. Some ideas that stuck out the most to me was facilitating research. Students can easily type in a keyword into the search engine to get information on a topic they're interested in or doing a project in. From here students can find information they find interesting and retweet their findings for their classmates. This brings me to my next point of connecting classrooms. Microblogging allows students and teachers to collaborate together through different classrooms and cultures. Worried about parental involvement? No worries! Twitter can be used as a communication tool to tweet on discussions or discuss students progress.

Twitter- A Teaching and Learning Tool

Just like other articles, I've learned a lot of different ways to use microblogs (especially Twitter) in the classroom. Creativity popped out in this article more than others I've read. Microblogging allows students and teachers to be creative in their decision making. After or during a lesson, the class could create something new. Students can use decision making to create a song, poem, etc. and share it around through the developed network.

For those who are familiar with my posts, I'm extremely into Edmodo. Just as Twitter, Edmodo can be used for collaboration and communication as well. Options are endless. I hope to get to experience new ways in my classroom such as creating new projects using multimodality. I'm used to the obvious options with microblogs and would like to expand my use.

Connectivism through Social Networking

 

Many students have a Facebook account these days. When I did an interview on social networks before, students told me that they liked how they could talk to everyone they wanted. They could post pictures and like pages of things they were interested in. One of the students spoke a different language with her family. She was still able to communicate in Spanish through Facebook as well as find other resources through Facebook. Well why not make Facebook educational? Edmodo is a social networking site designed with a layout the same as Facebook. Edmodo is a more safe way for students to collaborate with each other with educational resources. A teacher can post an article or a question and students can reply to each other on Edmodo. Students can also find and "like" articles or other pages of their interests. Edmodo gives endless possibilities for instruction.

Learner of Today

A learner is like a......

The learner of today is changing. As technology is changing, so are students interests. The more information they are engaged in and enjoy, the more the soak up. George Siemens does a nice job at describing how the trends of learning are shifting. "Including technology and connection making as learning activities begins to move learning theories into a digital age. We can no longer personally experience and acquire learning that we need to act. We derive our competence from forming connections." Students are driven by connectivism, making meaning towards comprehension.  Students are using networks to learn, be independent, and create identity while being able to have a diverse experience.

The Impact of Social Software on Learner describes today's learning through social means. "I've started using a term that refers to the content as being a conduit to conversation so that the content really leads into the ability to talk to each other." New technologies are helping the youth be able to express themselves and collaborate between each other.

Don't use tech because it is there

Classroom Chronicles

A writing prompt to start the year

This is an excellent blog to look at for an activity to start the year. The teacher describes an icebreaker activity to get to know each other and then uses all the words that they created about themselves and made their words into a Wordle. I thought this was an excellent way to get students interested in using technology in the beginning of the year other than writing a paper as well as a great way to get to know each other. Doing something so simple can help the teacher see where the student stands as far as vocabulary as well as demonstrate to students that technology can be fun to use.

What should we learn?

Social Media Revolution 2011

I expected to see many of the social networking sties and search engines appear. However, I was shocked to see the statistics. I knew YouTube was used a lot, I didn't know it is the second largest search engine used. The one I saw popping up the most is Facebook. I know Facebook can be used for some positive things, yet there seemed to be a lot of negative aspects brought up. I think using technology is very useful, but we need to watch out for what is out there and the way we use it in the classroom. I believe it's important to familiarize ourselves with resources available since our students use them on a daily basis. It's slightly disturbing seeing that one in five divorces were cause blamed on Facebook. If divorces are being blamed, what other ways can Facebook negatively impact our students lives? When I ask myself this question cyber bullying instantly comes to mind.

Educational Change Challenge

This video hit close for me. In the very beginning "every student can learn" is exactly what I say. "Teachers need to exist in the space the students exist" is another quote I enjoyed hearing. The questions that they were asking about creating life long learners in the classroom is exactly what we should be asking ourselves. I took this video as a self check. All of the quotes mentioned is how all teachers should be thinking. Education has come a long way. We need to connect with our students and  understand that each student is not going to learn at the same pace. Knowing each of our students and knowing their needs will help develop life long learners.