Twitter

Twitter - here you can access Twitter

Here is a great video that gives a brief introduction to Twitter.

Twitter is a simple, micro-blogging website. It can be used to enhance the classroom experience both inside and outside school. It is very easy to set up a twitter account. While it is similar to blogging, Twitter only allows people to post messages up to 140 characters. These messages are called “tweets”. It is important to first have students sign up for a twitter account and follow the teacher and each other. A follower is someone who sees your tweets in their tweetstream. A tweetstream is a collection of tweets sent by everyone you follow. If you are already using blogger, you can easily add Twitter to your blog. Just go here to add it to your blog on Blogger. After the class has signed up and following everyone you are ready to go. One of the best things about Twitter is it allows for instant feedback. For example, a teacher may be planning a lesson and needs to get an idea of the students’ background knowledge regarding a certain topic. They can tweet the class questions and plan the lesson around the student’s answers. Nevertheless, teachers and student can ask questions and receive answers quickly. To get a better introduction to Twitter watch this video.

Twitter allows the teacher and students to continue conversations that took place inside the classroom. After a discussion in class, the teacher could tweet to the class asking for a final thought about the discussion. Since a tweet can only be 140 characters, students need to find a way to summarize their opinion in a few words. Relating to classroom content, students who recognize something they learned or discovered outside of the classroom can tweet it to the class. This encourages an understanding of the authentic nature of content taught in the classroom.

Twitter can help students build better relationships between students and the teacher. This is especially beneficial for classes that only meet an hour a day. Typically there is little time to meet everyone and build positive relationships. Twitter can help students build respect for each other, which help promote a supportive learning environment. While the teacher will mainly use Twitter for educational purpose, they can also ask questions about the weekend, music the students enjoy, and questions that help the students get to know each other better. Nevertheless, Twitter provides another means of communication. For example, a student may feel more comfortable participating on twitter rather than in the classroom. If there is a participation grade, their participation on Twitter can count to their overall grade. While Twitter provides an extension of the classroom, it can also be used inside the classroom in a computer lab or with laptops. A professor in Dallas used Twitter in her large lecture. She displayed Twitter on the projector for everyone to see and allowed student to participate orally or by twitter in a discussion. This could be modified for a middle school or high school class. Here


Here is a You Tube video of the professor in Dallas using Twitter.

Twitter brings all different people together. Hence, it provides students with a sense of the world around them. Frequently students get trapped in their own world and do not realize how expansive the world is. Twitter can give students a better sense of the world by communicating with people half way around the globe. In addition, students can follow professionals and learn more about their occupational nature. Hence, if a student is interested in journalism they can follow a journalist on twitter. As more people join Twitter, students can follow all different types of people.

Teachers can create a writing assignment using Twitter. The teacher chooses a genre and provides a standard opening. Then the class finishes the story. The teacher can incorporate editing skills and story structure into this lesson. An extension of this assignment would be encouraging the use of descriptive words. The teacher can tweet a word that was overly used by the class and ask the students to provide a synonyms to the word. While not related to writing, teachers can also teach research skills by doing a scavenger hunt on Twitter. For example, the teacher could ask students to locate a map of China before PRC and post a link to the map on Twitter.

Lastly, Twitter as multiple application that can be downloaded. Here is a website of the top 21 Twitter applications according to Compete. My favorite application I explored was the twt poll application. It allows someone to ask a multiple choice question and receive feedback. This provides a way to assess learning and background knowledge. You can assess this app here.

Seasons Presentation with Voice

Presentation on Seasons

Enjoy my slide show on why the seasons change.

Podcasting

Podcasts help supplement learning in the classroom. Whatever the content area, using podcasts creates a motivating environment that is authentic. Students typically perform for the teacher and fellow students; however, using podcasts will greatly widen their audience. When having students create podcasts, the teacher can encourage the students to concentrate on their intonation, speed of delivery and expression. Hence, the students are learning the content information along with basic speech skills. Lastly, podcast are fairly inexpensive. The main expense is the microphone, which frequently is already equipped in computers. Nevertheless, podcasts provide a cheap, yet beneficial technology that can easily be utilized in the classroom.

Here is a link to my podcast.

Image Manipulation

Images in the Classroom

Teaching students by strictly lecturing them is outdated and wrong. Teachers must utilize multiple resources to create a rich learning environment. An easy resource teachers can take advantage of is the vast amount of images they can acquire on the internet. An image creates a more concrete understanding of a concept. For example, during a weather lesson about storms, a teacher may describe a tornado to be a funnel-shaped cloud that spins. Nevertheless, it is difficult to image what this would look like, hence along with the definition of a tornado, multiple pictures of tornadoes should be shown to the class. This will not only give them a clearer understanding of what tornadoes are, but also encourage the students to learn more about tornadoes.
When a teacher uses an image they need to accredit it to a source. While this is often overlooked, it is important for teachers to teach their students the importance of citing sources. Therefore, understanding how to properly cite a source is very important to the classroom.

Photo Attribution:
Original Image: "Touchdown Near Yorkton, SK"
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/23/24393421_7847ba65db_m.jpg
By: Courosa

Released under an Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/deed.en



Visit my Flickr page to see a picture of my dog Sadie.

Blogs and RSS readers in the Classroom

Blogs and RSS Readers are excellent resources teachers can utilize both in and outside the classroom. There are numerous advantages to blogs. Teachers can stay in touch with parents to inform them about the daily activities performed in the classroom permitting the classroom content to be fostered at home. Blogging creates this collaborative environment to allow parents to become more involved in their child’s education. While blogging keeps the parent’s informed, it can be utilized in countless way to create a community of learners. A classroom blog can keep students informed of what they covered that day in class by providing a summary of instruction and posting handouts. Student who missed class that day can refer to the classroom blog to stay updated and complete assignments on time. Blog can also be used to facilitate discussion about a particular topic. In class some students may be reserved and feel more comfortable participating on the blog. Teachers can assess students understanding of content by reviewing posts.

RSS readers allow teachers and students to stay updated on the latest information from class blogs to websites. Older students and teachers who need to keep tack of multiple blogs benefit from RSS readers because they inform them about updates in other blogs. Hence, a teacher who has multiple student blogs they need to check can keep track of the students who are completing their blogs by looking at their aggregator. Blogs and RSS readers allow student to better embrace the classroom content outside of school.