Thursday, January 16, 2014
Blogging & Twittering
Over the past few days, I have learned a lot about blogs and Twitter—there was more to learn than I realized.
Of course I have perused a blog or two in my day (I love “The Small Things Blog”), but I hadn’t appreciated most them. Previously, I had just assumed that bloggers were techie beatniks who had too much time on their hands—now give me my Golden Buckeye card! But in all seriousness, I had not fully embraced that many of these individuals spend a lot of time documenting their opinions, interests and ideas in such an artful fashion. As for blogging and education, I can definitely see the value for use in today’s society. When students participate in these collaborative environments, they not only have the ability to work creatively, but are also given the opportunity to develop teamwork skills and even collaborate with students from locations afar (Johnson et al., 2010). This puts a whole new twist on the ‘pen pals’ of the 1990’s. Today’s students are beyond technologically savvy and I am confident that this will also translate into their success in the workforce—particularly in corporate America. They will have used these online tools as second nature throughout the entirety of their education and potentially teach their older counterparts a thing or two about the digital generation.
Twitter on the other hand, I am not so impressed with. I understand its purpose, the nicety of following a particular feed and ability to receive updates directly to your phone, but it seems to me that this is an abbreviated and fad-like Facebook. Tweets for Education Pt 2 provided some interesting suggestions for Twitter in the classroom, such as allowing ‘shy’ students to open up online, rather than physically in class and the ability to follow acclaimed politicians to gain insight and perspective (Y0da808, Tweets for education pt2). The use of hashtags is quite functional when connecting others posting about a topic, but again, I find this redundant to Google or any other search engine. With that being said, I would likely prefer to search most topics on Google, as many opinions I would rather not read. For educational purposes, sure updates can be sent using a class feed, but with only 140 characters, what can you really post, aside from a link? Now that I have a Twitter account, I will follow my husband's rugby team page. Though I will soon have their schedule posted on my refridgerator, I suppose I will subject myself to their mindless chatter. In summation, I find Twitter to be just another username and password to remember and regret having to install yet another application onto my phone.
Cheers!
Melissa
References
Johnson, L., Smith, R., Levine, A., and Haywood, K., (2010). The 2010 Horizon Report: K-12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium Y0da808. (2009, MARCH 05). Tweets for education pt2 [Web Video]. Retrieved from http://utetpt5550.pbworks.com/w/page/11602947/Blogging%20and%20Twittering
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Hi Melissa, I use twitter quite a bit actually. While it is odd to work with the character limit at first, you can actually post quite a bit - you just have to get good at keeping it short. There are also websites such as TinyURL that make your link short so you have more text space. I love twitter in the classroom, because students can ask questions quickly and easily. It's great especially for large classes. Most of the time it doesn't have to be long either. An example would be @telescopium (that's me) what is the difference between bacteria and a virus? I'm confused. It could even be shortened to - expln difference btween bacteria/virus again. I get the point, they asked the question, I can monitor it and hopefully answer anything that they need quickly and easily. Twitter is one of those love it or hate it techs. It's growing though, and I think that potentially this could be an important tech for the classroom environment.
ReplyDeleteHi Melissa! I use Twitter daily, but I don't necessarily tweet daily. Twitter is a great way to be on the front lines of educational issues. At AFT national training this summer, I met AFT's social media man, Asher Huey. He taught me how to become more politically active on Twitter. In fact, it is possible to change negative rhetoric to positive, via Twitter. After I left, I was on a mission to get all of TPS on Twitter. Twitter is one of the first places the local news media--well, any news organization, any size--checks to see what's happening, or "trending". I am followed by reporters at the Blade because I follow them. I used this to put out positive information about TPS. I am only one, but the upper administration, board members, and teachers started joining Twitter, too. We all became a local force FOR Toledo Public. WE put out positive rhetoric for the district. There are ways to link information, as Jacqueline mentioned, without the link taking up too much of your 140 characters. Bitly is another example. You can organize information or specific tweets regarding your issue to flood the internet at the same time. You create the tweet, all of your friends sign up to publish it also, and then, WHAM! Now, whatever you used as a hashtag will be trending. Check out https://www.thunderclap.it/ (Thunderclap) for more information regarding this. So, in case you couldn't tell, I AM a fan of Twitter in education. The TPS levy passed, and part of that was getting people politically active from the smartphones--the lazy way. I'm only scratching the surface of Twitter, I'm sure. In the classroom, even though students can't tweet in class, you can have a Twitter wall: a space for students to post comments and questions regarding class in 140 characters or less--abbreviations allowed! It's a great outlet for them that gets them to participate in a way they are comfortable and familiar with doing. I would love it if we could move to a time where I could have an entire class on Twitter with me. Maybe someday...
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