Twitter is a game changer. We are constantly amazed at how quickly you can connect with other educators around the world.
One of the people we are following on Twitter is Richard Byrne (you may want to follow him too @rmbyrne). He is a Google certified teacher and author of the "Free Technology for Teachers" blog at http://www.freetech4teachers.com. We love all the fabulous resources he has on his blog. We would like you to spend some time exploring the posts on his blog and the links that he suggests. Could you make a blog that would be a great resource for your students? What are your thoughts?
As a coach, I feel that Twitter is a vital asset to all coaches. In this day and age, all of our players are on Twitter. Whether it's football or tennis, I'm able to address my players with one simple 140 character message.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the classroom, I feel that general education teachers would benefit greatly from sending out assignment/test reminders to all of their students. Cell phones are allowed in our school, and because of this, you can count on the fact that students are checking their Twitter throughout the day. Instead of fighting it, why not use that technology usage as an advantage?
I have found that Twitter can be a great tool to update a student population on out of school functions as they are going on. For example, I am a track coach at Bellevue West. While we were at the state meet on a Friday, the coaching staff was able to update a Twitter feed that most students follow with the progress of our athletes.
ReplyDeleteI think Twitter can be a power communication tool. I am not terribly fond of the idea in elementary school, simply because our students do not all have access to a mobile device or computer all the time. I think secondary schools would find a much greater benefit like my classmates have said above. Professionally, the collaboration piece of Twitter is amazing. You can share and gather so many new ideas in such a small window of time. I am not a great "tweeter" because I can' often think of things to share that I feel are worthwhile, but I do enjoy reading the tweets of others from time to time.
ReplyDeleteAfter going to his website, I found myself a little overwhelmed! There was so much information! I did find a slide presentation titled, "Your on-line Hub" and it gave teachers different resources for creating a blog site, website, or wikispace. Right now, I feel the best thing for me is to focus on my classroom website and eventually, if our district every goes 1:1, I would love to incorporate the idea of a classroom blogsite and have students respond tho their reading homework on the site! So many possibilities!!
ReplyDeleteYou are right, there is so much information there. From his site, you can also access his Pinterest boards too! So many great educational resources to check out on a rainy Nebraska day! I also like his Google tutorials for teachers! Enjoyed your post.
DeleteI agree with Jessica. Richard's blog is overwhelming. He has a bunch of information and some of it is beyond my technology level. As for Twitter, I have experienced how beneficial it can be for high school students and their coaches by observing my own children get and receive information from coaches. I am not sure how we can use it effectively or safely at the middle school level.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the above comments that Richard's blog is very busy. I can definitely see blogging as a great resource for my classroom though. Ideally, I'd like to create a blog similar to Brent Meyers blog with upcoming dates, quizzes, test reviews, homework, etc on it. I've been intimidated in the past, but this blogspot deal is very user friendly. Maybe this is something I can have up and running for the upcoming school year.
ReplyDeleteI'm in Twitter 101 right now. I just sent my first real tweet a little bit ago. I think that Twitter is a great way to get short pieces of information out to our students. I want to start using it more because I know that my students are going to use it regardless of whether I do or not.
ReplyDeleteWow, his blog is very extensive to say the least. Eventually I wouldn't mind having something to that effect, but right now it is not feasible with all of the things I am involved in. I think it is great to use his Twitter and his Blog as a resource to better my teaching, but don't think I am at the stage where I can put in the time and dedication, nor the knowledge that he does. I will try to use mine as a way to improve my student engagement at this point and use it to interact and write outside of the class.
ReplyDeleteIt seems a little redundant, but I have to agree with the other post authors who state that the Website itself is overwhelming. I explored the tab with the various ideas for creating blogs and Websites. It is difficult to determine what blog or Website host would be the most appropriate for my own classroom setting. I think I set up a Posterous blog a couple of years ago, so maybe I'll go back in and try to determine why it didn't work very well. Perhaps I set something up wrong, but I think that the students had difficulty in viewing the posts or something. I think in an English classroom that students could be required to post to the blog over the novels that are being read in class. It also might be a good place to brainstorm ideas for research. I don't know if I would use a class Website or not, but I have heard good things about Snap Pages, and the examples that were on the Richard Byrne site were attractive and attention-getting. I have searched for and followed Richard on Twitter, so I can continue to find new things that I want to learn about from him.
ReplyDeleteI think that any technology that we can incorporate into our classrooms has the chance to be useful. As a special education teacher I am always looking for ways to differentiate my instruction so that I can meet all of the learning styles within my classroom. If I can find a piece of technology that helps one student learn then it is a success. I think that twitter has it's place in education although I am a little reluctant for many of the same reasons I am reluctant to use social media for education. If you choose to go this route you have to make sure that what is being spread is acceptable, and you also must be a professional at all times. I especially think twitter will be useful once our district goes one-to-one.
ReplyDelete