Twitter is an interesting site. There is a wide spectrum of
users on Twitter. You start with celebs tweeting juicy drama, to young people
tweeting their friends and family a simple “Hi, I miss you”, and then you have
teachers across the country sharing and spreading awesome ideas.
On Twitter discussions are held under the hashtag #edchat
for Teachers and the rest of the Twitterverse to go and talk about different
aspects of education. I really wanted to attempt an online discussion on
Twitter so I tried it out. After a bit of time searching for something that
sparked an interest to me I decided to respond to edutupias question pictured
below.
I read through the responses and saw some that I really
agreed with and others, like the one below, that I felt the need to comment on.
I never got a response from the person that I messaged and I
really hope it wasn’t because I came on too strongly in the chat. I felt like
if someone would have made a comment like the one he made in person I would
have NEVER responded because I am just way too shy. I feel that this being an
online chat really gave me the “guts” to be brave and just put myself out
there.
It was also really interesting to see so many different
thoughts on the role of parents in education. I for some crazy reason thought
that everybody had to think like me. Parents must be actively involved and also
teach their children basic life skills, and manners at home. Teachers are meant
to teach about history, math, science, writing, literature, and yes, sometimes
life but they shouldn’t be the only ones educating.
Educators were (obviously) smart enough to see Twitter as
not just a social media site but as a resource. Now, Twitter has endless amounts
of information available to the teachers out there that may be looking for a
new way to spice up their classrooms.
While exploring on twitter I found two really great
resources. The first was about technology and how we can utilize a tool that
many people already have—an iPhone. There are millions and millions of apps
available for you to download straight onto your phone that you could utilize
in a classroom. My favorite from the list of apps described was the iLEAP Pick
a Student app. It does exactly what it says and creates a generator, that you
can program students names into, and it will pick a student at random to take a
turn at whatever it is you’re doing. In the classroom I work in now we still
use the popsicles in a cup method—okay but boring!
The other resource I came across was Edutopia’s article on
how to teach your student how to have a conversation. I think that as we’ve
become more technologically advanced we’ve begun to lose a lot of human
contact. We find it normal to just read and write a conversation but find it more difficult to just talk on
the phone with a person. That’s why I found these tips to be such a great
resource because reiterating skills that we as humans know and trying to
enforce them more often with sessions of turn taking ,where everyone stops and
listens and questions what one individual is saying, can make a big impact on a
students communication skills.
Well, that’s all for now! I hope you enjoy these resources
and find some use for them in your own classroom or home.
I'm glad you felt the Twitter "chat" (even though I'm not exactly sure you participated in an actual #chat) gave you the "guts" to say what you really think!
ReplyDelete