Who are a few of the educators you choose to follow? What did you get out of their posts?
I followed Mr. Rydstrom and I found his blog to be very helpful. Mr. Rydstrom tweeted many links that he used in the classroom and tweeted about his classroom's success. Many links that I clicked on had to do with a project the class was completing. However he found those links from a fellow teacher on twitter and shared his success with other teachers through twitter. Mr. Rydstrom also tweeted about the importance of making a lesson unique, Kill your powerpoints and teach like a pirate .
Who are a few of the non-educators you choose to follow? Why?
I chose to follow TED talks, Great Minds Quotes, Whole Foods, Earth Eats, I chose to follow these non-educators because I find TED talks inspiring and motivational. I decided to follow Great Minds Quotes because I find that most quotes open my mind to consider life/people from different perspectives, other than my own. Even though we don't have a Whole Foods in our location, I chose to follow Whole Foods because this profile tweeted healthy recipes. As a future science teacher I would like to serve as a role-model and an example of how important it is to note the chemicals we are ingesting daily. The recipes tweeted by Whole Foods explains how to prepare the food and which foods to use and why such foods benefit your body. Along with the health segment I decided to follow Earth Eats, which tweets about food safety, policy, sustainable agriculture and recipes.
Analysis of a hashtag.
The hashtag I chose was #chemchat. Most all chemistry teachers tweeted with this tag, I felt like I struck gold. There were many teachers who would tweet their lesson topic and ask for suggestions. Some teachers tweeted articles that pertained to chemistry news. Some teachers tweeted about projects, science fairs, essay competitions, etc. I found this tweets to be great resources for future teaching. These tweets started to shape my ideas about what I could incorporate in my classroom but also how I could use twitter to my advantage.
Potentials of Twitter as a teaching tool, as a professional development tool or something else.
I think that Twitter has a great potential as a teaching tool. I have discovered that when teachers post a question another teacher is soon to reply. The communication between teachers is advantageous, because so there are so many resources, why re-invent the wheel when you could ask a fellow science teacher for their opinion? I also think that twitter could be used as an easy way to communicate with students, such as reminders, assignment postage, etc. The teacher could also use twitter as a way to track student progress. For example the students could be encouraged to make three tweets a lesson or a day. These tweets could be statements about what they just learned, kind of like keeping a journal of thoughts.
Downfalls of Twitter.
I found the character limit really annoying. However since it is a tweet and not a journal entry, it makes sense to have a character limit. After considering, I realized that tweeting guided the author to make the most catchy phrase or state the exact point. I enjoy the fact that twitter encourages directness. I found that very helpful while scanning through tweets.
Reflections of your own personal Twitter uses.
I found twitter a nice way to network with other teachers, share perspectives, reflect on your day, communicate methods for lessons, share ideas, etc. When I tracked #chemchat, I found that lots of teachers would tweet the topic of their lesson and ask if anyone had any suggestions for keeping the lesson exciting. I think that twitter is able to benefit the world of education by increasing communication between teachers and from feedback of other teachers, tweeting may encourage teachers to add variety to their lessons.
That was a great article you linked to; I'm enjoying some of Dr. Arvanitakis' videos!
ReplyDeleteGreat log post. I enjoyed how you highlighed the subject questions. It was interesting and easy to read.
ReplyDeleteI, too, found the character limit very debilitating. There was so much I wanted to say and simply could not say it in 140 characters. I understand the purpose of the limit (efficiency, condensing of ideas, rapidity, etc) but there were times when, even after careful consideration about how to word my ideas and what exactly to say, I still went over by about 4 or 5 characters. When that happened I had to cut words out (because I will not succumb to poor grammar or incorrect spelling!) and I then questioned whether or not my posts made sense.
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