Personal Learning Community Reflection
Blog Post: Social networking allows educators easy avenues to learn and share with other professionals.
Post responding comments to two classmates' blog posts.
Hi all,
Since I already have a Google Plus personal account and I find it a poor imitation of Facebook, I chose to explore the option of creating a professional Twitter account.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! Twitter is awesome in so many ways; it's immediate and organized and intuitively designed for easy cruising and it has that all-important quality of being visually tempting!
You can follow me @mscynfey
I just opened the account today and Twitter wisely asked me if I wanted to add any Twitter feeds of people in my Gmail address book. What a great idea, Twitter! So I found out that lots of Niles teachers and many Niles organizations have Twitter feeds! I added them and re-Tweeted a few of their posts by clicking on the two chasing arrows icon (in between the Reply arrow and the Love heart below each Tweet.)
Then I poked around the Search Twitter box to find some authors (John Green and Joyce Carol Oates) who my students read in class and who are known to be active Twitterers.
Then I added William Shakespeare, ha ha, since fake Twitter accounts have been known to be some of the most creative.
Then on to the professional organization. I added the National Council of Teachers of English and their Illinois affiliate, and the National Writing Project and so on.
Within a few hours, I had a follower and a retweet with extra love from NCTE! How cool is that? The networking, outreach and activism possibilities of Twitter are awesome.
So how do we use all this in the classroom? Having students practice writing concisely is the first necessary task and a skill that will serve them well. I can't tell you how many times I have pointed out to students in the Point that saying the same thing with less words is always a writing strength.
Typical student sentence:
It seems to me that sometimes people who are often ready and willing to take on the challenges that life can present and who go about life with a curious attitude will be happier than those people who do not have such a way of looking at the world. (249 characters - too much for the 140 characters max of a Tweet!)
The same meaning, with concision:
Curious people are happier.
While we pare down our writing to the essentials, we need to think about audience and purpose. Some sample tasks that students could compose and send out as tweets are: spreading information about the school community, sharing a quick writing/comprehension/presentation tip for other learners, posting a pithy saying or short poem, complimenting a living writer they admire (the tweet can include the author's hashtag to increase the likelihood of it being read or even responded to! by the author herself), even telling a story in a series of numbered tweets.
Of course students in one class will read and respond to each other's tweets, and retweet those they like. Authentic tasks combined with deliberately pared down language intended for a real audience -- all these are elements of worthwhile and highly educational writing projects!
1. How can teachers (or students) leverage this power in a classroom?
2. How can building a PLC empower teachers (or students)?
Post responding comments to two classmates' blog posts.
Hi all,
Since I already have a Google Plus personal account and I find it a poor imitation of Facebook, I chose to explore the option of creating a professional Twitter account.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! Twitter is awesome in so many ways; it's immediate and organized and intuitively designed for easy cruising and it has that all-important quality of being visually tempting!
You can follow me @mscynfey
 |
| My Twitter page |
I just opened the account today and Twitter wisely asked me if I wanted to add any Twitter feeds of people in my Gmail address book. What a great idea, Twitter! So I found out that lots of Niles teachers and many Niles organizations have Twitter feeds! I added them and re-Tweeted a few of their posts by clicking on the two chasing arrows icon (in between the Reply arrow and the Love heart below each Tweet.)
Then I poked around the Search Twitter box to find some authors (John Green and Joyce Carol Oates) who my students read in class and who are known to be active Twitterers.
Then I added William Shakespeare, ha ha, since fake Twitter accounts have been known to be some of the most creative.
Then on to the professional organization. I added the National Council of Teachers of English and their Illinois affiliate, and the National Writing Project and so on.
Within a few hours, I had a follower and a retweet with extra love from NCTE! How cool is that? The networking, outreach and activism possibilities of Twitter are awesome.
So how do we use all this in the classroom? Having students practice writing concisely is the first necessary task and a skill that will serve them well. I can't tell you how many times I have pointed out to students in the Point that saying the same thing with less words is always a writing strength.
Typical student sentence:
It seems to me that sometimes people who are often ready and willing to take on the challenges that life can present and who go about life with a curious attitude will be happier than those people who do not have such a way of looking at the world. (249 characters - too much for the 140 characters max of a Tweet!)
The same meaning, with concision:
Curious people are happier.
While we pare down our writing to the essentials, we need to think about audience and purpose. Some sample tasks that students could compose and send out as tweets are: spreading information about the school community, sharing a quick writing/comprehension/presentation tip for other learners, posting a pithy saying or short poem, complimenting a living writer they admire (the tweet can include the author's hashtag to increase the likelihood of it being read or even responded to! by the author herself), even telling a story in a series of numbered tweets.
Of course students in one class will read and respond to each other's tweets, and retweet those they like. Authentic tasks combined with deliberately pared down language intended for a real audience -- all these are elements of worthwhile and highly educational writing projects!
Great suggestions for how students can use Twitter to enhance their and other's learning experience! I also enjoyed the idea of following accounts named after famous deceased persons. I bet those are quite intriguing, to say the least!
ReplyDeleteHi Cynthia
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I don't have twitter account. I checked your twitter page, and I like most of your posting, especially the one which President Obama talking about"Ten years from now, North America will get half its electricity from clean energy sources." Actually there are lots of educational sources in your twitter, I wanted to like them. First I should have an twitter account.
Unquestionably the habit of being succinct can be profitable. Twitter, if used properly, can nurture that habit. Twitter's ease of use does seem to promote another habit, however, one not so beneficial: speaking without thinking. Twitter seems to suggest to many people that every idea or feeling is important to other people. Really? Isn't wisdom the habit of carefully analyzing life before making declarations about it? Part of that analysis occurs in discourse with people, but usually with trusted people who are on the same trajectory of seeking wisdom as well. It seems to me that the healthy use of Twitter demands a certain wisdom or it will just become a perpetuation of ignorance.
ReplyDelete