This week we talked about using social networking tools in the classroom. I have to be honest, I initially thought that using twitter int he classroom would be a great idea. Now, I am no so sure. I still believe that the more teachers who use twitter, the better behaved students will be when working with these types of tools. But, I have seen students create dummy accounts so that they can anonymously post anything they think, without consequence or fer of repercussion. We read a couple of good articles outlining how to use twitter in the classroom. I really like the article outlining 50 Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom. So of these ideas have real potential and left a lot of room for personal adaptation. We also watched a video called The Twitter Experiment about a college class at UT Dallas that used twitter to help students share ideas and have discussion that they wouldn't be able to have in the limited time allowed during a traditional class. I really like this idea. However, in the video, several of the student twitter usernames where shown. I looked up all of the accounts that I could read clearly from the video and found that not one of the accounts is still being used. They have all either been deleted or their last tweet for for this class (which ended in May of 2009.) If we are teaching with these tools because they are "native" to these students, then why would ALL of these accounts be inactive or deleted? We worked in a TwHistory project to reenact some of the events of the Pearl Harbor. We worked in teams to create a list of tweets that were scheduled to be posted from their twitter accounts on Sunday morning. I thought this was a great experiment and commend the instructors for taking on such a difficult task. I enjoyed watching the tweets as they were posted on Sunday. It was great to see all of the different perspectives and voices give accounts of the events of Pearl Harbor. I don't think I'll ever do a project like this, or encourage other teachers to do this on this scale, but I think there are variations of this project that would be great to work on with teachers and students. We ended class with a review of Wikipedia and how it can be used in class. I like Wikipedia, I use it all the time and I don't mind it when students use it as a reference for some of their work in my class. But I do think a distinction needs to be made between just looking something up and doing academic research. Academic research requires deeper sources and learning how to use the databases where primary documents can be located. Wikipedia's list of references are a great place to start, but they are almost always internet references whose credibility isn't always confirmed. The bottom line is that Wikipedia is a great reference for a wide variety of subjects. But students need to learn how to do research beyond Wikipedia.
I have been using twitter for a few years now. In fact, Kelly shared the idea of a Twitter Birthday, so I looked mine up on twbirthday.com and found out that my 3-year Twitter Birthday is about a month away. In that time I have participated in several #artsed chats and some #edchat discussions. I have made some connections and have learned a great deal from some amazing educators all over the world. I think the greatest value for me with twitter is in these professional connections. Before I used twitter, I would follow some of these same people on their blogs and began searching through their blog lists to find information. Now that twitter has become more prevalent among educators and education reformers, i rarely check blogs or even Google Reader. Almost everyone posts to twitter when they update their blog or website, so I can easily see when new information is available to read. Twitter also lets me share their posts and give feedback on their ideas. As for facebook, that will remain my personal space where students and only a few colleagues are invited to access. I don't friend current students, I only friend some former students, and I don't friend very many colleagues. There is a level of trust that I associate with sharing that part of my life and I am happy to keep it that way for the foreseeable future. Social media had tremendous potential for learning and sharing among teachers. Students are still learning how to use these tools and only a few teachers have seen success in using social media in the classroom. As students and teachers learn how to work together using twitter and other social networking sites, the potential for learning will increase tremendously. I have had several conversations with students about social media recently. Many of them are just trying out twitter and are drawn to it because not many of their friends use the service and almost none of their parents are on twitter. They are just starting to learn how to use twitter and teachers who choose to use it in their classroom need to make sure they provide training and support for their students and possibly the parents of their students. My greatest take-away from this class was the caution to inform parents if you decide to use social media in your classroom. I think that is great advice and I will be encouraging all of the teachers I work with to follow that rule. |
Blog HomeJared Ward
Ceramics and Sculpture Teacher, Artist, Web Designer, Education Technology Specialist. I am still learning. Archives
January 2013
Categories
All
|