Posts Tagged "Twitter"
Switched On and Connected…
I am a Geek… I don’t hide it… I like my Sci-Fi, I like my computer games, I like my online community and I hate to say it but I have more virtual friends than I do real friends. I like being switched on and connected.
As a mother I am raising 3 Geeks – my children also like Sci-Fi, computer games and being switched on and connected. This morning as I switched on and read my email one of my online communities had a survey about Social Media which included a video about how to prepare your Tween for Technology.
Now I don’t agree with everything Mia Freedman says however for the first time in a long time I felt that someone was giving SOME good advice about online communities and Social Media. Everywhere else you look the solution for Teens and Tweens is to block Twitter, Facebook and anything else that the kids are using. Lets face it. Our Schools all seem to block Social Media. But maybe we need to rethink Social Media. I know that I get most of my information from Twitter. I couldn’t live without my Twitter feed helping me to sift through sites, articles and information. And If I need something that is usually the first place I head to find what I want. So why are we stopping students from accessing a legitimate source of information. Crowd sourcing is becoming more a part of life – how else do we sift through the millions of google responses to our search query. So why are we not teaching them how to use it correctly and safely?
Recently I read an article titled What Schools are Really Blocking When They Block Social Media where S. Craig Watkins discussed the issue of schools and social media. I have to agree with him if someone told me that I have to switch off and stop communicating with my virtual networks I think I would be lost and lonely. My learning wouldn’t stop as I have a natural curiosity about the world and would find other ways to find the information but for our students when all they have ever known is the Internet and being switched on and connected I think it would stop them from investigating.
Mr Watkins went on to outline …
By blocking social media schools are also blocking the opportunity:
1) to teach students about the inventive and powerful ways communities around the world are using social media
2) for students and teachers to experience the educational potential of social media together
3) for students to distribute their work with the larger world
4) for students to reimagine their creative and civic identities in the age of networked media
I think that we need to embrace Social Media in schools, we need to teach students how to use it to find information, to connect with experts and to encourage students to learn for themselves. We also need to teach them how to stay safe and to verify the information that they find.
Related articles
- What Schools are Really Blocking When They Block Social Media (dmlcentral.net)
- Twitter – my virtual staffroom (maggiehosmcgrane.com)
Who the *Tweet* Cares?
Over the course of the last year I have offered many PD sessions on the basics of social networking. My usual focus is on Twitter as this is the social network which I am most inspired by in my teaching practice. These PD sessions run from one-to-one sessions to small groups (3 or 4) to class sized groups and beyond. I know I am no expert when it comes to social networking. And I always start my sessions with…
Hi…
My Name is @mrsangell and I’m a PLN Junkie…
Who the *Tweet* cares what I have to say?
1019 people on Twitter
690 friends on Facebook
and numerous more on Nings, LinkedIn and Yahoo Groups…
Image by Fanie! via Flickr
This hooks the really large groups and really small groups… I find it interesting that the take up rate with twitter from people who have never used it before is 100% in the one-to-one sessions then diminishes for the small group and class sized groups and in then increases to around 80% in the really large groups. After an explanation of the WHAT, WHO, WHEN, WHY and HOW of PLN’s we usually set up a twitter account (I’ve found most staffhave the other accounts already) and run through the basics, recommendations anddiscuss how to manage the PLN, and uses in the Classroom and for Professional Learning. I realise that this is a lot to take in when first looking at PLN’s but I feel it is necessary to get people started.
I would love to know how you teach people about Social Networks and what they can do for your teaching.
What Exactly is the Purpose of Education?
This week I have spent my time in primary school planning meetings. Each of these has started the same way with the teachers being given a copy of the draft National Australian Curriculum. Each of these meetings has then gone in a very different direction depending on the combination of teachers. One thing that did stand out is that the teaching staff got caught up with the content of the Australian Curriculum and how the content was different from what they currently taught.
Something which has stood out to me is the severe lack of skills being taught in the National Australian Curriculum. And the swift way in which teachers (myself included) seemed to throw the thought of teaching students skills out the window.
I was reading Digital Literacy Across the Curriculum tonight and it got me thinking about what exactly the purpose of school and education is? What do we take from school into the big bad world when we leave the gate at the end of year 12? What do we take from school into university? And then our degrees into our job? So as I always do when I start thinking I ask Twitterland!
What is your clearest memory of primary school? High school? University?
My clearest memory of primary school was as a whole class (year 3) being praised for being proactive and going into the classroom after first break everyday and reading while we waited for the teachers to return from their morning tea meeting. Then on the sixth day of doing this scoring a lunchtime rubbish clean up (the whole class did) for going into a classroom without a staff member.
For High School the memory is of me making a fool of myself dancing to Rip Rip Woodchip by John Williamson in Year 8 to explain the meaning of logging. (I doubt I got the meaning across but it was fun even if it was embarrassing!)
Meanwhile in University my memories are of me trying to get my readings complete with one or two children hanging off me.
None of this was about the content or even the skills I learnt at school.
So I asked my twitter friends. And their responses were the same. They were about fights, arguments, results, excursions, bullying, parties, punishments and handing the last piece of assessment in. Nothing about content or skills.
So WHY as teachers do we get so hung up on the content? Reality is none of us really remember it later in life.
We should be teaching skills. Lets throw the content out that window instead.
Who’s joining me?
Read MoreTo Share or Not To Share? Is it really a question?
- Image by 姒儿喵喵 via Flickr
I have been teaching for 6 years plus my 7 years of study (yes I know I took my time!) and during this time I have created many resources. During my second year of uni as I stayed up late one evening trying to find a better way to teach an economic concept as every uni student does I turned to Mr Google. I was struggling and I figured that many teachers before me had taught this concept I should be able to find something. Did I find it? You guessed it I found nothing.
Why as teachers do we constantly reinvent the wheel? Why when we all teach from similar syllabi’s and courses do we not share our resources? How much time would we save?
Ever since my evening with Mr Google I have openly shared my resources figuring that what goes round must come round and the resources will eventually be shared back with me. It has taken 10 years for something to return. When I first started teaching in the classroom other teachers didn’t understand why I was sharing my hard work. Why was I making them look better by doing all the work? My response was quite simply we are all teaching the same skills and content why are we wasting precious time creating the same resources? Slowly my colleagues have come around.
Over the last few years with the take off of PLNs through platforms like Facebook and Twitter the sharing has become prolific. You find something useful you share it. So why are some educators still too scared to share?
In the age of social networking and content creation (Web 2.0) there is no question. Everything we create as educators should be shared no matter how small or insignificant we think it is.
The answer is To Share.
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