Blogging & Twittering

According to The 2010 Horizon Report, online collaboration tools allows students to work creatively, develop teamwork skills, and tap into other's perspectives. Blogging and twittering are two great ways that online collaboration tools can be brought into the classroom. It provides the students the opportunity to connect with one another and others around the world on a different level. It can get monotonous to connect with one another only in the classroom. These tools can continue to help keep students engaged both in and out of the classroom. I have heard and seen people use both blogs and twitter, but never really knew that much about either one of them. So I will share what I have learned this week and how it can be of value in an educational setting.

While watching Blogs in Plain English, I learned that blogs are a way to share personal news and ideas. It can give one's perspectives on different aspects of life and allows readers to share their thoughts as well. In this way a two-way street is created for discussion via the original blogs and the comments that are left by the reader. One of the benefits of using blogs in the classroom is that it can help build relationships among students and create an environment where even the shy students can shine. It is a great way for students to work on projects and to communicate with one another outside of the classroom. Even if students do not have Internet access, they can still communicate through the blog at school. Having students create blogs gives them the opportunity to put their thoughts on paper and to think deeper about what they are writing. Sometimes they do not take the time to think about what their thoughts are, and how they feel on particular topics, but given the opportunity to blog about it may give them this time to reflect on how they feel and what they are thinking. This is something that I would really like to try with my students.

I found the twittering videos to be helpful also. As I was watching Twitter in Plain English, I learned about how much it can really make people feel connected. Tweets are short updates and opportunities for the people to ask questions using only 140 characters max. It helps people learn things about each other that maybe they never knew by just reading what they are doing at different times throughout the day. It is much more informal than a full blog and fills in between blog posts that are written. By twittering, people can find out news in real time and look for trends that are going on right now without waiting for data to be collected and then shared. The Tweets for Education videos provided me with a lot of insight into how twittering can used for educational purposes. It is a great way to engage students in technology. It allows students to ask short questions and get short answers about something that may be happening in class or about something that was unclear to them that day in class. This would help with their meta-cognition where the students are thinking about what they learned outside the classroom. Again this platform, like blogging, may allow the shy students to share their thoughts and ideas in a more comfortable way. Both blogging and twittering will allow the students to be creative writers and if they are twittering they may have to get even more creative because the space to type is limited to only 140 characters. It is important, however, if you choose to use this with your class that students are taught twitter etiquette. They have to know that there are boundaries and that they have to follow the rules.

As I was exploring and setting up my first twitter account, I decided to follow MathInMiddleSchool because I am looking for ways to revamp my classroom. I am trying to turn my classroom into a more student-centered environment where I am just guiding and helping versus giving all the information all the time. I am hoping to find some good ideas and good articles specifically geared for a middle school math classroom.