How I might use microblogs for teaching ?
Twitter, I heard and watched it from lots of gossip news mainly (J) such as some Hollywood starts’ twitting about their situation. I thought that Twitter is just for technology people seeking for a new-trend of life, so it was always very different story from my way of living. I never used blog or twitter in my daily life. I only use a phone, nevertheless that, I believe that I am accustomed to these kinds of new technology, because I have already heard about that so many times. I followed 5 edubloggers a few days, and I got some interests in this tool. As a graduate school student in education field, I am wondering how I can use these microblogging in actual classroom or for my personal development. I read two articles that can give me some hint or resources.
The first one I read was: 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Education
This article gives a lot of information that I hadn’t thought about yet. This reading gave a very systematic order of information from the ‘First Steps’ to build an account to the ‘Negatives and Positives’ in using this tool. In the section of ‘About WHAT to Tweet’, it provided really helpful tips for using Twitter in education.
First of all, we have to define the purpose of why we use Tweet. As cooper-Taylor suggested, we have to clarify that “Instead of answering the question, “What are you doing?”, answer the question, “What has your attention?”. If I use Twitter in my classroom, I have to give them definite reason to use Twitter. For example, if I have a literature class, I can make students to share their opinion of some piece of literature (main characters, topic of this literature, meaning, etc.), and it would be our class’ attention to use Twitter. Another point from this reading was “Ask questions. Twitter is GREAT for getting opinions”. From twitting, our class share their thoughts without any limitation of time to designated or space to meet to talk. Students just can share their opinions in any time and any place. It removes time-spacial constraints and makes a new ‘Chronotope’ (Bakhtin, 1937). It makes a real community to get along with other peers by “Commenting on others’ tweets, and retweeting what others have posted” and “it is a great way to build community”. Final advantage that I found from this article was that “Twitter in the classroom helps people build an instant ‘backchannel’. Thus, even if students feel uncomfortable to ask questions to teacher, they can use Twitter freely in any purpose of their needs.
The second article that I read was: Getting the Most Out of Twitter
This article suggests some ways to make Twitter work for the users:
1. A custom news feed
2. Check your lists
3. Attend a conference, virtually
4. What’s around you right now
5. Ask questions
I think this lists suggest effective ways of using Twitter for students and teacher as well. I think I can use Twitter as a place for more active communication among students, because “Even the most prolific users say Twitter has become more useful as a way to tap in to the discussions of the day than to broadcast their own thoughts”.
Another effective way of using Twitter is for asking questions, especially “when you don’t know whom to ask”. I think it is very important function of Twitter. If I do not know where I can get certain resources, then I can ask twitters in that area. I can know what is going on in education world in real time. Many information is shared in twitter. There exists no barrier any more regarding time, distance, culture, or race.
