First, I love that some of the recommendations in the Skill of the Month article on how to incorporate twitter into the classroom are those that it seems we will be using in class. I LOVE the idea of using twitter for instant feedback, especially for the opportunity for students to message the teacher privately and instantly if something is not making sense, but do not feel like they have to admit to the rest of the class that they aren't grasping something instantly. Honestly I think students shouldn't be afraid to admit confusion, but given they often don't, this seems like a cool alternative to combat that.
In the Join the Flock article, I am glad they mentioned lists. I know some people can feel overwhelmed when they are following a huge number of people, and lists are a great way to manage that. I also have decided to split my personal twitter feed from my educational professional one, and in my personal feed, I have a number of lists, such as Friends, or Retailers, that I can check in on as needed. Also, as a bonus, you can have people on your list that you are not following. I do that for my vacation planning, so I have an easy way to check in on planned locations, but it is not overwhelming my feed all the time.
I am really looking forward to talking about this in class and I hope that people don't have too many anti-twitter prejudices to start out - you can hate it later, that is just fine :)
You are in luck! The author of the Skill of the Month article from SLM is going to be in your work group tomorrow! :)
ReplyDeleteI was a bit more skeptical about using twitter for instant feedback. I think I would be uncomfortable using it in my own classroom; I would rather ask students to do thumbs up / thumbs down / in between for understanding, or raise 1-5 fingers depending on their level of understanding. If everyone does it at once, it doesn't really give the class enough time to check who doesn't get it and is a 'safer' way of admitting confusion. Also, did you ever use iclickers in college? I used them in classes for similar checks of understanding.
ReplyDeleteBreanna - We were old school - our books had letters on the back for students to point to, so the teacher in the front could see everyone's response to a question, but the student's were not intimidated. That said I wonder if iClickers are in high schools now.
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