Although I have been a member of Twitter since March 2014 (@jesslynne222), I really haven’t used it to do much besides observe and take in everything that others post. I never really contributed to Twitter. After doing some research and looking for more people to follow, I am anxious to see what more Twitter has to offer me as an educator.
Twitter was not very difficult to learn how to use and maneuver. I already had my account set up and finding new people to follow was as easy as searching for them and clicking a button. I was a little disappointed to find that many of the teachers and educators I have followed for years on other social media sites are not on Twitter. However, I am excited to see the new connections I can make using this online PLN tool.
As Solomon and Schrum (2010) mention in their book, “Twitter has become a popular tool for educators to connect with one another to get advice or information quickly, share points of view, or just stay in touch...it connects individuals and enables educators to assemble a group of people to turn to for instant advice and leads on where to get needed information” (p. 35). It will be a new learning experience to get and share ideas with educators through Twitter, and I hope that it will help grow my PLN. If I’m being honest, I still am more of a fan of Instagram and Facebook to connect with educators around the world, but I am more than willing to give Twitter a try. The blog post by Emily Fitzpatrick (click the picture below to link to her blog) really helped me get some ideas on how not just to use Twitter, but how to use it as a PLN. I like the idea of using Twitter chats or simply following hashtags to find more information and people to follow. I found more information about Twitter chats and hashtags by reading the article found here by Fowler and Riley. I found their examples and explanations very useful to understanding Twitter chats, and hope to get started participating in one soon.
I will say that what makes me most excited about Twitter is still the ways I can use it in my classroom with my students. I can’t wait to set up a class Twitter account and connect parents and other classrooms around the world to my students and the learning they do every day. I want to teach students to share their learning with others through Twitter, and hopefully it will encourage students who struggle to really try and do their best to show the world what they can do.
References:
Fitzpatrick, E. (2015, August). Building your PLN with twitter: A beginner’s guide. [Web log]. Retrieved from https://blog.learningbird.com/building-your-pln-with-twitter/
Fowler, D. & Riley, J. (2015, September 11). How to build your PLN on twitter. Retrieved from https://thejournal.com/articles/2015/09/11/how-to-build-your-pln-on-twitter.aspx
Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2010). Web 2.0: How-to for educators. Eugene, OR: ISTE.
ReplyDeleteRE: "I will say that what makes me most excited about Twitter is still the ways I can use it in my classroom with my students."
and
"I like the idea of using Twitter chats or simply following hashtags to find more information and people to follow."
Jessica,
You will be learning more about using Twitter in your classroom, participating in Twitter chats, and following hashtags in the coming weeks of the course. You are ahead of the curve since you have had some experience with Twitter. :-)
We will also be addressing using Instagram and Facebook to grow your PLN as well.
I am looking forward to reading your first tweet on your new Twitter account.
Happy tweeting!
Dr. Dell
Jessica,
ReplyDeleteI am in the same boat as you! I have also had a Twitter account since 2014. My follow through with it was fairly nonexistent after the first month or two. I honestly did not take the time to learn all that Twitter had to offer me as a teacher. I am grateful that this course has opened my eyes to some new ways to use Twitter. I chuckled when I read in the reading about how celebrities were the only people that used Twitter to update their hourly status. To be honest, in the beginning, I thought the exact same thing. I am just as enthusiastic as you to begin using Twitter as a personal learning network.
I am interested how you are going to use Twitter in your classroom. I have tossed around the idea, but I must not know enough about the Twitter classroom at this time. Would you mind sharing what you create so I can steal some of your ideas. I am such a fan of Remind101, but I am open to using Twitter as a way to communicate with parents if the students are also linked to it. Great blog post!
Lindsay,
DeleteI also use Remind, and I love it for communication with parents. I will still continue to use that next year. I plan on using Twitter primarily for student use (of course, parents can follow our classroom Twitter account too) - I'll try to explain more below.
Two years ago my class was fortunate enough to win an online math competition and receive a gift card to Amazon. With that gift card, I chose to purchase 6 Kindle Fire tablets for my classroom. I plan on setting up a classroom Twitter account and having Twitter installed on my Kindles. I haven't figured out all the logistics yet, but I want my kids to ask me to tweet things they are proud of or want to show off on our classroom Twitter account. With my permission, students will tweet things on our classroom account which will be connect to parents (that want to follow us) as well as other elementary classrooms across the U.S. (or even the world). I'm LOVING Karen Lirenman's ideas found here: http://www.klirenman.com/2013/08/using-twitter-in-primary-classroom.html if you haven't read that yet. She has some AWESOME ideas!