setting. Both come from Teacher Magazine that maintains a Facebook site and a Twitter site. Looking at these two examples will show alternative ways to use these sites. How else might these sites, Facebook and Twitter, be used in the actual classroom setting with students? What kind of Facebook site might you set up with students to engage them in the learning process, for instance?Teacher Magazine on Facebook
Teacher Magazine on Twitter
4 comments:
It is so interesting to me to see Facebook and Twitter used in this way. In fact, I feel like this is probably the best way I have seen them used yet. Ultimately when I think of facebook and twitter, I think that they can only be distractions for students. However it is evident that these networking sites can be used by teachers to keep in contact with each other and share ideas, thoughts or opinions. Teachers can also use these sites to set up study groups for their students. I envision this being useful mostly in secondary classrooms. Teachers can also group similar learners together and encourage them to use eachother as reasources through these sites, all the while tending to the technological advances of the times.
I am against teachers being on Twitter and Facebook, for the simple reason that it sets a teacher up to have personal information exposed to the public. I do see the value from a perspective of teachers collaborating with teacher's, but that is was conferences and blogs on certain topics can be for. All teachers, should keep thier private / personal life separate from their professional life...and plain and simply I feel using these sites sets a teacher up too much for their personal lives to be exposed to people that only should know you professionally.
Opinion only...I see the value...but think there is safer and more appropriate means of teacher collaboration than facebook and twitter.
I ventured out to Twitter with an open mind to see how I could use this in a math classroom. I had been on Twitter before and I found the information useless and boring. I can (vaguely) understand following something like Teacher Magazine for me. But I really wanted to know how I could use it for class. Well, I looked for "algebra" out there it was eye-opening for me at the amount of kids tweeting that they were currently in Algebra class and were BORED! I found profanity and garbage out there in algebra land although there is a site that you can follow called algebra.com which I now may bookmark to see just how useful it is. I do agree very much with Scott that teachers need to be teachers (or mentors, or coaches or advisors) and should NOT friend students on Facebook. I also do not believe that teachers should text or tweet unless the profession calls for it. I just was certified as a Youth Minister and one of the interesting points that I took away was that I need to not get in the way of family but need to build up that family. I see a correlation to teaching in that I need to advise the students and families and reinforce their relationships. In that respect, Facebook and Twitter seem very uncontrolled and too personal and puts me on a different, more friend-like level. I would need to delve more into Twitter to see if it is really worth anything in the classroom. But everyone should take a look since it is a microcosm of today and certainly made me think about the bored kids in my algebra classroom!
I feel that there are many websites with more educational potential than facebook and twitter. For instance, Youtube is an amazing tool that allow teachers to present differents topics in classroom with visual examples.
Moreover, students with video-audio skills can use it to create projects about the lesson and learn during the experience.
Post a Comment