A Rational Approach: Using Twitter As Professional Development and Possible Classroom Implementation! LIS568

When I finally signed up for Twitter, after many friends were consistently encouraging me to, my initial response was that I can really see certain functions of Twitter providing me, as an educator, with quality professional development (PD).  After spending a little time with Twitter my initial response to its use in the educational world still holds true.  In fact, once my professional learning network (PLN) began to slightly grow I started valuing Twitter for more than its Twitter chats.  Where Twitter chats certainly provide an amazing opportunity for professional development, the overall functionality of Twitter when used only for professional aspects provides a diverse, vast, and organized educational resource.  A resource that allows educators and students to easily search for specific topics through the use of hashtags, ultimately allowing educators to partake in quality and convenient PD while students are introduced to a vast and quite organized resource.

Let me first start by saying that this is a truly unbiased discussion.  Meaning if I found no value in Twitter in terms of providing me, as an educator, with assistance to my day-to-day tasks I would not waste my time sharing positive thoughts of such technology.  With that said, the most useful function of Twitter to me, as of now, is its ability to provide me with quality conversations that fit into my schedule.  These conversations, referred to as Twitter chats, are conversations that truly provide me with meaningful and relevant professional development.  The best part of such PD is that it doesn't interrupt my daily schedule.  I can literally be laying in bed at the end of a long day gaining more engaging and beneficial PD than if I attended a workshop in the evening.  Don’t get me wrong, I have been involved with many workshops that I truly have found valuable to my professional career, but if I had to choose staying at work for another 3 hours, of course after waiting an hour or two after school for the workshop to start, or going home after a long day, I think it is obvious I would choose the latter.  Through using resources such as Participate or Education Chat Calendar, one can easily locate Twitter chats to partake in.  The most important and beneficial aspect of Twitter chats is that users can pick and choose exactly what conversations they want to be a part of.  Feeling like you need a little pick-me-up in regard to education technology search #ATchat, or search #elmused if you want to focus on elementary art.  If there are two chats you find intriguing that are scheduled for the same time on the same night, why not partake in them both at the same time?  The flexibility, diversity, and overall quality that educators can receive from twitter chats are what makes it such a valuable resource for educators. 

Although Twitter chats offer quite a lot in terms of PD, the overall PLN that Twitter provides educators with is truly a meaningful function.  By following other professionals, users are able to build a network with other educators that offer ideas, materials, resources…etc. which can be utilized with ease.  As Scavitto (2015) states discussing her Twitter usage, “The people in my PLN share amazing materials about all aspects of education.”  Not only are educators able to gain valuable resources, but the diversity of such material allows users to become exposed to new and innovative aspects.  More importantly, discussing such vastness of resources Scavitto (2015) states, “Articles like this would have been buried in the vastness of the web for eternity-but I get to read them because they appeared in my feed.”  With the utilization of hashtags users are able to have an organized system for storing and finding resources.  As Pitler (2015) suggests, “The secret to getting the most out of Twitter as an educator lies in knowing how to use hashtags (#)- those things we used to call the number signs last century.”  For example, if you are in need of a poster creator for students to use as a summative assessment tool but want to use a different tool than the typical Google Docs or Pages, a quick search using an appropriate hashtag such as #edtech can introduce you to the application Google Drawings.  Even more impressive is that if you are following the “correct micro-bloggers” in relation to a given interest, as Scavitto points out, information regarding Google Drawings could have just simply been present in your feed.  Thus, the importance of following the most beneficial micro-bloggers in regard to a given interest is extremely important.  As Scavitto (2015) states, “If you’re going to use Twitter for things beyond curating a collection of educational resources, I suggest having multiple accounts.”  Mixing interests outside of a professional focus will simply provide a user with additional content that can lead to an overall scattered and overloaded feed. Thus, defeating the purpose of using Twitter as professional development means.

Overall Twitter can provide educators and students with vast, diverse, and meaningful content.  Educators can advocate and implement for their students to utilize Twitter in very similar ways that they would.  However, being familiar with its functions and how to navigate the resource will help lead to a positive and beneficial experience for you and your students if you implement such features into your instruction.  Twitter chats offer an incredible opportunity for educators and students to partake in active and relevant discussions surrounding basically any topic of interest.  More importantly, through utilizing resources such as Participate and Education Chat Calendar, users have the ability to plan ahead as well as have the flexibility to attend Twitter chats through the comfort of their homes.  It is common for Twitter chat users to follow the other professionals that were part of the chat, ultimately allowing for a meaningful PLN to continually grow.  With the nurturing of a quality and relevant PLN, other professionals’ posts continually show on your home feed allowing easy access to resources, ideas, materials…etc.  With the understanding and the use of hashtags, students and overall users are able to be easily organized with such a vast amount of materials.  However, users must be mindful of only following other users that add to their repertoire of educational resources, ultimately creating a meaningful, relevant, and vast professional learning network.  As Pitler (2015) states, “Once you get started you just might become an evangelist.”  Of course, we can assume Pitler’s thoughts are to convert the non-Twitter users to simply Twitter users, not to turn such non-users into Christians!

References

Berger, R. (2015). Using twitter to supercharge your professional development. ConnectedEducators. Retrieved from http://www.connectededucators.org/using-twitter-to-supercharge-your-professional-development/.

Scavitto, D. (2015). Teachers: embrace twitter for professional development. Edudemic. Retrieved from http://www.edudemic.com/teachers-embrace-twitter-professional-development/.

The Benefits of Podcasts Within Your Classroom LIS568

As an educator always looking for new and innovative ways to engage my learners with a quality education, using podcasts in the classroom poses as my newest discovery.  Until recent, I have never thought to search for student geared podcasts.  Honestly, it just has never crossed my mind.  To my surprise, there are actually some really well constructed podcasts that are created for the sole purpose of engaging kids in all sorts of educational means.  One podcast in particular that has proven to provide such quality content is Wow In The World from National Public Radio (NPR).  The podcast is “for curious kids and their grown-ups,” as stated on the Wow In The World website.  The podcast provides its user with not only audio episodes, but supplemental material for each episode as well.  This extra material consists of a summary of each episode, and additional questions that allows listeners to extend their understanding on the content covered in the episode.  If you are an educator, I’m sure the gears are turning on how you could implement such technologies in your classroom.  Let me help.

Where Did We Come From is the title of a specific episode created on August 31, 2017 by Wow In The World.  The episode covered content surrounding the history of Homo Sapiens (origins, migrations…etc.) and explanations of hurricanes.  The episode is one of the longer episodes at 30 minutes and 15 seconds, whereas the average length per episode is around 15 to 20 minutes.  Not only are my students provided with a very engaging and well constructed audio recording, but the supplemental material allows students to gain a deeper understanding through their creation of their own ancestor migration map.  Whereas the NPR created podcast only provides its users with a summary in the supplemental materials, some podcasts such as ThisAmericanLife provide its users with a full transcript of each episode.  However, if you embed episodes off of the NPR created podcast and paste the URL into an address bar you are able to access the transcript for each episode.  Thus, students can follow along while listening.

When considering implementing podcasts into your curriculum, it is important to focus on the length of such episodes you are providing your students.  No matter how engaging an episode is and depending on the grade level, from my experiences, students will most likely lose focus after a given amount of time.  I feel that Wow In The World’s episodes are a good length, as the average length per episode fits perfectly into a 40 minute academic period.  I plan to provide my students with a time slot at about 10 minutes into the episode, Where Did We Come From, where they will start, thus providing them with roughly a 20 minute episode.  From there, I plan to have students partake in a discussion thread surrounding the topics covered in the episode.  As a synthesizing task, students will use the supplemental resources available to create an ancestor migration map.  The wonderful aspect about using podcasts in your classroom is the diversity of content available.  Educators must put in the leg work of choosing episodes for specific content areas, depending on what content educators are looking to support.  Learners are able to meet the appropriate and obvious social studies and science (hurricanes) content standards, aspects of English Language Arts (ELA) Standards, and aspects from the standards associated with the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).  Although, the benefits students can gain from simply listening to podcasts and discussing their finding, even if it doesn’t necessarily align in a multidisciplinary approach,  will still provide students with, at a minimum, ELA support.  As Mammina (2017) states, “In light of the Common Core State Standards’ shift toward the use of nonfiction, podcasts provide a unique way to build critical thinking skills while adhering to state standards.” With older grades, students can produce podcasts themselves with the intent to share their creations with younger grades.  By creating podcasts students can start the shift of being content creators rather than simply being content consumers. 

Happy teaching!

Reference

Mammina, A. 2017. Teaching the art of listening: how to use podcasts in the classroom. Education Week Teacher. Retrieved from http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2017/09/teaching_the_art_of_listening_how_to_use_podcasts_in_the_classroom.html.

Customize With TED-Ed LIS568

In an attempt to add more digital and web based learning into my classroom I created a TED-Ed lesson.  If you are unaware of what TED-Ed has to offer you should certainly check it out.  It is a great free resource to use just for its video content alone.  However, if you want to customize your students’ experiences you can create your own lessons that include video content, comprehension questions, extended content, and discussion threads.  For example, a lesson I have created in the past is called Basic Geography, and the content provides students with exactly what the name suggests, a chance to support their understanding in basic Geography.  My specific purpose for the lesson creation was to support my current students with both review material as well as an introduction to new material.  TED-Ed is a great resource if you are attempting to flip your classroom, a librarian teaching information literacy, and overall any educator’s experience regarding educating our youth.  As an educator and coach, my time is valuable, thus the ease of high quality customized content that TED-Ed allows me to create is essential.

Within the lesson Basic Geography students are given a prompt that allows them to engage in a digital conversation with their peers.  Through their discussion they demonstrate their ability to interpret, organize, and ultimately share read material.  As an assessment, students construct an at least five sentence discussion post.  The discussion post allows students to convey their ideas on the information they received within the lesson.  When using TED-Ed in the classroom I make sure that the discussion portion of the lesson (Discuss section) is a significant aspect to what students are asked to complete.  In my TED-Ed lesson I synthesized the given information found within the Watch, Think, and Dig Deeper sections to lead to a meaningful discussion post.  Where I do find the Watch and Think section to be a beneficial aspect of the lesson, more importantly students get to explore relevant information in the Dig Deeper section allowing for a greater sense of understanding.  By tying the Discuss section to the previous sections, my students get to partake in a social media based/connected lesson.  I also ask my students to respond to at least two other peers’ responses, making the lesson that much more collaborative and social. 

What makes TED-Ed so valuable is that I am able to supply my students with direct instruction through the Watch and Think sections, then allow them to share and create their own content through the Dig Deeper and Discuss section.  The flexibility of the lessons allow me to assign students such lessons for home work or provide opportunity to review material outside of the classroom, knowing that students will receive the direct instruction needed to partake in the social aspect of learning.  I can also expand the Discuss section to have students share articles or other found information from the web.  Honestly, it provides me the proper organization to allow elementary students to begin to expand their learning experiences through digital and social means.  Furthermore, applications such as TED-Ed give students the ease of becoming content creators rather than simply content consumers.