Wow, I had know idea so many educators were using Twitter in their classrooms or to connect with others. I knew that you could only us 140 characters, and I am glad they gave a bit of an explanation as to how people accomplish this,especially with links. What I didn't know was that there are other microblogs besides twitter, such as edmondo, posterous and plurk. Even more amazing was the Twitter4Teachers that connects teachers and allows you to join or create an online community of teachers.
I do have a twitter account that I created back in April while I was at a library conference, so that I could tweet about the conference,I have no idea even now if it worked. I tried back then to access any of the basic how-to guides the one that I found most helpful was the Newbie's Guide to Twitter by Rafe Needleman http://news.cnet.com/newbies-guide-to-twitter/ but again I really had no idea if my tweets are getting out there.
Other than these couple of occasions I really have not followed through with learning to tweet which is why I really appreciated the inclusion of Laura Walker's Nine Reasons to Twitter. I especially liked that the lists
focus was teachers and it gave some ideas how to limit and/or expand my teaching community by using this tool. The two that I found most helpful were numbers 3-Self-awareness and Reflective Practice and 4-Ideas Workshop and Sounding Board. Here is a community that can support and challenge you and I love the idea that someone who you have never met and may never meet can give you advice and support your decisions with just a simple well constructed thought. Which was also why using the world-wide teaching community to workshop through any teaching and learning experiences appealed greatly to me.
I mentioned in my post on blogging that I came from a very collaborative model, and was supported in a multitude of ways, but when I became a full-time librarian in a small academic library with only one additional professional librarian for support I have felt lonely at times. I have used facebook to stay in contact with others who I went through my library program with but all of them had been working as librarians for most of their professional lives, I was a true newbie. I could have connected with either people who were moving out of public education into higher ed or other really new librarians who were having similar experiences to mine.
In addition to the personal support twitter my offer I can also be an additional support to my students as they become frustrated with the research process. By using Twitter they can have access to my feed without really invading my personal space (like having my home number) and still get the assistance they need although I may not be at the reference desk at that exact moment.
The two main reasons my husband and I were not on twitter was first we thought it could only be done on cellphones (which we didn't have until 2 months ago) and the issue of the GPS tracking using the tweets. Problem one is now resolved, and I waffle a little bit on the being able to locate my whereabouts using my mobile devices. I see both sides of this as a mom I like it, having the ability to know the location of my family members and them mine, BUT (yes it is a big but) I like my anonymity which was why we went so long without mobile devices in the first place. Just like my sister-in-law and I were discussing last week with two small children having a little time to your self can be an impossibility, and when people are following or you are following them with this technology that time can become even more nonexistent. This jury is still out, maybe if I can get better at using the microblog/twitter technology some of my fears will be eliminated, but until that time I may wait to integrate this technology into my professional life.
I do have a twitter account that I created back in April while I was at a library conference, so that I could tweet about the conference,I have no idea even now if it worked. I tried back then to access any of the basic how-to guides the one that I found most helpful was the Newbie's Guide to Twitter by Rafe Needleman http://news.cnet.com/newbies-guide-to-twitter/ but again I really had no idea if my tweets are getting out there.
Other than these couple of occasions I really have not followed through with learning to tweet which is why I really appreciated the inclusion of Laura Walker's Nine Reasons to Twitter. I especially liked that the lists
focus was teachers and it gave some ideas how to limit and/or expand my teaching community by using this tool. The two that I found most helpful were numbers 3-Self-awareness and Reflective Practice and 4-Ideas Workshop and Sounding Board. Here is a community that can support and challenge you and I love the idea that someone who you have never met and may never meet can give you advice and support your decisions with just a simple well constructed thought. Which was also why using the world-wide teaching community to workshop through any teaching and learning experiences appealed greatly to me.
I mentioned in my post on blogging that I came from a very collaborative model, and was supported in a multitude of ways, but when I became a full-time librarian in a small academic library with only one additional professional librarian for support I have felt lonely at times. I have used facebook to stay in contact with others who I went through my library program with but all of them had been working as librarians for most of their professional lives, I was a true newbie. I could have connected with either people who were moving out of public education into higher ed or other really new librarians who were having similar experiences to mine.
In addition to the personal support twitter my offer I can also be an additional support to my students as they become frustrated with the research process. By using Twitter they can have access to my feed without really invading my personal space (like having my home number) and still get the assistance they need although I may not be at the reference desk at that exact moment.
The two main reasons my husband and I were not on twitter was first we thought it could only be done on cellphones (which we didn't have until 2 months ago) and the issue of the GPS tracking using the tweets. Problem one is now resolved, and I waffle a little bit on the being able to locate my whereabouts using my mobile devices. I see both sides of this as a mom I like it, having the ability to know the location of my family members and them mine, BUT (yes it is a big but) I like my anonymity which was why we went so long without mobile devices in the first place. Just like my sister-in-law and I were discussing last week with two small children having a little time to your self can be an impossibility, and when people are following or you are following them with this technology that time can become even more nonexistent. This jury is still out, maybe if I can get better at using the microblog/twitter technology some of my fears will be eliminated, but until that time I may wait to integrate this technology into my professional life.
You should contact Angie Spann @ spanna@sw1.k12.wy.us and toos around ideas on technology and media. She is my "go to" gal when I want to know new things and she is forever trying new things and using a variety of cool resources. She is the high school librarian at Rock Springs High.
ReplyDeleteGood post, yet again! 10/10
I liked your honesty about setting up an account back in April and not knowing it it worked or not. That is me too. I set one up back in the spring when I was planning for this course and did not ever see responses so gave up. Tried again a few weeks ago and still nothing. I think I am missing a step or two.