Let's Tweet!

There are more and more tools, which can be used on teaching and learning, such as blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and so on.

I’ve heard about Twitter, a kind of microblog, a long time ago, but not until I learned how to use it and read the artile: How Twitter will revolutionise academic research and teaching, do I realize how potentially it can be used in teaching/learning. 

I personally feel that Twitter is suitable for students to turn in vocabulary assignment.  What if I was the teacher, I would upload a new word or phrase, and ask the students to write down its meaning and make a sentence.  Since every tweet is limited to 140 characters, and the answer to the assignment is going to be short, it would be a perfect tool to apply.

Besides, the function of @name of Twitter is a really convenient.  The teacher can directly reply to specific student and give suggestion or make correction, and s/he can make sure that the student sees the reply. This function can save time and make things easier.

What’s more, the hashtag function helps people to search a precise category they are looking for.  Once the students click on the hashtag, they can reply to the particular question directly, which makes it organized and time-saving. 

For teachers, they can receive the latest educational concept since they can follow educators on Twitter.  Also, they can reply to the tweet and have discussion with other education experts.  

You can learn more advantages and ways of using Twitter as a teaching tool by reading 28 Creative Wyas Teachers Are Using Twitter.

Networking Webstie

     I just found this website, EFL Classroom 2.0,  interesting and useful.

     It has over 20,000 members all around the world.  Each one of them can share their thought and experience.  Once one had posted an article, people can share or comment it.  It will make you feel really interacting with each other, and feeling being supported.  Besides, in the Tool column, it has many tools for the teacher to download or use in his/her teaching.  Also, there are many educational videos which the teachers can watch and learn from them.  It provides some teaching method about listening, grammar, phonetics, pronunciation, and so on.  There is one item called “karaoke” raises my interests.  It lists some songs with catchy tune which the teacher can use in class to help students learn in a happily way.  What’s more, there are links of various library websites so that the user can choose whichever website they want to visit.

     It is really a cool website, which can give the teacher many resources and support, especially when almost all the members are educators.  The teacher can learn and share experience with members.  After the teacher gaining some new knowledge from this website, and apply it in his/her teaching, it can lead to a better educational circumstance in our real life.

A Teacher Is...

     A teacher is like surveillance camera today.

       As the technology is developing in an amazing speed nowadays, the students are able to gain knowledge from various aspects, such as through the Internet, TV programs, etc.  However, in this info-exploded society, students may not know what is right and correct, and will probably take whatever they have seen.  The teacher then plays a crucial role to keep a watchful eye on his/her students.  George Siemens states in his article: New information is continually being acquired. The ability to draw distinctions between important and unimportant information is vital.  It is the educators’ responsibility to oversee the behavior of the students, and to teach them what is true and false on the Internet.  Besides, the students should be taught how to tell what is important and unimportant information among  overwhelmed data.

     Moreover, Siemens, G. stresses, “Learning (defined as actionable knowledge) can reside outside of ourselves (within an organization or a database), is focused on connecting specialized information sets, and the connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing.”  It truly easy and convenient to gain knowledge now.  With just one click, we can acquire whatever we want to learn and know.  Thus, some people may be fooled around with the fake information, which is posted on the Internet.  For me, the tool should be just the assistant instead of the commander.  It is us who use the tool, instead of being used by the tool.  How to use the tool properly to make it a helpful material for us is insignificant.

     The rise of community websites, for example, Facebook, Twitter, My Space, and so on, has led a dramatically change on the way people communicate.  He also explains in the video, “The software is a tool allows individual to form communication with each other,” and “Our learning today is one of the forming network with each other.”  Since the communication involves in more technology now than before, we should pay attention to this specific communicate way.  It can interfere in a either good or bad way.  That is why the teacher has to supervise his/her students all the time to make sure they are not distracted from the regular route.