Journal 5 NETS 2

I read an analyzed an article relating to technology in education, and I provided a summary/response to it, along with proposed questions and answers.

Hopkins, D. (2010, May 9). Twitter tips: for teachers and educators. Retrieved from http://www.dontwasteyourtime.co.uk/twitter/twitter-tips-for-teachers-educators-2/

Summary:
David Hopkins discusses how to use Twitter, along with the benefits of incorporating it into the classroom. Before diving into the world of Twitter, he suggests that you first create a goal for your Twitter use, otherwise you'll just get lost. This will help you gain the most from your experience. You would then need to create a profile, including a biography about yourself, as well as a photo. He advises you to put relevant information in your profile bio. In the future, mine might include: Speech Pathologist, Teacher, Children Services, Volunteer etc. The profile picture or avatar should be appropriate, and shouldn't be a photo of you drinking or an animated picture of a television character who loves beer and donuts ;) When ready to post information, make sure you don't pass stuff off as your own. You can prevent this by putting ReTweet (RT) before your post. When looking for people to follow, a suggestion is to look at who other people are following. Don't get caught up on how many people you are following, or how many people are following you. The goal is to learn and make relevant connections with people, not a popularity contest. There may be times where automated systems try to follow you. Hopkins says to not be afraid to block these, or even block people who you don't have similarities with. Along with these helpful tips, he also discusses how teachers have experimented using Twitter in the classroom, and how it allows teachers and students to connect around the world learning new techniques on elearning.

Q1: Will Twitter be more commonly used in the classroom?

A1: I think that we will be seeing more of Twitter in the classrooms, or at least in regards to education. I would still consider Twitter fairly new, and think that a lot of people, including myself a few weeks ago, have a misunderstood idea of what it is used for. Many people think it is just a social networking site that people post irrelevant information about themselves on. I think that once more people see how it can be used professionally, we will be seeing it used for education more.

Q2: How will Twitter give teachers new techniques on elearning, as stated by Hopkins.

A2: One of the things I've learned about Twitter is that you can make many new connections and friendships with people in the same field as you. If you want to learn more about using tech in the classroom, or creative ways of teaching about the internet, you can simply look for people with these topics in their profile, and 'follow' them. Once you build a group of people to follow, they will be posting or retweeting information that could be beneficial to you. I'm sure that many teachers share techniques that have worked in their classroom, and other teachers can learn these new techniques and also implement them.