Twitter Chats

I joined Twitter two or three years ago prior to attending a NETA conference.  I was told that my experience at NETA would be enhanced if I followed the hashtags and added to the discussion.  When I arrived at the NETA conference, there was so much information that I actually never used Twitter that day.  Since then, I deleted the app and have not been on Twitter until I completed this assignment.

I had heard of educational chats on Twitter before and I am glad I was able to experience it for myself.  I joined a #moed chat about feedback to students.  At first, I was overwhelmed trying to keep up with all of the posts.  However, once I got the hang of it, I enjoyed the experience.  It was exciting to see people from all over the country join together to share ideas and insight.  Some thought-provoking questions were posed and I learned from the variety of answers that were shared.  What an exciting learning environment!  I even took notes about the comments I wanted to remember.  I also saved several articles that I want to read in relation to the topic.

Twitter chats are an area that I want to explore more and I plan to join more chats in the near future.

This is a tool for feedback that I learned from the chat.  I plan to use it!

 

Preparing for the 21st Century

After reading the assigned article, I was excited to try some of the new literacies.  I am inspired by the Internet workshops and Internet projects.  I think both of those literacies can connect easily with my first grade curriculum.  Currently, our writing unit is called “Authors as Mentors.”  During this unit, we study a book and find a craft that makes that book so appealing and entertaining to read.  We look deeply at the authors and encourage students to try some of these crafts.  My plan is to let students visit an author’s home page and learn about the author.  Through this workshop students can write down one fact they learned about the author such as how the author comes up with ideas for books.   Students can then share their facts.  I think this would be very motivating for students because several of my first graders struggle to come up with ideas to write a small moment story about.  They can connect to the author and feel successful through this project.  I would create a jumpcode to the link or links they should study.  I also could add it to our class symbaloo website so students can easily access the sites at home or at school.  I can also share this activity with my team members, so all of first grade can experience a Internet workshop.

Another idea I have in my mind, is to somehow Skype or send emails to other classrooms.  My mother, brother-in-law, and several friends are teachers at other schools.  It would be fun to provide students with insight to other classrooms through the Internet.  Perhaps later, I could expand to another state or country!