Week 10: Blog post 12: Using Twitter for teaching and learning

Section I: Learning from hashtags

Browse the educational hashtags in the links provided in Week 10 and choose one hashtag that you are interested in. Browse tweets with that hashtag on Twitter. You should be able to find a lot of resources and ideas related to that topic. Report what you learned from the hashtag on Twitter. In your post, include the hashtag you focused on and the links of the sources for your learning. 

A hashtag that I was interested in finding out more about was #TeacherPD. When following that hashtag, I found ideas like 10 smart ways to end the school day, an article about how to get teachers to love math, free webinars, project vs. project based learning and 20 things you can learn in 10 minutes to become a better teacher. I followed a link about 20 things you can learn in ten minutes to become a better teacher. There were ideas shared like what the purpose of an assessment is, how to share files via GoogleDrive, alternatives to letter grades and three differentiation strategies. This article is a good refresher for all teachers, whether they are experienced or not.

         Another link I followed from the hashtag was how teachers can grow by embracing their mistakes. As a teacher, there are so many things that can go wrong! But, it is important to know this so that we can acknowledge our mistakes and grow from them!

Section II: Ideas for using Twitter for teaching and learning

Based on the readings in this week, and your own experience in using Twitter, discuss at least three ideas for using Twitter for teaching and learning. Be specific about the grade level, subject area, and what you or your students will do with Twitter. 

Twitter can be a good tool to use in the classroom. Because I teach all subjects for a third grade classroom, there are many ways I can use the tool. The first way I would use twitter is to connect to the students and parents in my classroom. If all the families had a Twitter account we could easily connect all together and can start our own hashtags! Another way I would use Twitter with my students would be to share hashtags with them. They could use the hashtag to find a certain assignment, article or website that they may need to work on. Another way my students could use Twitter would be to share their own ideas and projects online. They could post about whatever we are working on a start a discussion about the work they did. They could also include a hashtag and link about their project so that I can see their assignment as well as their classmates.

         Although my experience with Twitter is very limited, I think it would be a good tool to use in the classroom and with practice, could be an even more valuable tool. I think the students would like to use it in the classroom because they are probably hearing about it on television and maybe from older siblings, so it would be seen as something cool and an exciting treat. I hope to use it in my own classroom in the near future!

Blog post 11: Using Edmodo for teaching and learning

Week 9: Blog post 11: Using Edmodo for teaching and learning

Based on the readings in this week, and your own experience in using Edmodo, write a post to discuss at least three ideas for using Edmodo for teaching and learning. Be specific about the grade level, subject area, and what you or your students will do with Edmodo. 

Edmodo.com is an online educational community that can be used in classrooms to make online learning a possibility. In my third grade classroom, I would use Edmodo for Snapshot assessing, student writing projects and for online book clubs and literature circles. 

Edmodo has its own form of assessing, which is called Snapshot. In this assessment, the teacher can choose objectives in which she wants to see where the students are and the program generates questions based on the objectives. This is very useful and efficient for teachers because it creates high quality questions for the teacher and the teacher can save time by not having to create the questions. Also, the program generates a score for the student’s performance. With those results, the teacher is able to see if the students are understanding the objectives and where there may need to be more reteaching.

Another way I would use Edmodo in my class is to create student writing assignments and other homework assignments. It is really simple to create and grade assignments on this program and it would be good for students to be able to do it in an electronic format. I think I would use it for writing prompts and the writing process because it would be easy to conference with the student online and be able to give the student comments and notes on their writing in an electronic format.

A third way I would use Edmodo in my classroom is to create groups within my class that could serve as book clubs and literature circles. If I could create groups and assign certain roles to certain students, it would allow students to collaborate and work together on this online community.

From what I have learned this week and with my experience with Edmodo, the possibilities are endless. Edmodo is a great tool to be able to use as a teacher and to get the students learning and working online is invaluable for current students because they are so well versed in technology and are so naturally good at it! Edmodo is a tool I will hope to implement in my classroom!

Blog Post 10: Self-Directed Learning Using Feedly

One of the posts I read that I follow on Feedly was titled “7 New Educational Web Tools for Teachers” In this post, the author shared seven web tools that can make a teachers work easier and more efficient! One of the tools is called Meta. It is a tool that allows you to search your websites as well as your documents and desktop to be able to find exactly what you are looking for. This can come in handy if you are looking for a file and cannot remember where you saved it to! Another tool that I found useful is Remotely. This tool allows you to access your desktop computer from anywhere that internet connection is available. I think this could be very useful to be able to access your school desktop from home and your home desktop from school. In case you ever forget something or have work that you need to do but you did it on a computer you do not have access to, this can come in handy. One last tool that I would like to discuss that I found useful is JuniorTube. This is like YouTube, but only has videos for children under thirteen that have been preapproved. This is invaluable for a teacher and for parents so that we do not have to worry that our kids may be watching something that they should not be.

http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2016/10/7-new-educational-web-tools-for-teachers.html

            Another post that I follow on Feedly and enjoyed reading was “Here is How to Teach Writing Using Technology”. This article goes through the four main steps of the writing process: pre-writing, which includes writing prompts and mind maps, writing, revising and editing, and publishing and sharing. Under each category in the article, there is a brief description of what the student will be doing while in the section of the writing process and there are several links to educational technology tools that can be used to teach the are and for the students to work on their writing in the area. This article and the links provided to the various tools can be very valuable for a teacher that would like to teach and work in the writing process in a new and exciting way, rather than with only paper and pencil. Also, once the students are familiar with working with the tools, I think it would be a much more efficient and quick way to teach and practice the writing process.

http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2016/10/here-is-how-to-teach-writing-using.html