Happy International Potter Day! This morning after pulling myself out of bed following three hours of sleep following the midnight release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, we had our second meeting of Educ 504. The focus of today's meeting was professional twitter resources for educators, educational bloggers, and educational technology product reviews.
Coming away from today's guess presentation by Ms. Antonio Barkley (@antoniabarkley) I gained some valuable individuals to follow on twitter. I came in today expecting to gain some ideas about using twitter in a mathematics/physics class. However, today's lecture was much more along the lines of professional contacts and educational chats using twitter. Antonio's list of educational twitter contacts was extensive and I hope to gain some valuable ideas and networking contacts from these lists. The twitter chats she suggested is new to me. My experience with using #tags was along the line of following trends on twitter. I hope to join the #ntchat this Wednesday night at 8pm EST. This would be a first for me, so I hope to gain some valuable insight from this chat.
Our next discussion was on interesting educational bloggers to follow online. From a quick look at the list provided on the 504 wiki page, two blogs stood out for me. Built on Facts is a physics education blog, focusing on the instruction of theoretical physics from both a historical and pop culture point of view. I believe an important consideration when instruction those of the younger generation, one of the most important considerations in designing lessons is to make the lessons accessible and culturally relevant. The other blog I am interested in following is (Hurricane Maine). Hurricane Maine is a blog focusing on biology education. From a quick examination, of the blog. It appears to focus more on curriculum design and standards.
The most surprising part of educ504 today was at the end. An important project for this course is an educational product review. We were paired off with an individual to review a new educational product. My product to review is the Adobe Creative Suite 5. My eyes went big when I was handed the software. This is a $900 piece of software I get to play with on my pc for the weekend. I admit graphic design is my weakness when it comes to software, especially design with flash. It will be fun playing with it and seeing how the suite can help with my teaching.
I was glad that today's lesson focused mostly on the professional side of Twitter, using it to gain professional contacts and educational resources, rather than on how to use it in the classroom. I am still somewhat skeptical about the latter, mostly because I feel it would distract the students if used in class and because I do not want to assume that every student would have access to the Internet. I wonder how often Twitter is actually used in a classroom and, when used, what type of benefits the students actually gained from it. It's something to research, I suppose!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you in that I thought class on Friday was going to be more along the lines of how to incorporate Twitter into the classroom. I was glad to hear Antonia talk about all of the useful information she has found on Twitter chats and streams. That is really encouraging to me as I also didn't know too much about how it all worked. Like Kaitlyn I am a bit skeptical about incorporating Twitter (most technology actually) into the classroom as I think it would be a big distraction for students.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that it is important to design lessons that are culturally relevant and accessible to students. I think it's important to keep up with the times as a teacher, and make good use of all the information we can access through things such as Twitter.
I'm happy to see that you have found some good educational bloggers you want to follow. I think keeping up to date with the latest discoveries and blogs by educators can prove to be very useful.
I hope you're enjoying your Adobe Creative Suite software this weekend! :)
You have a steal of a deal getting Adobe Creative Suite 5 for your product review! We might be able to keep the products after we are done! Some people only had a free download from the internet. Talk about a luck card draw! You should play the lotto, quick!
ReplyDeleteThank you for being helpful in class for those of us not so savvy Twitter people. Your willingness to help others out is super helpful in creating a community atmosphere.
Perhaps you could send out an email reminder to people about the #ntchat opportunity on Wednesday night with a little reminder on how to view it. That could help your cohorts get some practical experience with Twitter to add it to our arsenal.
Thanks Amanda! I plan on attending the #ntchat twitter chat on Wednesday. So, I will send out a couple invites to the class through email and twitter.
ReplyDeleteBoy, was I glad that you got the Adobe suite that you did after being so disappointed that Acrobat wasn't your pick. The big question for me is, as you say, what the PEDAGOGICAL value of the package is. In the meantime, enjoy Photoshoppping birds onto Jeff's head.
ReplyDeletePS - To those of you who didn't get a product you were dying to review, they are sending more!
I am also following Built on Facts! I'll be interested to discuss what we each think of it after a bit more exposure.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I am so jealous that you got the Adobe suite! But reviewing will be a good experience for all of us, even the ones without the $900 software.