When I first found out that we had to create a blog and twitter account I felt frustrated and confused. Frustrated, because I knew little about twitter and creating blogs. What I knew at the time was that people used them to communicate with other across the web. I felt confused because I thought if it as more of a social piece than a way to get educational information and insights.
When I first started searching on twitter for people to follow I was having a hard time finding people who had sufficient information about the topic I was searching and it looked really confusing to me. Then I realized that I had to click on the links and that is where I found some interesting links about education. I found an article through twitter called, "State needs to refocus on teaching our children." I learned some interesting information regarding NYS regents exams and how the Board of Regents is now telling us that the regents exams are flawed. If teachers have been designing instruction around state standards and regents exams what are they supposed to do now? Are districts going to change curriculum? Now that I am aware of this issue I can go on to twitter and search this issue to see what other people are saying. This is a great way to network with other people on controversial issues.
I found a great blog on the Google reader about collaborative teaching for Ells. This article was very interesting to me because that is what I am doing right now in my practicum. It discussed positive and negative comments collaborative ESL teaching. I would like to try some of the strategies she mentions about successful collaborative teaching and I am even thinking about responding to her blog! I would like to ask her some more questions about the implementation of the collaborative strategies.
I have learned that twitter and blogging are a great way to network with other people. Even though I probably will not continue to use my twitter account I will be checking my Google reader for other interesting information about ESL and maybe even some other topics.
Click here for a link to collaborative teaching for ELLs blog
I am sorry I didn't make it more clear about how to use Twitter. Keep in mind that there is a way to find blogs on Google Reader through browse, etc. but actually you can find blogs anywhere then SUBSCRIBE to them using the RSS feed and read them in your Reader instead of checking 10+ different sites.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes...communicate to the blog writers and twitters....it's taking part in the conversation that becomes valuable. What else did you learn from reading the blogs you listed in your last post?