Thing 2: Online Communities & Personal Learning Networks

 

Option 3: Veteran Tweeters

While in no way do I consider myself a veteran tweeter, I chose this option because I've had a twitter account for several years, but apparently have not really used it to it's full advantage!
I do get ideas for the classroom from Twitter all the time, but I don't participate in twitter chats or tweet my own stuff very often. I did not know you could create a list in twitter (like this one by Polly Alida-Farrington).

I used the advanced search feature and search for "common core" and #tlchat and got some great results.

I was confused by a line in Cool Tools Blog post that read "follow the hashtag #tlchat." Can you follow hashtags like you can users? I'm still not sure how to do that.

I LOVE the #tlchat hashtag. I have found so many new people to follow. I want to spend some time creating lists. Because I use my account primarily for work, I need to come up some relevant categories for my lists. I think I will keep library specific tweets on one list, ed tech on another, and publishers on another.

I am excited to share all the new things I learned about Twitter with my students and co-workers. I think I may feature some of this at my presentation during this months faculty meeting.

I still think I have a lot to learn about twitter and am looking forward to trying out some new things. Thanks to the blog post by Allison Kowalski, I have just started experimenting with TweetDeck.





Completely unrelated side note.

During this weeks assignment I came across this twitter war between a comedian and a salsa company. It turned out to be a prank in the end, but it was the most fun I've had reading tweets EVER.

Thing 1: Blogging

My name is Sarah Jones. Previously I taught health at Southside High School in Elmira. I was a ninth grade teacher there for eight years. I made the jump to Library Media Specialist last year. I currently work at Horseheads Middle School and am loving it!
I'm taking this course because I am attempting to take more of a leadership role in my building by offering monthly volunteer professional development opportunities to staff. I also offer a monthly tip at faculty meetings and thought this might be a great place to get some ideas.
I wish I had these resources two months ago! I started blogging with health classes here recently and it never occurred to me to show the Common Craft video to them (even though I am OBSESSED with them). We are using KidBlog and they really seem to like it. I wish I could get them to engage in higher level questioning and conversation a little more with less prompting from me, but maybe in time.  I agree with Paul Wagner when states that we do a poor job of teaching the cyber safety piece. Teachers are SO crunched for time already, I know many can't possible imagine adding one more thing into the mix.
I'm excited to learn new things with all of you this year!

Sarah