I have chosen to create a Twitter page for my social media component. Twitter is a tool that I use in my personal life to keep up with home decor, cooking, educational, and lifestyle bloggers and websites, news site such as my local news, NHPR and NPR (and some of their hosts) and more. Twitter works well for me because I can follow these types of people/organizations, as well as co-workers, friends, and family. When I log on, I can easily sort through headlines, photos, articles, recipes, etc., while quickly keeping up with topics of interest. If I have a particular interest or query, I can easily search for additional tweets from experts, bloggers, individuals, and organizations.
In the educational world, I felt that these qualities were applicable and beneficial. When communicating with parents, who in my situation are the audience of any written communication, I want them to have easy and convenient access and be able to quickly find items of interest. Parents can access my classroom's Twitter feed via the internet or an app on a tablet or smartphone. I have begun and plan to continue to post content related to my nocturnal animals WebQuest such as videos, games, webpages, and links to suggested books. I will also plan to post articles related to preschool activities, technology integration, classroom announcements, and both classroom and school-wide documents, links, newsletters, etc.
The benefit of this type of communication goes beyond convenience and ease. Parents could contribute by sharing posts with me, enabling other parents to read the articles, see the activities, or benefit from the information that they find interesting. As the page's manager, I can control what of that information that I post to the whole page to be sure it's relevant, credible, and helpful. As someone who uses socia medica personally, I know that it is a way that I prefer to interact with the people I know. I'm not a parent, but if I was, this would definitely be a way that I would be interested in interacting with my child's school.
Older students, of course, could be the users of a tech tool such as Twitter. Students could show what they know and understand by creating a Twitter feed and including relevant information, creating their own tweets with their comments, thoughts, and questions, and be interacting with classmates, content experts, and their instructors. Another argument for the use of social media technology in the classroom is student engagement. Teachers are constantly having to rival students' smartphones- why not join them rather than trying to beat them? Allowing students to participate via social media might engage a new set if student who may not have the confidence or interest to raise their hand and/or speak in front of their class. Reading Meenakshi's article, Digital Learning, helped me to think about social media use in an entirely different manner. "A study at the Purdue University established that use of Twitter in the classroom helped students overcome the shyness barrier, by allowing them to answer questions without having to raise hands to identify themselves in a big lecture hall. Increased participation, in turn, has been linked to better academic performance overall. Increased communication also opens up perspectives and allows one to appreciate different points of view" (Meenakshi, 2012). I think that it's important to consider inclusion of all students- and this may be an easy and fun way to ensure inclusion of students who might be more shy or less comfortable speaking in class.
Meenakshi's article also helped me to consider why the use of Twitter was a good choice. It's stated that social media benefits students by "enlarging and enriching the universe from which one can draw upon for experiences and acquaintances" (2012). This is exactly why I chose this tool to include in my WebQuest and create for my classroom. I am hoping to enlarge the experience past just my own ideas and thoughts, to include the resources and research of others. This is done in a way that does not remove the idea, article, activity from the creator or writer, as it is always traceable. This is an easy to way to ensure that anything share gives credit to the original author.
I'm looking forward to continuing to grow my Twitter feed. I'm on the lookout for other resources related to my WebQuest or other related topics such as technology integration, preschool activities, articles for parents, and more. I made the choice to use this particular tool because of the quick access it provides, and the fact that items are always left credited to the appropriate sources. Twitter is definitely a purposeful and beneficial tool for teachers, and I'm looking forward to trying it out in my classoom!
Please check out my Twitter page here: https://twitter.com/Efortier918
My Twitter page is also embedded in my WebQuest site here: https://sites.google.com/site/webquestpreschoolef/class-blog
Below is a screen capture of some of my tweets:
Resources:
Meenakshi. (2012, 05). Social media in education. Digital Learning, Retrieved from http://ezproxy.snhu.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1010988112?accountid=3783
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