Journal 4

Journal 4: "Join the Flock," and “Enhance Your Twitter Experience,” NETS-4, 3, and 5

Ferguson, H. (2012). By join the flock!. Learning and Leading with Technology, 39(8), Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-leading/issues/june-july-2010/join-the-flock!

McClintock Miller, S. (2010). Enhance you Twitter Experience. Learning and Leading with Technology, 37(8), 14-17. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-leading/digitaledition/digital-edition-february-2013

Building a PLN is a great online tool which helps students, teachers, and people simply wanting to learn to collaborate and share their knowledge with others. The internet contains a vast amount of never ending information. Creating a Twitter account for educational purposes, allows one to discover more information more time efficiently. Fortunately, the task is easy and involves creating an account, following people who share the same interests, joining groups with people who share knowledgeable information, and sharing your own personal discoveries or anything you find interesting. This is an easy method for discovering alternate teaching methods, sharing fun and exciting curriculums, as well as expressing personal thoughts regarding education. According to Swan and Park, Twitter can also be used to eventually organize material and find particular useful information. Following lists can be organized into different categories such as friends, work, education, ect, to make Twitter more easily accessible. Thus far, I enjoyed created my Twitter account for EDU 422 and I have found many interesting sites to explore regarding educational ideas and curriculums.

       1.      Should students be required to create a Twitter account for school and education purposes? What are the downsides if any?

Twitter would be a great way for students to connect with each other via internet. They can share ideas, fun educational websites, or even post homework problems/questions. Additionally, PLN would help improve students’ skills in using technology as well as searching the web, creating accounts, and communicating via internet. A possible issue could be students utilizing Twitter for non-scholastic purposes such as personal social groups, dangerous/inappropriate websites, ect. To combat this issue, schools could possibly create Twitter groups which allow students to only connect with teachers, administrators, or other students.

       2.      Would it be possible for students or teachers to only access their school or classroom material?

One of the negative sides of Twitter is the frustration of a hundreds of Tweets and messages that members receive when following a larger number of people. Twitter offers other programs such as TweetDeck and HootSuite to organize and manage Twitter accounts. Students or teachers can filter through the Tweets they receive in order to easily access their favorite or wanted material. By using personalized lists or hashtags users can connect only with people/information that they are interested in.