Twitter is dumb

Twitter can be useful for people staying up with the latest fashion trends, celebrity gossip, trivial knowledge, and even breaking news. Despite these awesome pros of using twitter, if you don't have a smartphone, it's pointless. The information that is posted on twitter is only relevant for people who sit and stare at their twitterfeed 24/7/365.

That being said, there is one way to cheat twitter's adhd inducing characteristics that can make it a useful tool for educators and other professionals; provided they have a smartphone... Tweets can be tracked, (as mentioned in the "28 Creative Ways Teachers are Using Twitter" article, 28 Creative Ways teachers are using Twitter) to discover trends and to see students' and other teachers' progress and findings.

Other than this, however, the rest of the article seems to suggest classroom-disrupting and distracting behaviors for the 21st century student. I hope I am not hurting anyone's feelings by taking this stance, but tweeting the answers to questions in the middle of class seems to be detrimental to the learning process. I feel that if the teacher and students are meeting in a classroom on a regular basis, it stands to reason that the students ought to be expected to raise their hands to answer a question posed. Also, God forbid a student should have to use a pen and paper to take a quiz or test.

There is one bright spot to all of this... I found in Using Twitter as an Educational Tool that Twitter is a great way for connecting students in countries around the world, and providing a place where they can discuss topics and share ideas.  The example that I thought was truly ingenious was that Twitter is the perfect online platform to tell collaborative stories, using posts from kids anywhere in the world.  Since they are limited to 140 characters, everyone has an equal say in the development of the tale.

I understand that Twitter can be helpful for someone with enough technology on-hand to look like an 80's action movie villain, but for most people, especially in the ESL field, money isn't the most plentiful thing in life, and twitter may be a bit unreasonable for the classroom. That being said, the opportunity for the exchange of new ideas and classroom activities is endless, and for a teacher making a lesson plan, or seeking help on how to reach a struggling pupil, Twitter may just provide you with some quick answers.

Social Networks FTW!

Howdy readers! TESOL EVOnline is a cool Yahoo Group site dedicated to ESL/EFL where teachers and enthusiasts can post helpful and interesting things to share! They can also reply to things others have posted. This type of networking site speeds up the process of idea --> sharing. We've come such a long way from communication with tin cans and a string, haven't we?!

A Learner is Like...

A learner is like a vacuum.  Always taking in new information at a blistering pace can make your head spin, but the way we live now has shaped the way we pick up new things.  Ample information and knowledge also comes with a sizable amount of garbage.  The only problem with all of the knowledge around us is how do we know what's important, and better yet, what is going to be important tomorrow, or the next day?  A learner has a filter that may need to be emptied of all of the excess crap once in a while, but in addition to the new version of humans' affinity for everything noteworthy, this filter is capable of weeding out what's important, to themselves at least.  With a HEPA-like filter on board, humans are becoming proficient at finding the big news, and remembering it.  But where does our brain go, naturally, for all of this knowledge, you ask? George Siemens says in The Impact of Social Software on Learning: "It really boils down to our ability to have a dialogue."  This relates to the vacuum model because our social interaction, (the basis of Socio-cultural learning theory), is the shag carpet that our cranial Kirby scours every waking moment. 

When social networking first started to get big, people could learn from their friends even when their friends weren't literally teaching.  A person could all of a sudden share things with anyone they associate with, all the time! Someone you once knew could now make a comment on line, and very out in the open, which you might read immediately, or even days or weeks later, that could change the way you think, act, or even do your job.  Karen Stephenson says in Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age by George Siemens: "Since we cannot experience everything, other people’s experiences, and hence other people, become the surrogate for knowledge."  By this she says expertly that everyone we know has now become everything we know.  

Great list of tech tools for educators!

One of the blogs I follow on Google Reader has a particularly interesting and, (I believe), helpful list of online tools that can be utilized in such a way as to promote learning in and out of the classroom setting.

One that I found especially interesting is called Scrumblr, and can be found at scrumblr.ca! This tool is so epic that it acts as a virtual dry-erase board which can be accessed remotely as if in a classroom collaborative setting!

So without further ado, here's the list I found on Teaching Generation Now:

50 educational tech tools list

21st Century Education in New Brunswick

New Brunswick, Canada

This video was very enlightening! I learned a lot of things about how quickly the world is advancing today, and how we must make sure that our children's education is not only keeping up, but putting them ahead of the curve. The most striking fact that the video presented was that the top 10 jobs today didn't exist in 2004. I found this to be astonishing, and rather scary. I hope that by harnessing technology, we can allow kids to be the wave, rather than just hold on for dear life. I also hope to make it so that New Brunswick isn't the only place in the world where kids are provided with this opportunity!

21st Century Education in New Brunswick

Internet Safety and You with Garfield!

Students,

If you can read this, you've found my blog! Phase 1: COMPLETE!

So, for Phase 2, I want to tell you all a few things about protecting yourself on the internet. I'm posting a link at the bottom of this post to a site that has instructional videos about all sorts of ninja techniques for staying safe as you browse the internet!

Never, under any circumstances, divulge (big word, huh?! look it up!!) any information about  your "YAPPY" to anyone else online! Garfield describes what YAPPY is in the video, but I'll tell you here too:
Your name
Addresses
Phone number
Passwords
Your plans

Feel free to check out the other videos of Garfield and his friends about being safe on the internet, and remember: SURF SMART!

Here's a link to the site: Professor Garfield!

Blog Post #1: Using blogs to meet standards

 3 Ways to use blogs to teach English, while meeting the TESOL standards are:

1) To meet the listening and reading requirements of the TESOL standards, I could post interesting articles and youtube clips on my blog for students to read and watch.  This sort of extracurricular English language involvement can help kids who have to stay home sick, or those who need some extra help understanding English in certain contexts.  Another way this can help the students is by providing extracurricular English to kids in families without an English-speaking environment at home.

• Reading
• English language learners process, interpret, and evaluate written language, symbols, and text with understanding and fluency. Learning to read in a second language may be enhanced or hindered by students’ level of literacy in their native language. Students who have a strong foundation in reading in their first language bring with them skills that can be readily transferred in the process of learning to read in English.

2) Along the lines of the first possibility that blogs allow for in ESL teaching is the opportunity for kids to respond to the teacher's blog posts in English to show comprehension and literacy.  This fulfills the writing aspect of the TESOL standards.  This can also help students at proficiency levels 3, 4, and 5!

• Writing
• English language learners use written communication for a variety of purposes and audiences. Writing can be used to express meaning through drawing, symbols, or text. English language learners may come with writing styles influenced by their home cultures.

3) The blog also allows students to ask questions outside of school hours, and receive a response from not only the teacher, but other students can discuss and solve problems.  This encourages peer-mediation from the sociocultural theory of language acquisition, and helps students become more engaged in their English language learning because nowadays they are already on the internet.Above all, this expands far beyond the obligations of the first standard of TESOL.

•  Standard 1: English language learners communicate for social, intercultural, and instructional purposes within the school setting.

TESOL Standards