I'm enjoying Twitter and am impressed by the amount of information the few people I follow have exposed me to. I feel like my eyes have really been opened up and I'm seeing that there is a much larger and powerful community that believes in many of the same things we do and have incorporated, successfully, much of our discussions into their teaching for the benefit of their students. I'm actually sorry that some of these tools and the discussions they reveal were not put into our program at an earlier time.
I feel the same way about social bookmarking. I would have liked and I think it would have been meaningful for at MEIT Cardinal Stritch Diigo group to have been created at the beginning of our cohort. I could only imagine the number of resources that could have been gathered and shared by this point in our journey. I will definitely be using Diigo with my students this year. First for individuals to be able to keep notes on the computer and have Diigo compile them all into one place organized by resource is a huge improvement over the pen and pencil model of the past. The second benefit I hope to gain is real collaboration in the research process and can take place inside and outside of the classroom.
I feel like an idiot for not having thought of that before, Jason, but you're right! A social bookmarking site for our class would have been fantastic! Maybe it's not too late to get one going. I'd love to know what everyone else is using and having success with in their classrooms. Having created a Delicious account for my students has also been a great thing - I just wished I had known of it sooner, along with many other things we're doing in this program. I would agree that it would be helpful to have some of this stuff earlier on - or at least last summer so that I could have incorporated them into my classes now and made better plans for them.
ReplyDeleteI am also fascinated with Twitter and how much info is out there, but I have to admit that I feel like the lazy bird who is mooching the worms from everyone else. I have contributed very little but have gained a ton. What are your favorites? I'm really diggin' TeacherTube myself. I'm so into the visual stuff right now so any resources involving them is perfect for me.
Great idea with the Stritch Diigo Jason. I constantly feel overwhelmed when we learn about a new tool or website and I think a social bookmarking site definitely would have helped. My only complaint about Twitter is that I really don't have much to say and sometimes I feel like it's hard to find certain organizations. I agree with Kara on Teacher Tube but I'm curious to hear about the different people/groups that you are following.
ReplyDeleteDiigo must be an invaluable resource for 7th grade geography. These kids are ready to pick up the tech tool and there are so many resources for geography out there that narrowing down the field must be important. My favorite part of using Twitter is the sharing of information. I have not quite adopted it as a personal network, but I have had some great resources share via tweets.
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