Mod 7. How might I use microblogs for teaching?

I registered for Twitter more than 3 years ago, but within a week after registration, I have stopped using it even in my first language. The reason was because I had to check overwhelming amount of updated posts every day and could not keep up with the speed of posting.

In class activities, teachers can use micro-blogs for taking a survey simply asking if students think yes/no or multiple choices. In addition, if students need opinions and comments from outsiders for completing projects, they might use the tool effectively.

Honestly, I do not think using micro-blogging for classroom activities is highly beneficial, because tweets might be mere piles of shallower-thought posts than blogging.  If you compare these two tools, blogging would need a certain consideration and elaboration for publishing our thoughts. On the other hand, micro-blogging might not have to be such a thoughtful post because hundreds of tweets appear and disappear in an instant; or rather, ‘quickness’ of posting and reply might be a key characteristic for any activities using micro-blogging. Therefore, there might be some problems when you use micro-blogging in class activities. For example, if some people in a class have smartphones and some do not, those who do not have ones need to sit in front of a computer when they want to access it; otherwise, they will miss opportunity to join a conversation.

Two articles I have read for writing this post (1) "Can we use Twitter for educational activities?" and 2) "7 things you should know about microblogging") also discussed both advantages and disadvantages of micro-blogging. I would focus on bad points here; for example, microblogging might make students, especially who can access it via smartphones, addictive to the Internet. Since they do not know when new information arrives in their devices, they need to check their teacher’s micro-blog many times a day. It will not be an appropriate use of technology because the purpose of using technology in a classroom is to make them smart users of technology not technology ‘geeks.’

I guess it is difficult for micro-blogging to survive as an excellent learning tool in the future because it does not have many advantages when compared with facebook, Voice thread, or blogging, because micro-blogging originally aimed at communicating one’s thoughts or state to others privately not publicly such as social networking. Just like you might not want to read teachers hundreds of private tweets only for finding deadline for submitting an assignment. In this case, e-mail would be a better tool to send the message to students. Teachers should be careful for making proper use of the useful tools.

On the other hand, as for professional development, yes, you can meet many people online through micro-blogs who you could not have met otherwise. You can build your community and ask questions to your followers or other users there. This is a wonderful tool!!

Mod 3 Entry#3 My reaction to a video clip, "21st Century Education"

I watched all video clips on the list. Some of them shared the same information, and all of them were interesting to me. Among these clips, I thought “Educational Change Challenge 21st Century Education in New Brunswick, Canada” was the most interesting video clip. It included a lot of impressive phrases (Quotes), some of which were really meaningful for educators in that they might feel necessity of adopting new technology into their classroom in order to fulfill students’ needs in the 21^st century.

The most impressive quote in this video was what Molebash stated, “if you put a doctor of a hundred years ago in today’s operating room, she would be lost, yet if you placed a teacher of a hundred years ago into one of today’s classroom, she wouldn’t skip a beat.” You can say that this is overstatement, however, in terms of technology, teaching methods of English teaching might have not been developed enough to inspire students and are still traditional in comparison with one which used in the medical field. It might be both good and bad in some reasons. Philosophy or objectives of teaching which contemporary teachers should have in their mind can be similar to those of a hundred years ago if they fit the students’ needs, however, in terms of contents (and, of course, teaching methods as well), teachers need to adopt new things into their classroom, especially when they can facilitate students’ positive learning experience.

In addition, the narrator of the video also stated that “in education, the use it or lose it may mean, if you don’t use technology for learning you may lose relevance. An educator must be relevant.” From these points of view, the video clip, again, suggested teachers should use technology simply in order for satisfying students’ needs. Otherwise, students miss chances of learning what they are supposed to know by the time they graduate from the school.

I liked this video clip also because it presents neutral viewpoint, in that it did not explicitly mention that you should use technology, although others did say so clearly. Therefore, the video did not suggest specific examples which teachers can use by adopting technology into their classroom; however, it was obvious that you can use youtube, podcasts, SNS, twitter, wikis, and some more others.  I felt a bit awkward at first when I heard teachers can use texting in their class, but, yes, my impression might also have come from a “primitive” way of thinking in the 21^st century. Now that it is time to “change” our minds and ways of teaching for the sake of students’ needs, educators need to discard old thinking and adapt to new ways.