In making a delicious and twitter accounts, I really don’t see YET how I could make these useful in the classroom. I can see myself looking at other teacher’s or co-workers really stuffed delicious feeds/tags for good worksheets, lesson plans, fieldtrips, recipes, etc. But I cannot see myself, wanting to take the time to make a good or attractive delicious account that other people would want to see. I think the reason I say this is because I don’t really yet know how to use my delicious account correctly. I mean I see the square on my web browser and the button on the tool bar at the very top of my screen, but I still don’t think this technology is simple enough for me to want to use in my teaching.
With twitter, right now, I think it is dumb. I can only see using it in the classroom to tweet to parents a general tweet like “today my first graders are excelling in their math lesson, I am so psyched!” But really I would rather use a blog to digitally to give a detailed journal of my classroom than write a short blurb that doesn’t really tell the entire story on twitter. I really don’t think that I would allow any of the K-5th grade students to use twitter because I can see fourth graders sneaking out with cell phones and tweeting in the bathrooms or during class when I am not looking. Like face book, twitter right now just seems to me to be another social network. So I would not yet call twitter a teacher or student learning tool. I guess a general strength with twitter is that it causes a person to just post the main point of their argument/feelings in an instant. Also the fact that twitter is public (meaning I think you can follow anyone you want), gets the information out to a lot of people all around the world. A weakness that I see with twitter is that it can be used as a distraction in class. When students tweet on their cell phones during class, and the fact that students can have the freedom to post inappropriate material or language on twitter accounts that the public can see. When it comes to learning curves, I feel that twitter is much easier to use and operate than delicious. From talking to my PLN, I feel that more people use twitter than delicious in their technology explorations, and that more people I know, find twitter more useful than delicious.
I felt the same way with both of these websites/tools. They just seem overwhelming and just like another thing to complicate my life. However, I have become a big fan of Twitter because of how quickly it lets me learn news and information. I really do not like "Tweet Deck" yet. Perhaps I am just partial to the regular Twitter website/layout because I am used to it-but I just don't see the need to have a window block up and distract me every single time someone I follow tweets.
ReplyDeleteI was really confused with Delicious at first...and still sort of am. However, I just went back and learned how to use the 'tag' button on the toolbar and am now beginning to see how useful the site could be. I really like the fact that I can access these bookmarks from any computer with internet. I encourage you to keep exploring with the website, maybe we'll both eventually learn to love it!
Hey Kellie! I completely agree that twitter's webpage set-up is great and that the 'tweet deck' is stupid unless you are a twitter addict. I also think your right and that having a 'tweet deck' would be so distracting that you wouldn't ever get anything done!
ReplyDeleteAs for Delicious, I went to the TIES office in Erikson and the guy there showed me how and WHY to use Delicious in less than five minutes. I agree with your comment on the ease of the tag button and once you have a couple of good bookmarks in there, I can see the purpose of tagging something so you can look at it later when you have the time. I still don't like the set-up when Delicious appears at the left side of my computer screen and stays there no matter what page you click on, but when I actually go to the delicious website and log on, to me, this set-up is much more user friendly.
I like what you said about not seeing "YET" how you could use those technologies in the classroom. I think that's a really good attitude to have about technology! You don't want to totally cross something off the list of resources because you never know if it will come in handy one day...
ReplyDeleteYeah I am not a fan of delicious, if a link is important enough to the point of me wanting to be able to access it at anytime I just send a quick email to myself and let it be done with. It just seems like a much too complicated and isolated way to get links across to people (if that is what it is aiming for at least). And frankly, the name of the site throws me off every time (haha.. just a small annoyance I know... but still)
ReplyDeleteI had the same exact initial feelings on twitter, until I found a site with a list of the best TESOL tweeters (?) out there. I quickly added almost all of them, and actually enjoy the vast majority of their posts very much so. Many of them post very interesting articles up and also great lesson plan ideas! I make sure not to add a single friend however... because I honestly couldn't put up with anyones constant life updates (facebook provides more than enough of that)
Perhaps finding some highly respected individuals involved in education or other topics of interest would make twitter more meaningful to you?
Alice and Caroline, I agree with your statements. Caroline yes I do the same thing as e-mailing a link I find worthy enough of a second look. It is also great that you found some TESOL tweeters to follow. I am still having trouble finding a lot of people who are worth logging onto to twitter to read what they have to say BUT I will keep looking.
ReplyDelete