Twitter for Teachers

My last post had to do with Twitter for students, this time it is Twitter for teachers. There are some educators out there who seem to have dedicated their lives to making their knowledge and ressources available to me and YOU on line. Below I list just a few who publish some of the most interesting and fascinating links to "the cloud". Most of them are bloggers and their tweets are just a link to their latest entries. Just check them out. These guys are fantastic.

If you are not signed up for Twitter, do so:

1. go to twitter.com
2. sign up for an account
3. click on "find people" on the top right and search for the following:

A. Larryferlazzo from Sacramento. His blog is http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/

B. Web20classroom from North Carolina has 15000 followers. His blog is http://web20classroom.blogspot.com/

C. Courosa from the university of Regina in Canada. He writes at http://educationaltechnology.ca/couros/

and finally there is

D. Sue Waters from Australia who shares her knowledge at http://theedublogger.com/

Become their followers and then check out the links that will pour out in your timeline. I don't know how these guys are able to tweet, blog, teach and have a life at the same time. But I guess that's not my problem. Their information touches on so many subjects that I am confident that you will find something of interest. Don't plan on reading all their tweets (or even worse, go to all of their links). But once in a while check the timeline and follow a few links. I am sure that you will find it worthwhile.

Twitter in the Classroom

Eyebrows are raised when I mention using Twitter in the classroom. "You, Cedric!? Twitter??" - "What a waste of time!" - "Don't your students have better to do?"

Of course I am very well aware that social networking tools can be overused and abused. However I have come to accept that they are not going away and that our students will be using them. So our role is to teach them how to use these tools in the best way possible.

At the beginning of the year (week 2 or 3) I request my students to sign up for a Twitter account. Then I ask them to become each other's followers. This way some kind of French or Latin network is established. The important thing comes next. I require them then to sign up for at least three Google News Alerts that relates to our class. For example in my Latin class they could to sign up for "latin language" or "Cicero" or "Roman archaeology" or "Roman gladiator". Then Google will notify my students about any news story related to the key words they have entered. I ask them to sift through the articles that are coming their way and then if they have found something that they find worth sharing, I tell them to tweet (or is it "twitter") about it.

I believe that the use of Twitter in this fashion extends the classroom beyond the 55 minutes we have together on a daily basis. They can participate in the class without being physically together. And it also allow students that are on the more timid side to participate in a way that may be more confortable for them.

New school year tips

Start of the year faculty meeting. Today I thought I would share with you three interesting tidbits.

1. If you do not have a Gmail account yet. Sign up (www.gmail.com) Today Google allows you to call someone's phone (yes! phone not computer, any phone!!) for free anytime in the US. Make your phone calls to parents from your desk!

2. Also to simplify your communication with parents, I found out the following. It is possible to get your voice mail from the Loyola voice system forwarded to your email. Like me, if you have a hard time to get to the phone to check your voice mail, this feature is perfect. Just shoot me an email and I will walk you through.

3. Everyone knows that I am a Google fan boy. I just came across this list of stuff that Google can help us teachers in our daily activities. It is worth checking it out. 100 Ways Google Can Make You a Better Educator | OEDb

Finally if you need help with the new CUBVIEW setup of your webpage let me know. I was privileged to work with Ben on this so I am familiar with some of the aspects of the new system. Just ask.