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Apr
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Twitter and Diijo have the potential to be useful tools in and out of the classroom.
Filed Under Blogging in and out of the Classroom
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OK, I know last week I said this week’s post was going to be about the research that supports my contention that listening to music in the classroom can facilitate learning. But, I got side tracked by Twitter and Diigo.What’s Twitter? What’s Diigo? As some of you already already know, Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that operates on the KISS principle- Keep It Simply Simple. I love Twitter because of that. Twitter forces me to keep my text messages or “tweets” as they are called to 140 characters. That’s less than a couple of lines. cool.
When I first learned about Twitter, I thought what the heck would I use that for. That was before I spent some time following the “tweets” of various people. I realized that Twitter was a great place to learn about new things and get help when I needed. I asked a question about something and lo and behold someone left a tweet for me telling me where I could get more info. I think that Twitter could be a really useful tool for teachers to use. It’s free, too. All the better. Teachers could ask questions, share info, give support etc all in less than two lines . I’ve been following the tweets of other people, people whose blogs I’ve read but really don’t know but admire their because of their expertise, their creativity, their sense of humour etc. Now, I can follow their tweets and learn all kinds of things from them and maybe even share some things they might find useful. You just never know.
How does Twitter work? Basically, I can choose to follow people and read their messages, and they can choose to follow me and read my messages. I wouldn’t necessarily get to see the replies to the messages from people I don’t follow. That could be an advantage if I was following the tweets of people who had lots of followers or who were following lots of people themselves. There are different settings or different options so there is choice. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see which options I want. I’ve just started to build the list of people I want to follow. I think I’ll start with the people whose blogs I like reading, and if they’ve joined Twitter, I’ll follow their tweets. As usual, I don’t have time to do everything that I want , so I’ll just add to the list gradually. There’s no big hurry.
I’m still just learning how to use Twitter most effectively. I’ve got the basics down, but I’m sure there’s lots more to be learned. Sue Waters at Edublogger explains how she uses Twitter. Sue’s one of the people I follow on Twitter because she’s so helpful in explaining what’s new and how best to use it. A while ago, I asked her some technical questions about adding something to my blog , and she was most helpful. I recommend that when you get a moment go to the Edublogger’s site and check out Sue’s article oabout Twitter as well as the many other articles she’s written. Her graphics are wonderful for visual learners like me.
Now, if you remember I had two distractions this week. One was Twitter and the other one was Diigo. Diigo caught my eye because someone mentioned it on Twitter. I can’t remember who. It might have even been Sue. I wondered what it was , so I went and checked it out and found that it could be a very useful for doing research because it lets you highlight text on web pages and even add stickies with your comments. I do that now with a highlighter and a pencil in the margins so this was right up my alley, and get this , if you do your research using Diigo you can access your notes from any PC, any where you can access the net. Perfect. Diigo even lets you create user groups to pool resources. I think this would be a very useful tool for students. Students could collaborate on group assignments. Teachers could collaborate to create lesson plans or units. We don’t have to be sitting at the same table to get things done.
As with Twitter, I’m just learning how to use Diijo more effectively. Both these programs have lots of potential as tools to help students and teachers. I see me teaching my students how to use these programs. I see me using these programs myself to help me work more effectively. It’s amazing what’s available on-line. I guess the thing to do is to try these programs and other programs that are available on-line to see if you’d find them useful and then keep an eye out for the creative ways other people find them useful. I know that’s what I’m going to do. I hope to see your tweets on Twitter.
Update
My school board has just blocked Twitter for the new 2008 school year. (:
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Edublog Awards
Toronto Reading Council
Thanks Elona for the nice words about me
. I’m glad to hear my posts on the Edublogger have been on help. It definitely wasn’t me talking about diigo cause I can’t install the toolbar as I had problems with it interacting with other applications I use with FireFox. But everyone is really excited about diigo.
I’ve just started using Twitter, and Diigo two month ago. It’s amazing the different possible ways of keeping in touch with your colleagues and students, sharing unexpecting experiences. I think, twittering is taking possession of all of us, As social networking, an entertaining way of communicating permanently. And Diigo, a great opportunity to research. Eleona, thanks a lot for sharing with us your interesting comments about these useful tools.
Warm regards from Lima, Peru