I will admit that I have always shunned Twitter. I have been a Facebook user for years, and I never saw the need to join another social network, especially since I thought I would end up connecting with the same people. Plus, I barely have time to keep up with everything on Facebook, so why add another social network to my load?
After starting a Twitter account as part of the class assignment, and reading the articles we received in class, however, I have been converted! I think I began to see the light during Patrick Larkin's Skype conversation, during which he explained how he created his professional learning network on Twitter, and how this opened the door to so many new contacts and insights for him. The idea of using Twitter for something more than keeping up with friends and family makes Twitter more appealing. The article "Nine great reasons why teachers should use Twitter" gave me many ideas for how to use the social network, such as to get new lesson ideas and gather feedback on my own ideas. The best part is that the feedback can happen in real-time! As a brand new teacher, I imagine this "sounding board" aspect of Twitter will be especially useful to me. The author of this article also gave the following advice: "Remember, your experience on Twitter is only as high quality as the people who you follow and the information you share." I plan on spending more time really thinking about who I should follow as a future World Language teacher. I also need to build time into my day to check my Twitter feed, and the fact that updates have to be concise will make this much easier (I hope!) Right now, I view Twitter as a wonderful source of articles on popular themes and topics in world language education, which will be important to read as I prepare for my future career.
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I also spent some time going through Edmodo this week. I love the concept of this social network, because I am adamantly opposed to teachers using other social networks, such as Facebook, to communicate with their students. I believe that teachers need to draw a line between their professional and personal lives, and being involved with students on Facebook would make that nearly impossible.
From my review of Edmodo, I feel like it will satisfy so many of my organizational and planning needs, and it will enable me to communicate with my students in a forum that is of interest to them. The benefits of having a means to communicate class news and assignments, give quizzes, share links to relevent articles, and gauge students' interest in all of this are undeniable. The more I explored, I began to wonder, Do I really need a blog if I use this tool? And if I do start a blog, is it too redundant to have a blog and Edmodo? Like a blog, Edmodo offers a calendar and a homework posting capability, and it offers that interactive communication so that students can comment on whatever I post. I feel, however, that my posts cannot be very lengthy in Edmodo. Since the interface is busier due to all the capabilities Edmodo offers, I think lengthy posts would be too cumbersome to read. For this reason, I would use Edmodo for organizing, planning and communicating news and short posts. I would use the blog for writing reflections and opinion essays.
There are two features of Edmodo that stood out to me. The first is the ability to create and organize groups for both students and parents. It is so convenient that a student can access pages for all of her classes with one Edmodo login. I also love that parents can access all of their child's class information via one login. Teachers can create a "Parents" group, which provides an easy way to communicate information that is specific to parents. I also love that parents can access their child's grades via the site.
The second feature is the Badges. I think middle school students in particular would love receiving these badges. What a great way to offer positive reinforcement! I can imagine students "collecting" these badges, and feeling proud when peers can see them on their Edmodo pages.
All in all, I would definitely say that I will look into using Edmodo in my future classes.
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