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Menampilkan postingan yang diurutkan menurut tanggal untuk kueri writers. Urutkan menurut relevansi Tampilkan semua postingan

'There was a Country' by Chinua Achebe

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A penguin profile of Chinua Achebe's personal history of Biafra, There was a Country:
The defining experience of Chinua Achebe’s life was the Nigerian civil war, also known as the Biafran War, of 1967–1970. The conflict was infamous for its savage impact on the Biafran people, Chinua Achebe’s people, many of whom were starved to death after the Nigerian government blockaded their borders. By then, Chinua Achebe was already a world-renowned novelist, with a young family to protect. He took the Biafran side in the conflict and served his government as a roving cultural ambassador, from which vantage he absorbed the war’s full horror. Immediately after, Achebe took refuge in an academic post in the United States, and for more than forty years he has maintained a considered silence on the events of those terrible years, addressing them only obliquely through his poetry. Now, decades in the making, comes a towering reckoning with one of modern Africa’s most fateful events, from a writer whose words and courage have left an enduring stamp on world literature.

Achebe masterfully relates his experience, both as he lived it and how he has come to understand it. He begins his story with Nigeria’s birth pangs and the story of his own upbringing as a man and as a writer so that we might come to understand the country’s promise, which turned to horror when the hot winds of hatred began to stir. To read There Was a Country is to be powerfully reminded that artists have a particular obligation, especially during a time of war. All writers, Achebe argues, should be committed writers—they should speak for their history, their beliefs, and their people. Marrying history and memoir, poetry and prose, There Was a Country is a distillation of vivid firsthand observation and forty years of research and reflection. Wise, humane, and authoritative, it will stand as definitive and reinforce Achebe’s place as one of the most vital literary and moral voices of our age

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Niyi Osundare on religion and politics in Nigeria

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Niyi Osundare in NaijaBlog:
In the past five years or so, I have been reconsidering my long-held opinion about the relation between leadership and followership. Time there was when I laid all the blame on leadership. Now I’m beginning to say that the followership should also take their fate in their own hands. This is what I see most of the time, for example, in the plays of Femi Osofisan, one of our top writers. Play after play after play; the leaders are there doing things. But the address is to the people. Why must you continue to be ridden like a donkey? Why can’t you, too, get up in the saddle? Nigerians are too docile, too forgiving of bad leadership.

Why are they this way? A number of reasons. The first one is religion. The kind of religion we have in Nigeria is one that puts you to sleep, and after that, puts you to death. It’s not the kind of religion that’s after social justice; it’s not the kind of religion that is after the welfare of the people and the independence of their existence.
More here

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Elearning and global competency #flatclass #globaled 01/05/2012

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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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3bute "... a mashable anthology of African modernity"

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Founded by Bunmi Oloruntoba of Bombastic Elements:
3bute [pronounced: tribute] is an online anthology devoted to the question of African modernity. Along that theme, we look on the web for what writers--especially African bloggers--have written and we recycle/ adapt selected writing into 3 pages of narrative art. The pages are then delivered through the Comicpress engine combined with ThingLink's unobtrusive rich media tagging tool, resulting in what we like to call a "mashable surface".

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Learning about Learning: Research and Edreform News and Views 12/31/2011

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  • 11 Tools for the 21st Century Learner

    This is a course for Spring Branch ISD which uses a blog as the framework. I also love how 9 hours of professional development is being given for the educators in this course. We need more embedded PD that gives teachers an opportunity to embed their learning in their daily activity. Embedded PD is the key to transformational learning. While there is a time and place for getting away, we have traditionally only used that "away" method when we also need to use the "learn right here" method of delivery as well.

    Take a look at what Karen is doing here as you evaluate your pd delivery methods. I also have to admit that Spring Woods High school is one that has been an outstanding contributor to Flat Classroom in the past, so I personally know they are walking the walk here.

    tags: education news elearning professional_development ird bestpractices

  • Wikis in Writing Education Research - WolfWikis

    Although not updated for some time, this wiki has been helpful in my wiki research. This shows the advantage of moving the master's thesis research online. It becomes a useful part of scholarly research. This wiki is dedicated to wikis in writing education research.

    The one thing I'd love to see is eventually that such projects would become legacies where another student could build on what has already been created either through a template or handing it off like a baton, but so much of how academia is set up screams opposition to this. But why should a great wiki like this die when the creator graduates? 

    tags: education wiki learning research

  • Lessons learned from using Khan Academy content in a blended learning pilot

    Very interesting study on the effectiveness of Khan Academy on the scores of low performing students. The study thoerizes that the success is not the videos at all but the problems and rewards system that accompanies the videos which have a gaming feel. Like many, we assumed the videos would be the predominant learning mechanism for students tackling new material. In fact, the students rarely watched the videos. This result is consistent with some of the observations in the Los Altos pilot. The students greatly preferred working through the problem sets to watching the videos."

    tags: education research learning

  • New Learning Environments for the 21st Century

    John Seely Brown's PDF on the new learning environments for the 21st century based upon a 2005 presentation he did at the Forum of Higher Education's 2005 Aspen symposium.

    The quote I like best:

    "As the pace of change in the 21st century continues to increase, the world is becoming more interconnected and complex, and the knowledge economy is craving more intellectual property. In this environment, it is critical that we shift our focus from education to life-long learning."

    This is a great lead from a thought leader in this area.

    If you wonder why I'm digging into the research, it is as I work on my second book on collaborative writing. It is amazing to me that I can find so many more things online than I ever could in the Georgia Tech library when I was a research assistant for the then president of the national Economics Association, Dr. Danny Boston.

    I may not be in an institution of higher learning but I can institute higher learning in my daily practice. I want everything I write for publication to be well grounded. I hope that is why those of you who gift me with your presence on this blog will feel free to let me know in the comments if you have concerns or pointers to other work.

    tags: education learning edreform

  • ScienceDirect - Computers and Composition : The impact of e-feedback on the revisions of L2 writers in an academic writing course

    This 2004 study on second-language writers determined that although students prefer oral feedback that e-feedback has a greater impact on the revisions process. Online feedback is a valuable tool in the revisions process.

    tags: education research learning literature composition

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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Dividing Up the Pie Differently or Grow the Pie: You Decide in 2012

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The coming year will give voters a real choice of visions- divide up the wealth in our nation differently or grow the amount of wealth in our nation.


On one hand, there are liberals and progressives who argue that the economic wealth and property in our nation is not divided up properly. They talk on radio programs or write on their blogs about raising taxes on the rich, redistributing wealth, the 99% vs the 1%, the rich vs the poor, and everyone doing 'their fair share' to help out others. Their main concern, based on what they talk about and write about, is how much of everything everyone has right now. Their world is static and unchanging, and they want to figure out how to divvy up the economic pie of wealth in a manner that they think is fair. If these liberals and progressives are already wealthy and living off their investments or if they are 'not rich', what they think is fair is obvious- they don't have enough wealth or property and others do, and they want what other people have. Oh, I know there is justification and reasons and they dress up their arguments more than this, but the simple matter is that they want to take the static wealth pie and battle over how much of it everyone gets. Imagine in 1900 America deciding that we would put in place policies and have discussions and write posts and articles mainly focusing on who gets what of the wealth of 1900, and you'd see what liberals and progressives have in mind- a nation with the same wealth as in 1900 except divvied up differently.

On the other hand, there are conservatives and tea partiers who argue that the economic wealth and property in our nation is not growing. They talk on radio programs or write on their blogs about putting in place policies that increase the economic output of our nation, utilizing our natural resources like oil and coal to increase our wealth, lowering taxes to encourage more wealth creation, and everyone doing 'their fair share' to grow the economy and produce goods and services. Their main concern, based on what they talk about and write about, is how to grow everything that everyone has right now. Their world is dynamic and changing, and they want to figure out how to increase the economic pie of wealth in a manner that will benefit everyone. If these conservatives and tea partiers are already wealthy and and running small businesses or if they are 'not rich', what they think will benefit everyone is obvious- they want more wealth and property and want to put in place policies and laws that allow them to earn more wealth and property. Oh, I know there is justification and reasons and they dress up their arguments more than this, but the simple matter is that they want to take the static wealth pie of today and grow it so that everyone has more wealth. Imagine in 1900 America deciding that we would put in place policies and have discussion and write posts and articles mainly focusing on how to make America more wealthy and productive and produce more goods and services, and you'd see what conservatives and tea partiers have in mind- a nation with the same wealth as today focused on growing that wealth further.

Ask yourself- do the people that you listen to on talk radio talk mostly about how wealth is divided up or how to increase the amount of wealth in society?  Do the blogs or editorials or writers you read try to figure out what the 'fair' amount of wealth everyone should have is, or do they try to figure out how to make everyone more wealthy? Do your friends and family talk about how to battle over the loaf of bread on your counter, or do they talk about how to get a job or save some money to buy another loaf of bread so everyone has something to eat?

There are two visions in 2012- one vision pushed by Democrats, whose party has been hijacked by liberals and progressives, that focuses on battling over the scraps of a fading America; or another vision pushed by Republicans, whose party is being hijacked by tea partiers and conservatives, that focuses on growing the size of America's economy so we can all be a little bit more wealthy. Which vision will become the reality for America?

UPDATE: I see via RealClearPolitics that Michael Barone has written the same article as me today (posted after mine). Here is Voters Want Growth, Not Income Redistribution:
...a recent Gallup poll showing that while 82 percent of Americans think it's extremely or very important to "grow and expand the economy" and 70 percent say it's similarly important to "increase equality of opportunity for people to get ahead," only 46 percent say it's important to "reduce the income and wealth gap between the rich and the poor" and 54 percent say this is only somewhat or not important...

...I believe that historians have taught the wrong lessons about the 1930s. And I believe there is a plausible and probably correct reason why economic distress has apparently moved Americans to be less rather than more supportive of big government....

...The New Deal historians attributed these gains to Roosevelt's economic redistribution measures -- high tax rates on high earners, the pro-union Wagner Act, Social Security. These laws, the so-called Second New Deal, were passed in 1935. They replaced the different, non-redistributionist policies of the First New Deal that stopped the deflationary downward spiral underway when Roosevelt took office....

...Lesson: If you want redistribution, you better first produce growth. Which the Obama Democrats' policies have failed to do.

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Your Reward is Great (reflections on #eddies11 and #iste12)

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Been pondering on rewards and awards. The inevitable onslaught of upset people after the EDublog 2011 award finals has begun.

But some have asked why we should even have awards in education. Shouldn't teaching be reward enough?

When it means judging the unjudgeable, not a good idea
In my church youth group, my youth minister created an "Eagle Award" for the "best Christian" youth. He said kids needed an award at church to make the kids want to come and compete for that award.

In this case, I didn't like this award and rightly so. As a Christian, walking daily with God IS my reward and the greatest rewards come later in heaven anyway. In this case, the journey is the reward and to create an award is to judge something on the inside that no one can see: motivation. We have to be careful about casting judgement on others and that is what I see a lot of happening.

When you point a finger at someone, you always have 3 pointing back at yourself!

Rewards vs. Awards
The looks on my eighth grader's faces as I knocked it out of the park teaching filmmaking yesterday. That was a blast. By the end of class we were huffing and puffing we were working so hard. That rewarding lesson was great for all of us.

My Daughter "Didn't Win" with her Flat Classroom Video
Today, the Flat Classroom projects will have our awards show at 8 am to announce our winners.

I haven't told anyone until now that this semester's project has a very special student in it: my daughter. She's special to me. She wanted to win the Flat Classroom project video competition more than just about anything.I wanted it for her.
Find more videos like this on Flat Classroom Project


She spent over 20 hours drawing each frame by hand in Paint.net and importing. Julie and I have an agreement that when our students are in a project, that we completely distance ourselves from judging. Fairness is essential.

I've seen the final list and my daughter didn't win anything huge. She did make the list. Am I disappointed? Of course. She's disappointed. Am I glad we had the competition. YES! It spurred her on to do more and be more. She's going to dissect the winners and prepare for NetGen in the spring because she loves making movies. She will learn and do better next time.

She didn't win but did that mean she lost: no! She gained a valuable learning experience.

The Grindstone of Life
Life grinds on you. You can choose to let it either it polish you to a bright, shiny gem or grind you down. It is all how you take it.

Did I lose or did I learn?

So, what about the edublog awards?

Joe Bower raised his concerns in a post "Why I Don't Like Edublog Awards" and Melissa (who had commented on my original post mentioning the Edublog awards) said:

"Thanks for posting this! I actually commented on someone who was nominated for said award. She was encouraging her readers to vote for her because she wanted to be awarded the "best teacher blogger." I was really turned off by this because I thought...what message is she sending to her students if she did not win said award. I asked if she needed the award as validation AND was having 1,000 followers not enough validation. I don't think she cared too much for my comment, as she mentioned that I was passing judgement on her...no judgement, just curious of why all the self promotion for an award saying that you are the best teacher blogger. No worries...I will remain a follower."
My response about the edublog awards on his blog:

"I think these are great comments. Melissa commented on my blog. The reason I wrote my post was because I was nominated in five categories and, to me, I didn't feel I deserved a lifetime achievement award after only 6 years of blogging. So, I said which awards I felt that would mean something and best teacher blog was one of them. I also wanted to thank those who nominated me. It is a pain to nominate for those awards and I should acknowledge that. Enough of that.

Secondly, all awards are flawed. Especially ones involving online polls. (Author's note: See my post about the online poll involving a Redskin player trying to stack the poll for his cousin versus our school's quarterback to see just what I mean.) This poll was based on ip address. That means if someone really wanted to and thy had a mifi card, they could turn it off and on again and vote all they wanted. Hopefully no one did that but the fact is that it is easily hackable. The awards were given in most categories with just a couple of hundred votes. Not many.

Online polls are flawed. Period. See these for what they are. The people who win must mobilize their friends, fans, family and schools to win by ASKING. Period. You will see that behind everyone who won. If you want to win. You ask.

Don't ask. Don't win. The name of the game. I don't apologize for telling my readers about the awards for this reason. You never know unless you ask.

But I think it is fine to have these conversations. We should always know that the best value of the eddies or any other award like it that is popularity based is to help us find new voices. Help us see new people. Truthfully, every link to the eddies opens up more conversation.

It is ok. In life not everyone can get an award and not everyone deserves it. The best awards is always knowing that you helped someone. None of us would ever blog just because of the eddies, that would be silly. But it would also be silly to ignore something that recognizes excellence in what you love. I get up every morning at 5 am to write and set up my tweets for the day. Blogging and Tweeting is very near and dear to my heart.

Just see these for what they are and it is fine. But to have nothing to recognize rank and file teachers means the only educational writers would be journalists etc and that would be sad.

None of us will unfollow you for this post. It is well written and has good points. Likewise, Melissa, no blogger worth a flip would take your comment with offense. When you ask like I did it is a risk you run and there are always people to disagree with something in every post. It is the nature of this beautiful wonderful online conversation. Up with edublogging."


It is a fact that the more people who vote in the Edublog awards, the more it will mean and the less likely someone could hack it. Does that mean we should get rid of the edublogs because it is flawed. The Academy Awards are flawed too, but we don't get rid of those. All award systems are imperfect, especially online polls.

I think the thing that bothered me most about Joe's post is this. He says:
I realize this isn't going to win me many fans, and I'm likely to lose followers on Twitter and subscribers to my blog, but I guess that would be my point. 

People often imply that they risk having people not follow them because they have a contrarian viewpoint. Long live the contrarian. We need more people who can disagree respectfully. And we don't want group think. If we are to be bridge builders we listen to all sides of an issue. We include everyone and treat everyone with respect.

What about ISTE?
A note on ISTE. I have NEVER had a session accepted where it was just me. ISTE cares about "we" presentations -- or groups of people. Lots of people will have their feelings hurt. Lots of deserving, amazing people. But ISTE has a rubric as well and when you have groups of people, the rubric is obviously stacked in your favor.

Don't be disappointed, look at what was accepted and learn.

We win some we lose some
Yes, it is trite but it is true. Right now, you could say I "lost" the Edublogs. Sure, I was second to Stephen Anderson (@web20classroom) in the Twitter category but still. I didn't "win"... or did I? (Honestly I had like 90 votes and he had 120 - not huge vote counts either way but he has 36K followers to my 26K -- I would agree that his numbers speak for themselves but 26K is nothing to sneeze at. Neither one of us compare to the millions that follow rock stars - just keeping perspective. I know Stephen does, that is why he's such a great guy and so many of us like him.)

There are awards I don't even apply for any more. The fact is that most awards in education judge your pedigree as a major factor in the awards and I don't have it. I'm a private school teacher who didn't go to a school of education. That is OK. So really, there are just a few things I can "go for." Those very few things I can... I do.

The fact is that links build traffic and if your business is online and you are writing books and creating projects that depend upon social media and education, it is important to your livelihood and life to get on every list and awards program you can. I love my babies and this blog is helping send them to college.

I gave up a 6 figure income to go into teaching and am just fine with that but now in a year my first child will go to college. Everything I may get from this blog or book writing is heading to help pay for college. Honestly, today, I have no idea how we're going to do it. If I put my name out there and let people know and they choose to vote for me, then that is great. If I get more people who find my blog and like it because of it, that is a good thing. But I'm not going to sit around and say "poor me" and not at least ask. No way. I love my babies. It is a risk I'm willing to take. I'm putting out there my motivations and not hiding them -- that is transparency. For you to judge me any other way is to judge but certainly that is your right.

I really wanted to get accepted as one of the TED Teachers. I worked sooooo hard on that nomination and even had about 10 of you on Twitter join in and nominate me. It was risky to even mention it on Twitter because if you're doing anything in this world some people are going to love you and some people are probably going to hate you. It is the nature of doing anything worthwhile.

So, we were supposed to hear from TED on Monday. They said we would. We haven't. To me, this means, I didn't make the list or even the cut. Am I dissapointed... of course. Will I try again... sure. Will I take anything away from the 10 who get picked -- NO. I'll tweet them and blog them and share them. They are winners and we all win when we encourage good teachers.

Jealousy is a bitter lunch that will make you sick and anemically unable to contribute.

So, the only way to become a loser is to act like a loser.

Losers wallow in self pity. Losers only care about themselves. Losers whine when they don't get their "fair share."

Well, life isn't fair and few people share.  Awards are part of life but if you teach or blog, you should be doing it for the rewards of the conversation and helping people but if an award happens, then, great.

Win with your actions
Winners encourage others. Winners share in the conversation. Winners root others on and congratulate the winner.  Winners look at their rewards and keep perspective about awards.

Awards are flawed measures. They are an attempt to find best practice and we certainly need that.

If they spur us on to excellence, then great. I know they spur me on to excellence because I want to be the very best I can be. Not because of the awards but the rewards but I make no secret about wanting to be world class.

OH, but you can judge me.

"Vicki needs validation. Vicki should be happy with all her readers and followers."

Oh, yes I am. I'm thrilled with those things. Every time a major newspaper or someone asks me to write - I'm in heaven. I love to write.

But I've lost more awards, competitions and contests than I've won. I've lost 5 beauty pageants and won 1. I lost 15 elections before I started winning as I ran for offices. Each time I competed, I became better.

Competition is life. Awards are part of them. Some choose to compete and some don't want to. That is a personal choice.

But anything that recognizes and rewards excellence in the field of education - as long as the system of judging is fully disclosed -- has my vote.

Keep perspective. You are a winner because you are a teacher -- that is your reward. Awards come to only very few and if you're fortunate enough to be one of those, use it well

but if you don't win --- don't be a loser. 

You're a winner for just being in the game at all. (Please do not imply that I think Joe Bower is a loser for his post. I think he actually expresses his thoughts in a respectful way.)

Remember your noble calling teacher. The only way to lose your nobility is to give it away by acting in ways unbecoming to your profession.

Happy Holidays and thank you for taking the time to read all the way to this extremely long, rambling post. Just had to get this off my chest.



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Daily Education and Technology News for Schools 12/05/2011

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Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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How my school took on the Redskin nation and won

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My family and all of the parents and grandparents at our school are exhausted. We've spent the better part of two weeks voting for our quarterback, Mason Worsham, to be the Albany Herald player of the year. The Albany Herald, our local paper usually has two awards. The player of the year by popular vote and another one decided by the paper's sports writers.

Washington City Paper article by Dave McKenna

Little did we know we were up against the whole Redskin Nation and the award winning sports writer Dave McKenna.

We want to win
After having a sophomore year of nail biting losses our team  has won 26 games straight in football and 2 back to back state championships.

It was like our last tribute to a fine young quarterback who we admire and appreciate. We wanted it.

You could vote once an hour for each userid you had on the system.We started giving our userids to someone who could take a shift and vote while we were asleep. We set timers. Our middle school was in DC voting on their smartphones and many of us lost sleep!

We kept trying to figure out how the other man, Chris Brown, started racking up tons of votes each minute! We didn't know how it was happening. Little did we know every time Phillip Daniels tweeted or messaged, they were getting a bump.

All we knew was we had to work harder. We called each other! We messaged! We begged our friends!
Our Wildcat Football Team, State champs 

Mom called me Saturday in a panic:
"We have got to win. This is our last championship of two perfect seasons and we just have to win. What can we do?" 
Never Underestimate the Under-cat!
We wouldn't quit. We voted. We reminded people to vote. We asked our friends on Facebook to vote.

In fact, our boy ended up winning by over 900 votes. That's right,, our school with just 434 students has a support network to the point that we racked up over 10,000 votes for our player.

In the Washington City paper today: Ballot Box Shocker: Ex Redskins Vote Rigging Exercise Falls Short

Yes, it did.

We gave everything we had for over a week.

Everything but pulling in my own network of Twitter followers and blog readers.

Online polls will always be flawed
It is no secret that online polls are flawed.
    But the fact is that the Redskins fans now claim the "poll was rigged" when in fact, they were participating in rigging themselves.

    What is rigging?
    • Is it using ids of others while you sleep?
    • Is it using your Twitter network and Facebook network?
    • Is it changing your IP address to vote multiple times (as one Redskin fan admitted to doing?)
    Perhaps the greatest victory of our Wildcat season was the day we took the Redskin nation down on our very little own without all my tweeps and plus buddies. I can promise no bots were used on our end. I'm the closest thing there is to a hacker here and I certainly don't know how to do that.

    I'm sorry this seems silly, but this whole thing means a lot to me. We love our team very much and this is a fitting end to what has been a tremendous season. We just got the official announcement that we will be moving up to AA ball next year because our numbers are up and it will be a whole new ballgame, literally. But none of us will ever forget this year -- and we've got one last thing to prove it.

    Never underestimate the underdog - in this case the undercat. 

    Go Cats!


    Related Articles:



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    Storybird

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    Storybird is a free, online site that allows students to create their own children's book. They can also read books that other Storybird users have written, including classmates' work.



    These could be a great way to get unmotivated writers (or readers) to get excited about the subject! I actually think Storybird could be fun for any age student. Of course, the little ones would love the color and funny graphics, but the older students could also enjoy this unconventional and creative assignment.

    To do this in your class, I'd suggest signing up as a teacher. This allows you to let students work inside your account without asking each student to sign up with an e-mail account individually (which can take forever, or even be impossible with all the filters!).

    Once you sign in on your Storybird teacher account, you can create different classes for your students so everyone isn't mixed together.  This sorting feature might also make it easier to assess your students.

    One obvious difference between the teacher account and the regular account is that teachers can assign projects with due dates to their students. You can also control the amount of interaction your students have with other Storybird users and/or their classmates, which I like. I have yet to see any inappropriate material, but you just never know!

    Another Storybird feature is the ability to write a book collaboratively. Students don't have to create books alone; they can work in pairs or even groups. This might motivate even the most reluctant reader/writer to participate! And Storybird basically forces collaborators to contribute equally to the book; collaborative works get passed back and forth to its contributors so that everyone gets a turn.

    Artists draw and submit work to Storybird, and that is where students will get the illustrations. Students can choose illustrations based on a specific theme or from an artist whose work they really enjoy. There are some other customization features, such as choosing the color of the pages in your book, but there aren't too many options so that your students can't focus on reading and writing.

    A great feature for all users is that you can have your Storybird stories professionally printed and made into actual books. This would be a neat project for student writers, as they would be able to see their work "published" and take a copy home! Printing does cost money, but if your school (or students) can afford it, I think it would make a neat souvenir from your class.

    When I went to read some of the work submitted on Storybird, I found a story called "Seven Ways to Survive School." Take a look at this book that a user named Hunter wrote:

     Seven Ways to Survive School on Storybird

    If you're as impressed as I am, consider using Storybird in your classroom. Don't forget to let me know how it goes!


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    Twitter for the Classroom {Part 3}

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    If you've been following my Twitter in the Classroom series, you know it's time for {Part 3}! (Catch up {Part 1} and {Part 2} here, if you need to!)

    Here are our {Part 3} discussion topics, if you're ready:
    • Tweet Suggestions (For Teachers)
    • Twitter Projects/Activities (For Students)



    Tweet Suggestions (For Teachers)

    Here are some suggestions for things you can tweet to your student/parent audience:
    1. Reminders about assignments that are due or upcoming quizzes/exams/projects. 
    2. Reminders about snow days, picture days, sporting events, field trips, spirit days, etc. 
    3. School events and/or their outcomes (plays, musicals, art shows, academic meets, etc.) -- especially ones where your school won/did well or is playing a rival!
    4. Hints about how to complete an assignment or project.
    5. Bonus points that can only be aquired through Twitter. (I've tweeted, "Go to the class website and scroll to the bottom of the page. The first student to describe to me the newest object at the bottom of that page gets 5 bonus points." The purpose of this, of course, was to get students to view the class website and the newest important tool on it!)
    6. Helpful websites that could assist them academically (StarFall, CliffNotes, Online Calculator, etc.)
    7. Apple/Blackberry, Android apps they might find helpful. (I recently tweeted about Flashcards+ and Sundry Notes!)
    8. Books you recommend (I always have some students who have a hard time finding something interesting to read. I read books from my classroom library and tweet short blurbs to interest students in the book!)
    9. Vocabulary words/definitions in a Word of the Day (#WOTD) format.
    10. A poll to help your classroom/planned lessons (I recommend using Twtpoll!)
    11. Exit ticket answers. (If students ask a question on an exit ticket, you could answer it on Twitter. This allows everyone to benefit from the answers without taking up any class time. Afterwards, you could copy/paste the updates and post the dialogue on your classroom website so those that couldn't access Twitter at the time can still get the knowledge. (For instance, I did exit tickets after an introductory lesson about courtroom trials, since my students would be conducting a trial about the characters in a book we'd just read. Some students were still confused on the process of the courtroom, and I gave them a chance to anonymously ask any question they still had. I answered these questions on Twitter, and it was a hit!
    12. Motivational/inspirational quotes

    Twitter Projects/Activities (For Students)

    For all of these activities, there are a couple of ways you, the teacher, can keep track of students' answers and assess, if need be.
    1. The main way is to create a hashtag just for your class. For instance, I might specify #MrsKEng1 for my 1st hour English class. From that point forward, if I wanted to find my students' tweets, I just type #MrsKEng1 in the search bar and read away! (Certain Twitter apps allow you to save search terms for quick retrieval. Just something to check into!)
    2. Another option is to create student lists. You can create a list for all of your students, and then divide them by class and/or subject. When you want to read their tweets, just click on the name of the list on your right sidebar. 
    3. Ask students to "mention" you in every single classroom-related tweet. 
    With that in mind, here are some projects/activities I've thought of that use Twitter in the Classroom:
    1. Schedule a chat. For instance, I might specify the #MrsKEng1 hashtag and assign a start time of  7 pm. Ideally, at 7 pm, students would log on and use the search box to find our class's hashtag. We can then have an online discussion of classroom topics outside the walls of our classroom. Whether you make this an actual assignment or an extra credit activity is, of course, up to you. You could discuss anything from an in-class topic to a President's speech on television to a movie you all went to see!
    2. Peer-to-peer tutoring. Encourage parents/students to tweet questions. Other students/parents could check the hashtag and answer peer's questions. We learn best when we teach! I'd definitely suggest monitoring this activity to ensure that all questions are answered accurately.
    3. Exit ticket. At the end of class, ask students to whip out their cell phones and tweet a quick exit comment/question to the cyber-world. Hopefully, these tweets generate a discussion or other students answering their peers' questions. (Of course, you would want to make sure all students had access to texting before you proceeded with this experiment. I've heard that you can use Google functions to text, but I haven't tested it yet.) You also get a quick evaluation of who understands the material.
    4. Summary of the day. Whether you've just taught a math lesson or you've just finished another chapter in the class novel, students can tweet a 140-character summary of the day's lesson. In order to make assessment easier, you might consider having students either tweet this as a "reply" or include the class hashtag. (Just so you know, both options lessen the number of allowed characters/tweet.) Students could "re-teach" the jist of today's lesson. 
    5. Short answer quiz questions. Of course, <140-characters/tweet is a short short answer! But if you're able to explain/answers something in such a short and concise manner, you're probably more likely to understand it.
    6. Twitter as bellwork. This feeds off the last suggestion, but immediately upon entering the room, there will be questions or a discussion prompt on the board (or tweeted by you). Students must respond to the question(s)/discussion prompt while you take care of those mundane "house-keeping" duties (attendance, lunch count, etc).
    7. Summary of text. After reading a chapter in a novel or expository textbook, ask students to tweet  summary of what they just read. 
    8. Timeline report. Follow a celebrity or company and track their tweets over time. Then write a report over their day-to-day life. This could work as a biography project or even for a business class. 
    9. Find students in another school/state/country with whom your students can tweet back and forth. It would be challenging to convey all information in 140-character segments, but that might create more concise writers. 
    10. Create a class story. One student can start by tweeting the beginning line to a story. Students then take turns to tweet a class story, one line at a time. This collaborative project works on writing skills, creativity, and sharing.
    11. Getting to know you. As a back to school activity, ask students to describe themselves in 160-characters or less. If students' Twitter usernames weren't easily recognizable, you could even play a game where students must guess which student belongs with which tweet!
    12. Character tweet. After reading a novel, students can pick a character from the story and tweet, say, 5 status updates throughout the day. Each status update should be written in the 1st person format, as if the student were actually the character. 
    13. Historical tweet. Feeding off the previous suggestion, you could ask students to pick a person from history and impersonate them on Twitter throughout the day. What would Abe Lincoln have to say if Twitter was available during his time? A website called Historical Tweets might help with this!
    14. Hashtag timeline. Monitor the hashtags over a period of time to see the trends of our society. This would be great for a history or current events class. 
    15. Hashtag quick write. On a random day, write the current trending topics on the board. Ask students to write about a curtain hashtag either individually or as a group. They could write their thoughts, create a story, etc.
    16. Personal story. Using the 3 parts of a story, ask students to write an entire story in 420-characters or less (140 for the beginning, 140 for the middle, and 140 for the end). 
    17. Micro-research paper. Ask students to create a micro-research paper using the Twitter guidelines. The intro paragraph must be 140-characters, the thesis must be 140-characters, the first paragraph.... you get the idea. Each part of the micro-paper must comply with Twitter character count rules. 
    18. Spelling race. Tell students a word in class and see who can tweet the correct spelling the most quickly. (You could also do this for math problems, science/history trivia questions, etc.)
    19. Vocab race. Tweet a word and see who can reply with the correct definition the most quickly...or vice versa.
    20. Vocab sentences. Tweet a word and ask students to reply with a tweet that uses that vocab word correctly in a sentence. 
    21. Synonym game. Call out a word and ask students to tweet synonyms.
    22. Book club. Students tweet book blurbs in an effort to get other kids to read great books.
    23. Attendance. Some days, give yourself a break from taking attendance and do it on Twitter. My suggestions: use the bellwork response tweets as a way to take attendance. You may still need to double-check this one because of two main reasons: 1) present students could text the bellwork question to an absent classmate, who would then tweet the bellwork in a timely manner. 2) Present students who don't participate would be counted absent. :-/
     I'm all tapped out of ideas for now. What suggestions do you guys have? 


    Continue: Twitter for the Classroom {Part 4}


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    Daily Education & Technology News for Schools 08/18/2011

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    Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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    Daily Education & Technology News for Schools 06/13/2011

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    Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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