Today I had the pleasure of reading Speaking of History, a middle school history teacher's blog about history, education, and technology. It was really insightful. The post I read was actually a podcast (there was a short introduction and then a link to a podcast) about the possibility of "watching" the State of the Union address via Twitter. What an interesting idea!
The teacher talked about how he did not have time to watch the SOTU, so he looked at tweets about it. He discussed how he could see people's reactions, both good and bad, to the President's speech. He raised the question of whether using Twitter as a lens through which to view the SOTU was either anti-social, more social, or just a different form of social... If I was going to answer, I'd say that it's somewhere between more social and a different form. Social networking sites like Twitter offer us a chance to speak with people we would not normally speak to, to see several different perspectives, and take in information in a relatively short amount of time. Can you imagine reading 30 articles or opinion pieces on the SOTU? No, you can't...because that would take a lot of time (which we don't have in grad school). This is what is so amazing about Twitter! People can only type 140 characters or less.
Listening to Mr. Langhorst discuss his personal use of Twitter for the SOTU made me think--can we use this in our classrooms? I know that a lot of schools block sites like Twitter and Facebook, but there are definitely ways around this. For example, I would probably type "State of the Union" in my search box and see what came up. If they were applicable, I could take a screen shot. This screen shot could be displayed during class and I could ask students to engage in a discussion. There are several different ways to take an activity like this, which I think is the beauty of it, really.
The other thing Mr. Langhorst brought up with the value of Twitter as a means of collaboration. Specifically, he talked about how the day that Osama Bin Laden was killed. He went on Twitter and saw teachers talking about how they were going to present this/discuss it with their students. Whether he used ideas from other teachers or not, I do not know. However, this says a lot about the uses of social networking sites. They are fun, but they can be for more than that.
Maybe it was because this blog related to my content area so much, or maybe because I liked his writing style and use of pictures and technology within his blog...but I really liked reading. I definitely see the benefits in reading Edubloggers.
*A note to any other history or social studies majors--Speaking of History has some really awesome pictures of Monticello with Jefferson quotes on it that are really cool. I think he has put them up for people to use/share. He also has made some pretty amazing inventions to spice up a classroom. Pretty cool!
I also liked reading the EduBlogs. I think your comments about Twitter are great. We don't have time to read tons of articles but 140 characters or less is definitely doable. I also think your idea of a screen shot is perfect. That way you don't have to worry about kids getting off task and they still get the benefits of seeing how this technology can be used for education. I am thinking in an English classroom I could do something similar and maybe turn it into a creative writing prompt.
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