Twitter...Can I use it as a Teaching Tool?

So I have had my Twitter account for about 5 or 6 years now, had to start it up for one of my Post Baccalaureate classes by Dr. Grace Lin at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. I never really understood the need for having Twitter, it seemed to me that it is very "in the NOW", as in instant gratification. I did started following several news agencies, chefs and celebrities, just for keeping up with the news, for fun or hobby. In addition, it seemed to me that "every day folks" didn't really use Twitter that much.

Fast forward to today. I have now tweeted just over 500 times, mainly because I linked my Facebook account, and if I post something on Facebook, it automatically get tweeted too. I also have come across the use of Twitter in an educational setting. Several of my Graduate classes have had a Twitter activity or requirement. I believe the focus of these activities is becoming more adept at using Twitter as a tool, and more specifically as a teaching tool. 

I have looked up close at the article by Peter Tiernan: "A study of the use of Twitter by students for lecture engagement and discussion" (2013). Twitter could very well be used as some sort of "formative assessment" tool, a tool to have students engage with other students with regards to any possible aspect of a class' lectures, assignments or other activities. Also Twitter shows potential as an Audience Response System (ARS); look at it as Kahoot! for college, but maybe not as fun. 

In my current classes we use Twitter, Periscope, Line, etc. as direct stream social media source. While we use fairly "closed system"- as in private groups or lists- some of the material or the posts are visible by the general public (the world). That is something that I would like to see changed, or finds ways to prevent this, as I teach 8th-graders, and I need to keep them protected. Tiernan also mentions in his paper that Twitter involvement varies depending on what part of a learning unit the students are on: high in the beginning, dropping once "the NEW wears off", and then back up when new topics/projects/etc are introduced. I experienced the same thing after we were introduced to Periscope or Line. 

In a K-12 setting, my students would have similar problems as some students mentioned in Tiernan's paper: no access to Twitter due to DOE servers blocking Twitter and most other Social Media sites on the student WIFI server. This makes it an unfair tool as only some of my students have access to smartphones with their own data service. While Twitter does show strong potential as a teaching and collaboration tool, at this point, with restrictions form "higher up echelon" would not be a very effective tool in a Hawaii Public School k-12 setting, unless the teacher finds a way to bypass the restrictions on the student server.

I think, for me personally, considering my students and their attention span, I would like to stick to more of a gamification approach, such as Kahoot! for assessment or feedback purposes, and apps like Remind or Chirp to send them updates or links to resources, assignments,etc.

But none the less, keep on Tweeting...we can only get better!

References:
Kahoot! Making Learning Awesome. Retrieves October 21, 2015, from https://getkahoot.com/

Tiernan, P. (2013). A study of the use of Twitter by students for lecture engagement and discussion. Retrieved October 21, 2015, from http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10639-012-9246-4.pdf 

Collaborative Video Project! Huh? What?

At this point I am frustrated, anxious, mad, ... it is like every day is short by about 5 hours. 

My team for our Collaborative Video Project, was the team who has members who were not able to attend the initial online meeting. Communication has been very hard, and only a few people responded back to my attempts to reach out. 

I get it! Life, work, school, it all gets in the way of getting things done. I have those issues every day, rolling out of bed at 5AM, taking care of the farm animals, shower, getting to school to teach 100 8th-graders Earth & Space Science, go to IEP meetings or parent conferences, get back home, tend to the farm and the animals again, cook dinner, do school prep work, do my own school assignments, go to bed, get up at 5AM, and do it all over again. 

I initiated the first contact...sounds like a Star Trek movie...but I digress.... There was an initial response of what time frame worked, but it seemed like every one was waiting for me to go from there to take the next step. And I didn't take that step, I thought that the day we seemed all be in line for doing a Hangout, that no one actually initiated a Hangout when I wasn't able to get through to all of our team members; it was as if I was all alone out in cyber space with no one responding to my calls out. 

This is the first time that I am in a group that doesn't "tag team". As in one person starts something, the next one picks up the next chore, and so on...maybe I have been spoiled rotten by my previous collaboration and study teams and partners. 

At this point I am questioning my own success and sanity in this project, not even contemplating my team members in this. 

But I have to use this obstacle as a learning tool. Maybe there are cultural difference at play? Maybe it is my Belgian upbringing: you do what you said you were going to do....if not Mom/Dad/Aunty/Uncle/Mama/Papa will whack you upside your head, sometimes even all of them...I still fear that, even now at my age, and most of them being gone at this point, but it is all in my soul and consciousness. I think this is also the case in the Hawaiian and Samoan cultures. Maybe I should not be trying to lead the project, maybe I should just stand in the shadows and wait for things to develop? But then what if no one picks up the ball? Can I allow myself to fail if my team members don't live up to their promises? 

My whole point is TRANSPARENCY. Yes! By all means pick up the ball and run with it when you can, but also be fair to your team, admit when you can't get things done in the time allotted, admit when/if you get stuck, admit when you won't be able to make a real-time meeting, but at least acknowledge the communication that is going around, respond, be honest! It takes a super-adult to admit that you can do something... And that is OK... we are all human, we just need to leave the super-humans to Hollywood.

Thanks for letting me "vent".

Social or Not-so-Social in the Classroom!?

For the last 7-some years I have been teaching in a Public School, it has been instructed to us, teachers, to refrain from "friending" any of our current or future students on social media, even if these students are related to us. In addition, the three schools I have taught at since then, all have/had a strict no-technology policy while on campus. 

While many of our schools have adopted Google Apps for Education (GAFE) in the last few years, and Google+ along with Google Classroom have become a solid educational tool, many of our administrators still frown upon the use of social media as a teaching tool.

I personally have rebelled agains Hawaii DOE policy in a major way. While I do not "friend" current students via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or SnapChat, I do have them added through Google+ in a closed school domain setting via GAFE. Some of my students are extended -calabash- family members, and have been in my social media circles for years, and the fact that Hawaii is such a close-knit community -even with us being spread out over several islands- makes it that you know many people in many places, without even considering your work environment. 

I like Google+ as an educational tool, mostly because it as also streamlined with Google Calendar, it allows me to create communities that I can keep private so I can still protect my students from outside observers.

I believe Twitter can be a powerful educational tool as well. The instant notifications, and the option to create very specific and unique #handles makes it a little more personalized. And Twitter, unlike Facebook, is not blocked on student DOE servers. Twitter is powerful, as I can "tell" my students about any new, developing stories about our Solar System, our Universe, etc. 
I can also Tweet to remind my students about any due assignments, things to bring to class, remind them about tests or quizzes, etc.

I have used the Remind app, as a tool to keep my students and their parents up to date regarding due dates, upcoming major events or projects, etc. but found just a very small percentage of buy-in (21%) although 87% of my student and their parents have texting service on their mobile devices. 

From my point of view, and as observed from the Giant Rock I live on, most of our students and parents need to learn first on how to get away from Social Media as an instant gratification or venting tool, and learn how it can become a very powerful personal assistant and teacher... And the first groups of people who really need to change their openness and perspective on how Social Media can help our students in a very powerful way, are our Admin, District and State DOE personnel.  They need to get away from their own personal inhibitions and misinformation on Social Media, jump into the 21st Century, and let the teachers -the folks on the first line of Defense, the folks who really work with the students, know them and teach them- lead the way on bringing learning into this Century...

Collaborative Video Project Thoughts...

So, since I grew up outside of the USA, and my native language is not English but Flemish (a dialect of Dutch), I find myself in a very unique positions with regards to ELL or second language learners. I was born and raised in Belgium, a small Kingdom, nestled between the Netherlands, Germany, Luxembourg and France, with three official languages: Flemish, French and German. In elementary school I learned my second language: French... 

As a child, in my first few years of life, I lived in the French part of Belgium, although my parents were both Flemish. A neighbor of ours- who spoke solely French- was my occasional babysitter. So as a baby and toddler I was exposed to the French language. So when French came along in elementary school, it came very natural to me. In the lower and upper grades of high school I learned German and later on English. In addition I also learned Latin and Greek as requirements for the lower grades of high school.... Those were a lot harder to learn than the living languages. French, German and English were taught in these languages: the teacher would only speak the language unless a student was completely clueless and then would use Flemish to explain what was going on. But since public broadcast was in all three official languages, one would always have had some exposure prior to actual learning the language in school. 

Now, as an adult, I have the desire to learn Hawaiian and Japanese, but have come to find that it is very hard for me now to learn a new language. As a teacher, I have several students who are ELL, and come from various backgrounds. The majority of my students come from either Central and Latin America, Micronesia and Marshal Islands, and have never really had formal education in their native language. The fact they never had formal education, means that they only know their spoken Mother Tongue, and do not necessarily have knowledge of spelling and grammar of their own language -which makes it hard to learn the technical aspects of new languages. I do also have a few students who did have significant education in their native lands (Israel, Japan, Korea), and these students only have a language barrier, and are very knowledgeable of the content of math, science, social studies, etc....but since they learned the mechanics and semantics of their native languages, makes it easier to learn English... most of the time!

In my classroom, I have used various resources to assist my ELL students....I sometimes translate words to French, and that most of the time helps my Spanish-speaking students....For my Asian and Pacific Islands' students, I use pictures, videos, and group my students in heterogeneous language groups, so that they can help each other by using simplified language, gestures, or even just translate into their native languages. Some of my former students have created simple dictionaries of words and expression in their native language, as part of a service learning project, and I often refer to those...and that makes a huge difference with the comfort level of my students, as they recognize the names on the outer cover of these dictionaries as names of relatives and friends...

My own philosophy about Second Language Learners is that we are all in this together...a bit of knowledge, a lot of discomfort, but the desire to work together as one. English has become the driving language in the modern world, and many nations have forced their students to learn English as a requirement to either graduate high school or college. And this is a little unfair... as most of the world speaks other native languages.... maybe we should propose to all switch to Latin as the Universal language of Economics, Politics, Medicine, Science, Foreign Trade, etc....then all people would be equal; equal with the minimal knowledge of the language's nuts and bolts and on equal playing grounds... Only Julius Caesar would smile!