Twitter for Teachers





As I am not a tech person and I am not sensitive to the trend, although I heard about twitter long ago, it is the first time I have experienced the twitter and realized its benefits.

So how twitter can benefit to teachers? First of all, twitter is a discussion board which gathers teachers from all over the world, other educators in other areas and people from other specialties. They come up with fresh ideas, exchange opinions, give suggestion and leave comments as well as reflections. I followed Greg, an ESL teacher in Taiwan. Because he had tweeted a topic that how to bring fun to class, I learned a great many of good ideas and funny methods to make my class more interesting. Second of all, as the saying goes “no one knows everything, everyone knows something, all knowledge resides in humanity”, we can ask questions and get answers on twitter. People you followed and those who have followed you can see your question and contribute some ideas. Then you will gather an idea pool, how fantastic! Third, as we follow those people we are interested in and people who follow us share more or less common interest with us, we act as an information filter for others. Rise versa. Last but not the least, retweeting and replying a tweet is like creating a conversation. By joining and engaging in the conversation, we create a positive spiral of social networks. It flows like this:

Accumulation   →   value

           ↑                       ↓

contribution    ←  reciprocity

In sum, twitter works as a personal learning network for teachers, it links to good websites, tools, books, it gives space for people to ask questions and get answers, it offers an opportunity for people to share ideas, opinions and suggestion, and it always leads you to topics you like and are interested in.

References:

Integrating ICT into the MFL classroom: Twitter for teachers

http://langwitches.org/blog/2010/07/23/what-about-that-twitter-thing/