I reviewed my goals for this class and noticed I put I wanted to become knowledgeable about blogging and using twitter. I have learned a tremendous amount about both areas. However, I want to modify my goal to be: I want to become experienced with blogging and tweeting so I can use these digital tools with students, parents, and teachers at school. I needed this practical experience with blogging and tweeting to really understand the process of using these social media tools. Real experience with blogging has given me the confidence to be able to respond to questions by students and I feel that I will be able to lead classes with teachers who want to learn about blogging and twitter for classroom use now.
Before this class, I had never used blogs or twitter. I had no idea that there was a blog application in my google account or there was an online blog reader for ease in following other people’s blogs. I am building my confidence with communicating my thoughts online and it is helpful for me to read other students’ blogs that they had little knowledge of the process either. I find I enjoy reading comments more than writing my own. I’ve learned that having a theme with a series of questions to answer helps provide a focus. If I just start responding, I find I begin to develop a view or “voice” about the issue or question. I believe this practical experience will be helpful for me when I begin to blog on my library’s website. I want to create a library website that uses social media to engage with students, parents, and teachers
.
After going through this week’s assignments, I decided that I have a growth mindset. Now I know it was my growth mindset that pushed me into an online master’s program at my age. I am determined to learn the 21st digital technology skills necessary to transform the library at my school. It has not been easy for me coming from my support position as a Media Assistant, but I recognize that I can do it if I keep applying myself. I have particularly benefited from other students’ posts and projects. The online structure of the program is very helpful to learning 21st digital tools.
Carol Dweck described the growth mindset as “one who believes abilities can be developed through practice” and I believe I represent that way of thinking. I also believe I will benefit from knowing her recommendation to “praise the process” in students to help create growth mindsets in students.
It is my fixed mindset that makes me worry about posting interesting blogs and tweets. I focus on how my comments will be received by others! I was pleased to gain a better understanding of the importance the growth mindset and the vital role it can play in classrooms as discussed by Edward Briceno in his discussion, “The Power of Belief.” His advice to “listen for your fixed mindset voice” is guidance I can use with students to help motivate all students to grow and achieve.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHey Paula! Here's an idea of a way that you can incorporate twitter into your classroom! One of my professors in my undergraduate did this with our class, and it was really cool and easy to use. If your students have school email accounts, have them create a twitter account using their school email. Then, you create a class twitter account where they can tweet you questions and comments during class in real time. You can even set up what's called a TweetDeck that will stream all tweets referring to your username (like @KunianskyClass etc.) for easy access to the tweets. You can set it up so that you receive alerts on your phone when a new tweet is posted as well. Here are some directions for getting started setting up a TweetDeck if you are interested! :)
ReplyDeletehttps://about.twitter.com/products/tweetdeck
Thanks so much for the info and I'm going to check it out! So many wonderful tools are available that I knew nothing about until I took this class!
DeletePaula, I also believe that learning by doing is the best way to learn. It is great that you are getting this experience so you are able to implement it next school year. My school embraces Twitter, and I use to it to communicate with parents, teacher and the school community of what we are doing in the classroom. If you want to check mine out you are more than welcome to -@MsOsher. I would love to have more of my students to follow and use it or even I have seen a few teachers that I follow on blogs and Instagram- they choose a student of the day to blog or Tweet about the on goings in the classroom. This gives students the responsibility to share, and they can even do this on the class account. This gives every student a chance, I might try to incorporate something like this next year. If you are more curious about this, I know that Top Dawg Teaching does this in her classroom. Here is her blog and more information on it http://www.topdogteaching.com/search/label/Blogger%20of%20the%20Week
ReplyDelete