Twitter Connections

Twitter is one of the fastest growing technologies to date.  It's a real time site devoted to sharing thoughts, experiences and even some of the newest innovations used world-wide.  The world of education is no stranger to this new social media site.  Some of the most interesting and enlightening Twitter feeds to check out include those from:  Kathy Schrock, Linda Braun, Tony Vincent, Buffy J. Hamilton, The Daring Librarian and Jim Lerman. 

Kathy Schrock is a technological wonder.  She is a Google Certified Teacher, Educational Technologist and speaker.  Always up-to-date with the newest and latest technological finds, she has recently tweeted some handy finds to use in education.  Tweeted on August 25th, https://twitter.com/kathyschrock/status/636155057696833536, 

is a reference to, "App smashing."  App smashing deals with the use of several apps in order to create a final product or presentation.  In the case of this tweet she directs us to "Education Fox," a teacher who used a specific app formula with students in order to create a visual representation of a poem based on the book Wonder, by R. J. Palacio.  According to "Education Fox," (JoAnn Fox) it can only be done once students are fluent in the apps that you will be mixing.  She recommends teaching students the full capabilities of the app and doing a mini-lesson on each.  Once their fluency is strong enough, try "smashing,"  two apps, and build it up gradually.  Although app smashing can be fun, you must always keep the final product in mind.  What is your goal and how will this help your students in the long run?  She also recommends "mixing up," the recipe after a time in order to keep the students interested.  http://www.appeducation.com/2014/08/01/building-and-sustaining-an-app-smashing-culture/.

After having seen some of this I think that this would be a great technology lesson to do with the media specialist.  I would definitely start slow and build upon it.  Personally, I would not try this with a class younger than 4th grade.  I think a lesson like this only makes sense, if 1.)  the class understands the genre being studied, 2.) the class has a strong understanding of the apps being used. 

Linda Braun is a Learning consultant, educator, librarian, past YALSA president and teen advocate.  She regularly tweets useful data on teens.  Her last tweet on August 31st, dealt with phone usage and was one I could not ignore.  https://twitter.com/lbraun2000/status/638416192013627392,  Braun states that 73% of all US teens have a smartphone.  58% of all teens with a smartphone cite texting as their number one source of communication, social media such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter being their second number one choice.  Interestingly enough those without smartphones say that social media is their number one choice, while phone calls make a distant second.  Smartphone using teens also say that they make daily contact with their friends through texting and social media, and are also more likely to have disagreements linked to something that was said online or via text.   Ultimately teens still say that they are more likely to meet up with a friend during the day, than not, even though they have use of the smartphone.  Can technology ever really replace the face-to-face contact with other human beings?  Ehhh, that would be a no, at least for the time being....

Tweets by Buffy J. Hamilton are excellent and bring to mind traditional views on libraries and librarianship.  Although she is a traditionalist, she seeks innovative ways to keep the library a focal point of the campus.  As noted here in a tweet from August 27th, https://twitter.com/buffyjhamilton/status/636903619359567872, she links us to an outstanding article on restructuring the library according to the type of learning being done.  It's filled with plans, maps, ideas on how to group areas and considerations to make when structuring a library space.  According to types of projects being assigned, different types of settings must be made available.  The article suggests areas for alone study (both public and private) and together study (both public and private) with the areas overlapping.  Desks and chairs must also help support these areas with places for events, group work and pods for quiet.  Students and educators, now more than ever are expected to work more collaboratively than ever before and therefore require the means in order to carry out that mission.  The library in the study (Grand Valley State University in Michigan) says they are reporting greater usage, higher traffic and ultimately hope to report on quicker graduation rates overall.  What does this mean for the public school librarian?  Consider what would work for your library.  Get feedback from the staff.  What sorts of areas are needed?  What updates in furniture are needed?  Write up a proposal.  Look into grants from various sources such as TLA and ALA.  Although steep in costs, consider the benefits of such an upgrade, higher grades, better test scores, higher patron usage, greater accessibility to the users. 

Tony Vincent is another technological guru.  His latest work is an app called "Stick Around."  He developed it with the design team of Morris Cooke.  With it some of the many possibilities include:  labeling photos, filling in venn diagrams, matching animals and habitats, sequencing events, matching words and definitions, labeling parts of a system, completing a timeline, and putting fractions in order.  Although it is fun to work the puzzles it's even more fun to develop them.  Doing so requires 5 steps:  designing a background, adding stickers, entering information and then finally testing your puzzle.  What makes it even better is that you even have the capability of sharing puzzles (as long as the app is installed in the alternate device).  You can e-mail it or even put it in Google Drive.  https://twitter.com/MrsKeene4th/status/634331735740837888.  Originally a tweet by Mrs. Keene on August 20th, it links up to an article done by Tony Vincent back in April of 2014.  I have to admit once I understood the workings of this app I became excited.  Our school recently received a grant for over 38,000.00 and with it we purchased ipads.  I would personally enjoy downloading this and try using it myself.  The most appealing part of this app is the sharing that you can do with it.  This would be a great tool to use for students to study with, develop a project with or even get a quick assessment with.  Relatively inexpensive and fun to use, it seems to be a winner in my book. 

On August 31st, The Daring Librarian, tweeted "Did you know that you can skype with a Yellowstone Park Ranger?" https://twitter.com/Microsoft_EDU/status/638390038372462592.  Upon reading that I was fascinated, but then quickly thought, "sure, why not, my 12-year-old daughter likes to skype with her friend that recently moved to Houston, so why not do it for educational purposes?"  Skyping has become increasingly popular with people in the past years, it offers the public video chat and voice calls from computers, tablets and even mobile devices.  A lot of the service is free, but costs could incur depending upon your internet service provider.  After reviewing the website I found that many teachers all over the country have done a skype session with a park ranger.  Teachers said that students were enthralled and could not stop talking about the experience.  The topics the rangers touched on were based on mathematics, geology and biology.  In addition to that students get a chance to experience a far away place in real-time, even if they never get the chance to go there themselves.  The experience is exciting, thrilling and a great way to see topics in school being applied in real life.  An idea, definitely worth looking into.  I will have to share this with colleagues and will probably look into other places that offer skype sessions for schools.....hmmmm.

Lastly we come to Jim Lerman, teacher, author, speaker, collaborator.  Always looking for new ideas and better ways to teach, he tweets on August 30th, a great tidbit about Google now providing a teacher training center for educators to learn the ins and outs of all of its latest educational innovations.      https://twitter.com/jimlerman/status/638133256102244352.  The center offers free professional development resources and courses for those who use their apps.  It also provides certification to prove teachers' expertise.  Although relatively new to education, Google, like it does so many other things, is going full-force.  From offering apps like Google Docs, Google Classroom and its newest app, Google Cardboard,  Google is taking the educational world on and changing it for the better.  School districts around the country are now just beginning to fully-embrace its varied and valuable resources.  With the just the few apps that it has, teachers are finding better ways to collaborate, share, improve and more than anything, save time on basic planning that in earlier years would take so much longer.  Sadly, the link does not mention where the training center is at.  It could be that we could (en masse) learn from an online course or a series of skype sessions.  Knowing Google, it will be interesting to see where this leads. 

The world is an ever-changing place and the world of education is like-wise a part of it.  In order to fully prepare our students, we must fully utilize all of its many wonders, capabilities and capacities.  The more we come to use these newer technologies the better our students will be for it.  Until next time,  you check out some of these latest trends and I'll keep an eye out for the next big thing.