To Tweet or not to Tweet

I started a Twitter account very early on.  I remember joining the upstart website sometime in 2007-2008 because I heard a lot of celebrities were doing it and I wanted to be in the in crowd and show all my friends how cool I was.  Unfortunately it didn't work out that way.  I told all my friends about the idea behind it (it was just like Facebook, except you can only update your status) and each time I would get the same response, "Why would I want to do that when I have Facebook?".  I slowly got more and more deflated as I tweeted daily about everything I was doing, yet only having 10 followers (3 of which were my family).  Needless to say I jumped ship because there was no point to it at that time.  Facebook had all my friends and was a lot more fun to be on too.

Fast forward to 2012 where Twitter seems to be everywhere.  News anchors talk about it, TV shows have accounts, the President himself asked Americans to tweet our opinions to Congress today.  Twitter has apparently made a HUGE comeback and I wasn't a part of it.  When I started this class and we started talking about Twitter and I didn't know what to make of it because all I know about Twitter is the annoying people on Facebook who can't seem to write an update without using hashtags (hint: they don't work on Facebook).

However, once I saw the new search functionality of the hashtags and how easy it is to follow people who are interested in the same things as you, it made me take a second look at it.  No longer were there a handful of noobs on the site mixed with attention starved celebriteis.  Now when I go on, I see professionals sharing information, companies sharing deals, educators helping educators and it is really nice.  I feel like I am using a more personalized search engine and I'm not bombarded with a lot of things that I don't need or want. 

When you type "eggs" into Google, you'll get 1.5 billion hits from every website that has ever mentioned "eggs".  On Twitter, I've noticed that you don't get just raw data, you actually get information that someone else had already researched and packaged into a short little blurb that you can scroll past if you don't have time to read it.  The functionality of Twitter has dramatically increased over the past 4 years and while I am still wary about jumping completely back in, my first experience this year has been a positive one and I am looking forward to using it more.

iPads in the Classroom

Using iPads in the classroom has been a point of contention in the education for a long time.  Many people would like to integrate the device into their lessons, while others see it as just a toy and/or a distraction.  There are others who would love to have iPads used in their classroom, but run into problems like student device/platform fragmentation (ie Android, Windows 8, Android).  Personally I fall into the latter group of teachers and highly desire to use iPads in my classroom but I have trouble doing so because I run into snags when trying to integrate the device into each of my 7 classes.

This article outlines many of the frequently asked questions when the discussion of iPads in the classroom, comes up.  One of the main arguments against using them in the classroom is that many teachers see iPads as a distracting gaming device.  The other side of the argument is that teachers must be on top of their students at all times, and even more so when an iPad is being used.  If your students are using iPads for playing games, checking Facebook, or sending email in class, you are managing your classroom incorrectly.  There are plenty of ways to restrict access to certain features, and even more so, setting up guidelines, procedures, and consequences before hand will make your lesson run a lot smoother.

Another issue that is debated is whether or not an iPad would help students learn, or detract from their learning.  Ultimately, this comes down to how the iPad is being used.  If a teacher was to stand up in class and ask his or her students to browse YouTube for a video the they think is interesting, the "lesson" would quickly spiral into cat videos and One Direction music videos.  However, a more structured lesson that only allowed students to use iPads for certain tasks and at certain times would be much more efficient.  For example, a teacher may teach a lesson about DNA and how it replicates and then ask students to work in pairs to create a short video using their iPads about how a strand of DNA is paired and made into proteins.  This provides the students with direction and allows for creativity.

There are other factors that go into deciding if iPads should be utilized in the classroom such as: cost, who pays for it, book replacement, mandatory vs optional, etc.  Each one of these questions and issues must be examined thoroughly before a healthy iOS program is rolled out at any school.  If any of these issues are ignored or "tabled", the program will cause frustration for teachers, while providing students with countless hours of class time to fill their minds with Cut the Rope.

Link to article