"If we teach today as we taught yesterday, we rob our children of tomorrow."- John Dewey
This quote from John Dewey is simply saying that our students are in the era of technology and we as educators need to teach to their environment. This can be done through the beauty of social networking.
My favorite technology is Twitter. Twitter is a social network that allows people to connect from a variety of places. Twitter is a more simplistic version of Facebook. Twitter's basic function is to post brief messages, or "tweets". These tweets can be collected with the "hash tag" function.
Twitter can be utilized through micro blogging. Micro blogging is a way for students to communicate their thoughts very briefly. Twitter only allows someone to tweet within 140 characters. This can open gates to teaching children how to be precise and concise with their thoughts. Twitter also allows students to learn how to communicate with a diversity of people.
John Dewey was a big believer in students learning through social interactions. According to the text, Dewey learned quickly that students learned was through modeling and observation (Roblyer & Doering, 2013, p. 41). Twitter reinforces this type of "social observation" through the networks of tweets. Students can easily observe how people communicate given a particular situation. Even though the students are not directly facing each other, students still interact as if they were.
Listed below is an embedded video on how Twitter can be utilized in the classroom along with a web resource:
Click here to view the web resource on Twitter in education.
Here is an example of a tweet from my Twitter page!
#ED505UWARAY Check this out! http://t.co/lJOpxurIR3— D. B. Tanner (@DBTanner1) June 25, 2013
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