Blogging & Twittering

I have learned a great deal about blogging and twitter. Prior to doing the exercises this week I had heard of blogs and twitter but I did not know exactly what they were or effective uses of them. I did not know that blogging and microblogging was considered news. I had a twitter account for 2 years leading up to this class but I barley used it. I learned how to search for trending terms and how to use Hastags. I did not realize that blogging could be an essential part of the classroom. Students are starting to use more technology and be more familiar with it. The ability to embrace this technology will help students to learn in communicate in a different way. A student who maybe was afraid to ask questions in the classroom may flourish in an online environment. Students have the opportunity to ask questions as they think about them by the use of technology in the classroom.  

I believe that there is a value and relevance of blogging and twittering for educational purposes.  As it shows in the 2009 Horizon Report the use of blogging and microblogging allows students to communicate out of the classroom. The use of these platforms can allow students to keep in contact with each other outside of the classroom. Students have access to blogging if they have any device that will run internet including mobile phones. Online communication helps students with social interaction around the world. The thought is that if students are out even at the mall and can apply their learning they will retain it better. For example if a student thinks of a question while they are at the mall they can put out a tweet. Then other students in the class can either tweet back or the teacher can reply. According to the Tweets for Education videos using twitter in the classroom can help engage students in a media that they are familiar with. Even though over half of the users on twitter are over the age of 35 the amount of younger users is growing. This is another point of why twitter can be used in the classroom. Many students are non-traditional students who are considered adult learners. Using this medium that these students are familiar with can help them learn.

I chose to follow The University of Toledo as the network that I want to follow. I selected The University of Toledo because I am alumni, a student and an employee. I feel that it is important that I know news that happens at the University. It is important to know the trends on campus so that when students come into my office and have questions I can answer them. I also think that it is important to know how students see the university. What students are talking about at the university will help the university staff to know how to best serve the students. I feel like this network will give me a better grasp on the students on campus for both purposes of being a student and staff member.

Blogging is important because news may be considered different to all people. What is considered news by me may not be considered news to someone else. Anyone can be a reporter or publisher of their own blog and share news about their life or a business with just a click of a button. Blogs are generally free and easy to use. There is a template that can be used to make the interface user friendly for anyone who is not familiar with technology. Blogs can also make communities of people. Once a blog is posted readers can write comments back to the bloggers. Once bloggers get familiar with each other they will read and link blogs creating different communities. I did not realize that many collaborative environments for students were considered blog sites. The sites include but are not limited to Moodle, Kaltura and Think Quest. These blogs also allow for students to use creativities in projects using photos, videos and texts in blogging.  Closely related to blogging is the use of social media such as Twitter. 

Twitter is a real life Microblogging system that allows you to share small updates about your life. People who are connected all over the world and have friends that they have never met may know them from blogs or emails. Twitter allows you to gain more of an idea of who a person is from their real life experiences. Once a person is found on twitter they can be followed and their information can be seen on the main twitter page. I always thought that twitter and Facebook was the same thing. However, I know see that the two are seemingly different.  Twitter has many search features that allow the user to search for trending topics. When searching for a trending word a radius can be set so only the news from that area is found. #Hashtags may become a trending word but are different. A Hashtags are used to tie conversations with the same Hashtag as one thread. Twitter is different from other Social Media sites because you cannot make the posts private. Twitter is made so that information is news shared into public.