Edtech

I attended a tech camp last summer and created a twitter account during that week in class.  I tweeted classmates and used it during that week, but never continued to use it after the class.  At the time I really didn’t like it and find it very useful for what I needed in my classroom.  I learned a lot of other stuff that week and never really worked with twitter again.  This class is making me use twitter and maybe that is what I needed last year in order to really understand and get use out of it.  After working with it for three weeks now I am really starting to see the advantages and the amount of useful information that you can get within minutes from it.  The amount of information is not the only thing that is an advantage, but being able to see other peoples professional opinion and advice on educational topics is also another great reason to use twitter.  Twitter allows you to connect with other professionals in your specific area, have professional conversations, and exchange great information on a specific topic that you are interested in or need more information on.  

I logged in on a #satchat and discussed vision in schools and I could not believe the different viewpoints that each person on the chat brought up.  There was a lot of people that were tweeting so I found it a little hard at first to keep up and read everybody’s information.  Spam kept interrupting the chat at times and that kind of ended the chat after a half hour or so.  The chat still overall provided me with useful information and allowed me to find a couple good resources for my final paper, which talks about ways to revisit and introduce the schools vision to student and teachers in the building.

I would like to use twitter and be able to get the use out of twitter like my technology director at Amboy High School.  I had a conversation with him discussing the type of video equipment my Multimedia class should be getting for next semester.  Do we buy just one expensive camera and holster or do we purchase multiple, less expensive cameras?  He got back to me the next day with an answer, because he used twitter to get information from other educators in high schools that could provide him with what they are using in their schools.