Twitter and Me!

Twitter and I have always been best friends. I have had a twitter account for a while now. While I am really big into other social networking sites like Facebook and Tumblr, Twitter has always been one of those websites that I make sure I update and watch. I knew how to use tweetdeck before Professor Smith told us about it. I have always liked Twitter. It's the place I go when I need to say something that I can't say on Facebook because of family, even though it's only 140 characters long.

In class, we had to make a professional Twitter account, so I now have two Twitter accounts: my personal Twitter and my professional Twitter. Today during class we had a quiz. It wasn't a normal quiz though. We were in groups of three, but we couldn't talk. My professor posted the questions via twitter and we had to answer them via twitter. Then, with our groups we had to post the answers into a Google drive document. My group all got on Facebook and communicated that way while at the same time using Twitter and Tweetdeck.


I really enjoyed using that as a quiz. It seemed confusing at first, but it turned out to not be so bad. He showed us another way to use twitter in our future classrooms. In a classroom, a teacher might ask a question and one or two students will answer; whereas, if you post a tweet stating the question, every student can answer the question simultaneously and I as the teacher can go through and favorite or re-tweet the best answers.  I think Twitter can be a good tool in my classroom and that I will find someway to incorporate it one day!

The Final Frontier

In my technology class, we had the first project of the semester:  a group presentation. We had to use Google drive, which is an updated version of Google docs. Included in the presentation had to be a call to action, an embedded link, transitions from slide to slide, images, and links to outside sources. I worked on this project with Megan Trinh and Meg Dulion .

The article, titled "Teacher Pedagogical Beliefs: The Final Frontier in Our Quest for Technology Integration," can be found here. This article discusses teacher's beliefs in switching to technology-based teaching in the classrooms. It goes by three main experiences: First hand experiences, vicarious experiences, and social-cultural experiences. It discusses whether or not teachers are willing to change their beliefs from old school to new school, so to speak. Experiences have a lot to do with beliefs of teachers.

I really enjoyed working with a group and being able to use Google drive to collaborative with my group. Through technology, we were able to access the same presentation via Google. We were able to work on the presentation on our own time, while still working together. I love being able to do that with my busy schedule. 

Here is our presentation on the changes of technology. In this, we show statistics, first order changes vs. second order changes, safety measures, and was even able to add in a Meet the Robinsons quote "keep moving forward!"