It’s my first time to use twitter and I am fascinated about how it could not only broaden my horizons within minutes but also facilitate my teaching in second language.
According to the blog post by Joe Dale, he clearly addressed how twitter can help teachers. Twitter opens a dialogue with teachers, experts, educators. Without being out of the classroom, a bunch of people contribute and share ideas, opinions, reflections, techniques that have be tested, links to useful websites and tools, resources, books in a consciousness string. It is a space that teachers can ask questions and get answers. People provide feedback for each other. The network is not only social but also became a personal leaning network (PLN). What makes twitter great is that there won’t be too much information allowed unless I decide to take a deeper look at it. I can have my own choice to decide whether to follow the information depends on the quality or my interest.
I myself also found twitter is more useful and interesting than I thought. After I clicked “follow” on some of language educators, with only in one hour, I read teaching materials and websites that they shared. I found twitter provide me more instant interaction with people on-line. After following twitter for a whole week, I already deemed it as a fresh when I was tired of preparing for midterm exams and papers. When feeling tired, I would go on twitter and see what’s new. For example, I just saw a twit by Larryferlazzo. It is a video link about Skinner and Teaching machine. I have never heard that before and found this quite interesting. Few days ago, I also found a post on tools to create my own vocabulary test by kalinagoenglish. This is useful because it saves a lot of time.
So far, I think my ways for leaning are changed by online social networks. I would keep working and see how it brings surprise and inspiration for my life and teaching!
