Twitter is an excellent tool for spreading ideas, collaboration, and keeping up with current events. It allows us to connect in an informal setting with people we may have not been able to communicate with otherwise. Users are linking with their favorite musical artists, expressing their feelings to politicians, and finding friends around the globe. Recently I have been using the app to learn from classmates and professionals in the world of education. The experience has been great and has opened my mind to how I can use social media as a learning tool as opposed to just for fun in my free time.
By being able to understand the thoughts and opinions of others, we challenge how and why we think the way we do. Twitter has an endless amount of varying opinions. Some opinions may change the way you think, while others provide concrete validation into why you believe what you do. For example, the other night I stumbled upon a user discussing that they believe children should not be given free lunch at school as they did not pay for it. School lunches were not something I had put much thought into before. This tweet challenged me to think about my own opinions and I realized I think school lunches should be provided to students at free to low cost. This led to a meaningful conversation with a classmate where we discussed how free lunches are a great school resource. Twitter brought a topic of concern to my attention that I had not thought about before. I was able to have a learning experience and an impactful interaction even though I did not agree with the original post.
Twitter has also been an amazing tool for finding ideas to use in the classroom. Going into a blank room your first year of teaching can be overwhelming. How will you set things up? What will make the students comfortable? What will you do to keep students engaged in learning? Twitter allowed me to get insight from real educators with years of experience while also sharing ideas I found online with the community. These professionals have an idea of what works and I am so grateful to have these ideas for when I design my elementary classroom one day. The core of my teaching strategy is the use of kindness to build confidence. Twitter has shown me several ways on how to implement this in my classroom. Below is a list of my favorites:
Classwork turned into different drawers to signify how confident a student is with the material.
Allowing every student to talk during morning meetings so everyone feels seen and heard.
Implementing a Day of Caring to teach students empathy.
The use of check-in/check-out buddies to act as supports to show kindness.
How to build personal bonds with struggling students.
60-Second Shout Outs done by students to highlight the accomplishments of another student.
Twitter has allowed me to interact with others, even if we do not agree, showing me we are always able to learn from each other. We can always learn something new from those around us and I believe this experience truly demonstrates this, especially in Twitter Chats. Twitter chats are free ways to increase your professional development for today’s classrooms. I appreciate the insight had by those in the field and I look forward to joining them one day. I will continue to use the app in the future as a way to connect with educators in the field to not only enhance my skills for myself but my students.
Thank you for taking the time to read my blog!
Follow me on Twitter for more education related discussion: @EckhardtMalisa
Have you ever been in a class and wondered, how exactly am I going to use this in my life? We have all been there. After reading chapter after chapter in our textbooks or completing yet another paper by researching articles on Google, learning can lose its authenticity. We begin to wonder why this is so important or why you have to devote so much time to something that does not have relevance to you. As someone who grew far too tired of the mundane “do it because you have to” form of learning, I want to bring back real-life, authentic learning to my students with real-world examples and relevancy.
Julie Lindsay’s The Global Educator explores this idea of “authentic learning with real-world partners.” Students who are in global classrooms expect to have authentic learning partners among all ages. In turn, they also expect to have an audience that is equally authentic to produce everything from blog posts to videos. This form of learning cannot simply be taught solely from the textbook and must expand beyond essays and research. Modern, living people can provide the most up-to-date information about how they live while books can quickly fall behind the times. Although textbooks are important, we must expand beyond them in certain instances so we can show students how they can use this information in their own lives. When we learn from each other, we get a live, real and genuine look into the lives of others and can base our understanding of real-life experience.
We should connect students with the world around them. When they see first hand how what they are learning matters, they will feel more inclined to work hard as now the work has an added meaning. When we collaborate with others globally, we are improving the education of the children on both sides of the communication. This can be done through virtial games with students in another part of the world or even giving presentations to not only the class but to someone in a different state. When we extend the reach of our classroom, we give students the thrill of communication, connection, and collaboration.
When students feel a personal connection to what it is they are learning, they are more excited to participate in their education. As an article produced by Lexia states, authentic learning “places students at the heart of real-life experiences” making them more motivated to explore and develop their educational skills through a variety of outlets (project based-learning, community connections, experiential learning opportunities). It is important to meld practical academic skills with real-life situations so students understand why they are learning. Below is a quote from the Lexia article that I thought was insightful on what exactly authentic learning environments are:
Students engaged in authentic learning are not memorizing content and demonstrating understanding through a multiple-choice test. Rather…they take the lead in identifying questions and problems, brainstorming solutions, and responding and adapting to failure until they are successful in addressing a need or creating a final product.
Geography is a subject most of us can agree on is not very “exciting” and students can quickly lose interest after 45 minutes of facts and maps. I found the idea of a mystery hangout and I know it is 100% something I am looking forward to introducing to my students in the future. In a mystery classroom, two classrooms from around the world interact with each other via Google Hangout. Using knowledge about geography, they ask each other questions to attempt to uncover where the other group is from. It is a fun activity that connects students from around the world while also applying a fun an meaningful experience. The mystery classroom gets students thinking about and interacting with people all around the world to not only increase their geographic understanding but their understanding of how life is like for the other class. This Hangout provides an authentic explanation for the importance of geography and will be a lesson they take with them for years to come.
Edmodo is a great tool for elementary school educators and students alike. It is an educational website that takes the concept of social networks and refines it in a way that makes it appropriate for the classroom. Essentially, it is a community and social media tool that allows the sharing of ideas, posting of discussions and uses multimedia to further explain and share information. There are several ways we can incorporate the site into our classrooms, even for our elementary students.
1. Morning Blog Posts
Technology is extremely accessible in today’s classrooms, with most schools equipping students with their own school chrome book or laptop. I discovered the idea “morning blogs” from Bethany Schwappach, a lead teacher in the Cajon Valley Union School District in Cajon, California. Every morning her students begin the day by completing work embedded in the morning blog, making themselves aware of what their day at school will look like, aquatinting themselves with the material and what they are expected to do next. Her explanation of this concept can be found below:
Morning Blogs are explained between the 0:01-0:56 mark.
2. Exit Tickets
Another use Schwappach explains in the accessibility of exit tickets. While exit tickets are not a new concept, Edmodo makes them more cohesive and organized in one place instead of students simply handing in a loose-leaf or sticky note that can easily be lost. Exit tickets require the student to think bout what they learned and allow teachers to access for student understanding. Teachers can put a variety of questions or even post a survey to get a grasp of where their students are in their learning.
3. Assist With Classroom Lessons
A student uses the SmartBoard in class.
Edmodo is not just on our laptops and phones, it can also be accessed on tools such as SmartBoards. Teachers can pull up lessons or have students participate in real-time. An example is a 2nd-grade teacher, Tracey W. who shared her lesson plan on internet privacy. She created a class Edmodo page with a fake text post by a student and asked the class to discuss what was something the student posted but should have kept private. Since Edmodo has a similar format to other social media outlets, it makes the lesson more realistic when discussing online safety. Students can work collaboratively to get rid of information they believe is private and volunteers can come up to the Edmodo on the SmartBoard to correct the post in real-time.
4. Communication with Parents
Edmodo also is a great tool for keeping parents informed and involved in the classroom. Teachers and parents are able to communicate quickly to answer questions, share concerns or ask for help. Something I think would be helpful is to send out a “newsletter” every week through Edmodo highlighting:
Important Dates (Tests, Assemblies, Projects, etc.)
Topics being discussed the upcoming week
Tools to help parents study with their child
Important Announcements
Students of the Week
Student shout out section (Birthdays, Accomplishments, Kind things they have done in class, etc)
Parents want to feel connected to their children at school and by keeping them fully immersed in their learning, they are able to also be included in the classroom community. This may work better than apps like Twitter when considering the age of elementary-aged students because Edmodo is more private, only being seen by parents and students in the class.
5. Sick Days, Vacations, and Extended Leave
Students are going to be absent and it is important to have an action plan in place for when they are not in the classroom. When students are gone for anything more than a day, it can be overwhelming to come back to school and have a pile of work on their desk. Edmodo allows teachers to have communication with their students where they can place notes, slides, and missed work directly on the website for students to work at home. Absent teachers can also get updates on class behavior and check in on their students through Edmodo. If a teacher makes a student account for subs to use, they can participate in the chat as well, keeping the teacher up to date with how their class is doing.
6. Offer Teaching Support
Teaching is not an easy job and many teachers find themselves with questions about lessons, teaching or standards. Edmodo allows teachers to create a virtual “teachers lounge” where teachers within the school can ask questions, share content, and discuss ideas. Being more casual and organized than an email chain, teachers can quickly interact with one another on their own time. There is also a feature that allows workshops for teachers to be posted on the website.
7. Peer Critique and Feedback
Students can work in small groups or independently and post their work for peer review and feedback for both the teacher and other groups to see. Other students are encouraged to comment and discuss what was well and what can be improved. With Edmodo, students are even able to upload and listen to audio directly from the site if they would like to share their work verbally, work on presentation and verbal skills. When using the audio feature, students can also refine their listening skills.
8. Provide Assessments
Edmodo allows teachers to build quizzes and polls right on the site. Quizzes are valuable to test students at the end of the lesson whereas polls are great identifiers for what students want to know and how comfortable they are with the material. Edmodo makes it even easier as all data is collected automatically, providing a statistical analysis of where the students are in an easy to read format. For example, a teacher can post a poll where students identify how ready they feel a few days before the quiz is released to see what material should be reviewed. The students can take the poll in seconds right in the classroom.
Thank you for taking the time to read my blog!
Follow me on Twitter for more education related discussion: @EckhardtMalisa
Technology and social media have linked our world together more than ever before. We are able to communicate with those around us within seconds, being able to share any thought we have with the press of a button. While this communication allows us to quickly spread ideas, communicate, and share our lives, this constant connectivity can have major downfalls, especially in the realm of professional employment. It is important that educators understand the dangers of technology, as there have been many teachers who have jeopardized their careers due to interactions and postings on social media. Social media raises the question: how truly private are lives in the technological world of 2020?
Teacher Loses Job Over Instagram Bathtub Post
In December of 2019, Caitlin Cunningham, a 6th-grade teacher at Gentry Middle School in Columbia, Missouri found herself tied in a scandal due to a post on her Instagram. The post involved a video where she and a friend sat naked in a bathtub with the caption “2B*tchezinaBathtub” and spoke about current events. The account was public, and although Cunnigham had been using the name “Katy” instead of “Caitlin” it did not stop her students from finding the video. The students began to comment on the post, saying things such as “aren’t you a teacher?” and “we’re going to get you fired.” Even though Cunnigham had made her account private and deleted the post after the student’s discovery, the damage had been done. She was placed on administrative leave until further notice. Cunnigham had previously placed in her resignation a month prior on November 18, however, it would not go into effect until January 3 of 2020, so at the time of the posting she was still an employee at the school. It is important educators are aware of what they are posting and of what their school’s social media policy is, beings every school is required to have a written social media policy to keep up with the growing digital world. One bad post is a quick way to unemployment, no matter how good your previous track record was. Cunnigham was a teacher at the school for 9 years and helped start the Jaguar PAWS (People Accepting Whole Selves), the school’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance club and was an active agent in facilitating club activities since its beginnings. Her good past was not enough to stop the school from moving foward with her suspension. When looking at the school’s staff conduct policy, it reads as follows:
The Board of Education expects every employee to act professionally, ethically and responsibly; use good judgment, and do what is necessary to maintain a safe learning environment and positive relations with students, parents/guardians, coworkers, and the public.
Columbia Public Schools
Cunnigham’s actions were seen as a violation of this policy, leading to the schoolboard feeling just in her removal. No matter how private and secure we may feel online, the internet is a place where what we say and do is on full display and we never truly know who is looking. As a teacher, especially middles school, your student could be trying to find you online. A good rule of thumb is if you have to think twice, don’t post.
Snapchat Mistake Leaves Teacher Suspended
While Cunnigham may have intentionally posted her video to Instagram, what happens when a teacher accidentally posts intimae stories to their Snapchat? This is the case for a 7th-grade teacher from Ewing Halsell Middle School in Vinita, Oklahoma. The teacher had meant to send an intimate photo to her boyfriend, however, it was placed on her Snapchat story instead, where all her followers could view. It had taken her 30 minutes to realize her mistake, however, it was too late. Her students had seen the photo and began to circulate the image around the school. Since it was an accident she will not be facing legal trouble, but the school has decided to suspend the teacher while they weigh their options. This opens the question, should we have our students on our social media platforms? Although the situation would have been embarrassing regardless, the mistake would not have reached this magnitude if she had her social media set to where only selected friends could view her account. Teachers must put in extra precautions when it comes to social media privacy — the more private the better. Personally, I find having students on any social media platform to be unprofessional and should be avoided. This is a prime example of why we all must think twice about how we interact online. No silly mistake like this is worth losing your career.
Innaportaite Communication Leads to Legal Action
While it may seem obvious we should not interact with our students outside of the classroom, some teacher’s still cross the line. Social media and smartphones make it even easier for adults to take advantage of children and adolescents. Communication is more accessible and there are many avenues and apps predators can use to get in touch with vulnerable youths. 16-year-old girl, Kelsey Garber, from Greeneville, Tennesee is currently seeking legal options after her former biology teacher, Rowdy Jones, began to send her sexually explicit and inappropriate messages over Snapchat. In these messages, Jones stated that he was intoxicated, missed the student, asked her if she wanted to have sex with him, and that he knew what he was saying and doing was wrong. It has also been reported Garber is not the first girl he has messaged.
It just made me feel nasty even though I didn’t do anything wrong because there’s no reason he, as a grown man, should have been texting students like that.
Kelsey Garber
The night Garber got the messages her mother, Jamie Greene, called the Greene County Sheriff’s Department to report the event. Jones had resigned the following day, listing in the report “inappropriate communications with a student that is non-explicit.” When asked about the situation Jones stated that “I will not be returning to teaching, and as for my next steps I am currently in therapy and cooperating with officials.” Legal action is currently being taken.
The behavior of Jones is inexcusable. Teachers are supposed to be protectors and educators, keeping our students safe. While Snapchat is not to blame for the incorporate behavior performed by Jones, it did make his communication with Garber more accessible. He clearly did not think she would report the incident, but I am glad she did. Jones used social media to take advantage of his students and should by no means be allowed back into the teaching profession.
Social media opens the door for communication, however, this seems to be one teacher should keep locked and shut. We should not have our students viewing our personal lives and we most definitely should not have them be a part of it. Outside of the classroom, you are not your student’s best friend and should not treat them as such.
Social media has lasting effects on the world around us. Even when these three cases fade into history, the educators in these scenarios will forever be held accountable for their misuse of social media. It will be harder for them to get a job after this due to the power of Google alone. The search of their name will come up with every news article and report written about how they created an unsafe environment for their students, something no hiring manager will look beyond, especially in a school district. Save yourself the trouble and stay safe online. Look over your workplace’s social media policy and stay smart online. No post, tweet, or Snapchat is worth losing your job, pride, and reputation.
Thank you for taking the time to read my blog!
Follow me on Twitter for more education related discussion: @EckhardtMalisa
While scrolling on Twitter under the hashtag #edtech, I came across a interesting tweet regarding an article written by McGraw-Hill PreK-12. Adaptive technology is making its way into education, broadening educational possibilities and making our classrooms more inclusive, personalized and accessible for all learners. The article, titled The Right Experience at the Right Time: An Insider’s Guide to Adaptive Technology is part 1 of the series that dives into the science of adaptive technology and how it can guide student learning so that all students have the ability to be academically challenged regardless of their place on the learning curve.
Adaptive technology is a powerful tool that gives teachers the resources needed to adapt their classroom to the changing needs of students at every learning level. A good teacher not only understands the subject content but also how to teach it. It does not matter how quick you can do a geometry problem if you cannot find different ways to explain how you came to your answer. Something amazing about the human brain is we all learn at different paces and in different ways. There is no quick shortcut to teaching and I believe that to teach your students, you need to know what works for each of them individually.
The article focuses not only on how technology can help struggling students, but also how it can help those who have surpassed the challenges of their current curricula. This way teachers are better able to guide their struggling learners, support their on-level learners, and challenge advanced learners. No one should be left behind in our classrooms and my goal as a teacher is that every day all of my students go home knowing something they had not known before, with the confidence in tow that they were challenged but not defeated. It is a loss when children are left behind because they were not given the adaptions to understand and to me, it is equally neglectful if teachers let there high performing students skate by without receiving academic the stimuli that provide them with a fair challenge. By personalizing learning with technology students have a learning strategy designed just for them while giving them confidence to perform challenging tasks.
Beginnings of Adaptive Technology
Photo of Benjamin Bloom.
The article also discussed where the idea of adaptive technology came from. Adaptive technology is far from being a new concept, although the technology used has drastically improved throughout time. It began in 1984 when educational researcher Benjamin Bloom published his findings from his study, the 2 Sigma Problem. The study found that students who received individualized attention and personalized tutoring showed greater learning achievements than their peers who did not. This group of students surpassed their peers by nearly 98%, suggesting that this individualized attention helps student reaches their fullest potential.
What is Adaptive Technology?
Adaption is anything done in the classroom to adapt to the needs of an individual student. However, the addition of technology has skyrocketed the success of adaption at an unparalleled rate. This technology includes a variety of useful tools, such as digitized texts, software & programming, computers with voice and visual outputs, keyboard modifications, etc. The tools that show the greatest impact are those that monitor a student’s comprehension, confidence, and skill by aligning materials and tasks that match the student’s needs.
As someone who substitutes teaches most of the week, I have seen it in many of the classrooms I have been in. In one school district, most classrooms use computed derived computer games that adapt to the level of the student, working from where the student is rather than at a level they are all “meant” to be at. While meeting students where they are instead of using outdated expectations and standards, I believe the student is able to better understand, retain, and master concepts. How can we expect a child to excel in adding fractions when they still struggle with basic arithmetic? Or similarly, how is it beneficial for a student who gets a 100 on a spelling pretest to still be tested on those words, even though it is a skill set they have already mastered? Adaptive technology is a key tool in ensuring that all students can actively build their skills, meeting them at the level they are on.
Adaptive technologies are designed to make that practice efficient, constructive, and rewarding
McGraw-Hill
When students are given the tools, attention resources they need to succeed, they are better equipped to place maximum effort in their education. Adaptive technology can provide studying models, boost confidence in learning, help students avoid cramming and help the overall retention of the material at hand. We should use all tools possible to meet our students were building their skills from there, helping them wherever they need it most. It’s time we run the educational race alongside our students instead of waiting at the finish line, expecting them to do it on their own.
A student uses adaptive technology by using a tablet to complete their work.
Thank you for taking the time to read my blog!
Follow me on Twitter for more education related discussion: @EckhardtMalisa
