Tag Archives: Education

What Do You Think Of Twitter?

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The Twitter logo
The Twitter logo.

Twitter is one of the main social media tools I am using for these few months. It is a pleasant experience that I have never thought of how beneficial it is before I try it out. I think more specialists are using Twitter than other social media tools, such as Facebook. Therefore, I am easier to find for professional sources by searching hashtags #edtech, #psychology, and #edchat. As a Psychology major, I am surprised that many tweets are sharing various experiences and techniques in learning. Some learning methods and skills are typical and ordinarily used, but I learned how to apply them to different scenarios for tremendous and unexpected results. Therefore, using Twitter in learning to be a global educator and learner widens my horizon in how much I can learn from others. Twitter is a worldwide using tool that all people around the world can share, explain, and debate topics. Here is an excellent example that a sixth-grader expressed his purpose of school, which reminds me to reflect on my purpose of school. 

“The purpose of school is not just to learn, but become a better human being. Sure, you also need to know your math and history facts. But the point of school is to gain skills like, compassion, self-awareness, organization, and kindness. That is a teachers ultimate goal.”

A sixth-grader

It lighted up my mind that I also wanted to ask myself: what is my purpose going to school? What is education? What should I be ultimately learning from others? Now, my answers are critical thinking and perspective-taking. Can you imagine this is inspired by a six-grade student?

To be more specific, I usually search using #edtech and #edchat for more inspirations. As a Psychology major, I learned to apply learning methods shared by educators in the psychology field. I understood that learning and teaching methods are not limited to the education field but in any other acknowledged situation. 

During the past few weeks, I joined different Twitter chats that are related to psychology. There are more live conversations that people answer three to six questions and respond to others’ replies for educational chats. However, there are more weekly questions than live discussions for psychological chats. I am glad that I can share my relevant experiences with moderators and learn from people’s suggestions. I appreciate that Human Resources (HR) professionals share scientific articles and working skills on Twitter, which are useful for me to develop my Personal Learning Network and career plan being an Organizational Psychologist. However, there is one thing that I can do better in the future. Since I have not started my internship yet, I have no working practice as an HR staff. I am now mainly relying upon others’ sharing, imaginations, and case studies in class. I hope I can share more working experiences with different HR professionals so that they can give me more advice on how the HR office looks like.  

A YouTube video telling people why you should use Twitter.

Overall, I enjoy exploring on Twitter and be active in keeping conversations with learners, educators, and professionals. I think I will keep using Twitter as my primary learning tools to build my network. 

Thank you, everyone, for visiting my blog and please feel free to share your ideas and experiences with me.

Please do not forget to follow me on Twitter for more related information and discussions.
Twitter: @PoYeeWong4

How Students Benefit From Global Learning?

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Welcome back to my blog! This week I am reading chapter 4: The Impact of Global Learning of Julie Lindsay’s The Global Educator. The book discusses based on the main four sections:

  1. Global learning’s impact on the educator. 
  2. Global learning’s impact on the student.
  3. Global learning’s impact on the community. 
  4. Golas, challenges, and enablers to global learning. 
A picture that three students holding hands with books around the them and the world implies that people are learning globally with no barriers.
A picture implies students are learning globally without barriers.

In this blog post, I am going to focus on global learning’s impact on students studying Psychology. 

What do you think global learning can change a student? 

According to Lindsay, global learning increases changes for students to engage and partner with all educators and learners worldwide. Students can then hear and share life experiences and cultural differences with each other. Throughout the detail explanations, global learners become more open-minded, trying their best to stand on other’s shoes and finding out both similarities and differences. A journal article, written by Carie L. Forden and Amy M. Carrillo (2014), states that applying global learning to a Psychology course using an online platform brings good impacts on students. The U.S.A. students collaborate with college students in Egypt through the Facebook page to finish assignments. At the end of the semester, students report an overall better understanding of course concepts, cultural diversities, and declining in prejudice. Besides, some students also find that they understand themselves more. 

Back to Lindsay’s point of view, she believes the introduction of global learning on the online platform increases students’ interest in travel and international study. I agree with it that students are inspired to step out and experience the real-world. Hearing from others is a kind of passive learning, in contrast, traveling by themselves is actively viewing and feeling everything around you. Here is the study abroad program website of the University of California, Davis. One of the programs is going to Berlin to study Personality Psychology. The program includes not only lecture classes and exams but also guest speakers, social events with German psychologists and students, and museum visits. Students will have plenty of time and opportunities to explore the city. There are also other education abroad programs recommended to Psychology majors, which mostly have no language prerequisite. However, if you are interested in learning a new language and practice in a native speaking environment, you are welcome to take the language course. 

With some personal experiences, I understand Lindsay’s idea that global learning help with future employment. I studied in Hong Kong for more than twelve years, and I am now studying in the U.S. for almost four years. I always included both places for my future career plan that I am interested in working in both regions with their specific pros and cons. I had a summer internship in Hong Kong last year. It was an excellent experience that I learned a lot about myself, the working culture in a non-governmental organization, and I met different professionals. Now, I am applying for an internship in the U.S. working in the Human Resources department. I am designing to do an independent study during my internship as an HR staff. Therefore, at the end of the semester, I will have both national and international working experiences with people from different backgrounds and cultures. 

International students share their thoughts about studying Psychology in a foreign county.

It is impossible to tell you all the benefits of global learning here, with only a few examples. Luckily, I am sure that global learning does widen students’ horizons and provide them with more opportunities to make their lives colorful. 

Thank you, everyone, for visiting my blog and please feel free to share your ideas and experiences with me.

Please don’t forget to follow me on Twitter for more related information and discussions.
Twitter: @PoYeeWong4

Buffer – A Tool Allowing You to Create Your PLN/PLC 24/7

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Nowadays, people are trying so hard to develop their networks online. Although this platform diminishes the geographic limitation so that people can communicate and share with everyone all around the world, the time zone conflict is somehow cannot be solved. Imagine you are living in the U.S., and you want to collaborate with professionals in an Asian county (i.e., Japan). There are 13 hours of differences. That means when you just back to the office at 9 a.m., People in Japan just finish work, and ready for dinner. It is inconvenient that the time you are posting and sharing on social media may limit some people to get notifications immediately.

A screenshot of Buffer app webpage showing people how is the webpage look like, and what function buttons are available.
A screenshot of Buffer webpage.

Fortunately, there is an app called Buffer, which belongs to the workflow and scheduling category, helping you to schedule posts. Buffer is a good tool that you can link it with your different social media, such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. You can pre-type all the contents, pre-embed all links and images on Buffer, then schedule a date, day of the week, and/or specific time to post automatically. For example, you want to share a research article on Twitter in the morning time in Asia, which is your sleeping time in the U.S., you can schedule your tweet to be posted in the midnight of the U.S. time zone. Therefore, you can be active on social media anytime that you can then reply to any comments once you wake up or when you are free.

A quick guide on how to use Buffer.

A social media educator, Mattew J. Kushin, introduced Buffer to his social media collage class. With the use and comparison of two Apps (Buffer as one of the two), he wanted his students to learn the importance of scheduling, as well as the ability to analysis the best time to post to maximize the viewers. Here are his ideas for this classroom project:

“1. Students schedule content they’ve created as part of a campaign (e.g., original Tweets, Tweets sharing their blog posts, etc). using Hootsuite.

2. Students use Buffer as a compliment to Hootsuite – setting up their Buffer to post ONLY at those times that they are not posting their original content via Hoostuie. That way, when they find relevant and timely content to share, they can add it to their Buffer. If there’s no content, nothing is posted.”

Mattew Kushin (2013)

Details of Dr. Kushin’s lesson plan: USING BUFFER IN THE CLASSROOM TO TEACH STUDENTS SOCIAL MEDIA SCHEDULING.

A college student, Katherout, also shared her own experiences using Buffer for her Internship during the semester. She also mentioned the time zone problem and the characteristics of Buffer – being able to share the same/different post(s) to one or more media account(s) at the same time.

In her video, she talked about Buffer from 4:08 to 4:52.

Katherout, a college student introduced apps she found useful.

I also used Buffer before to manage my Instagram account. I had a planner account sharing my planner decoration ideas, calligraphy practices, and any other kinds of writing stuff. I wanted to regularly post as much as so I could boost my number of followers. However, I was too busy with my class schedule that I did not have break time between classes. Therefore, I scheduled posting on Buffer to help me post on Instagram while I was having classes, and even during my sleep. I found it useful that I could keep my account active even I was not online every day. As I remembered, I had about 20 followers more within two weeks, which was a great increasing ratio to me when comparing to the past.

Finally, hope you all find this post helpful, and feel free to share your ideas or toolbox with me!

Please don’t forget to follow me on Twitter for updates and more relevant information sharing.
Twitter: @PoYeeWong4

How To Create Sticky Learning?

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Hello everyone! Welcome to my blog, and here is my first post! As a Psychology major, I am always interested in reading research articles related to my field (either clinical or organizational psychology). Also, with good use of Twitter, I can easily find information by search #edtechchat and #psychology. The article below is one that caught my eyes the most recently. 

How To Make Learning Stick: Top Tips From Learning Psychology

The article “How To Make Learning Stick: Top Tips From Learning Psychology” is written by Steve Penfold and published on the eLearning Industry webpage. Penfold was inspired by Stella Collins, a Learning Psychologist, on how to learn better. Penfold introduced 7 ways to make learning more effective as a long term memory. Below is an outline of the article:

  1. Encourage active engagement – try to be an active learner. Beyond only listening to your educators’ explanations on different topics, learners should actively show their responses. For example, learners can give feedback, join discussions, and participate in related activities.
  2. Use what people already know – make connections with past knowledge. You can imagine it as adding a new thing to an existing network which you are accustomed to. Linking new information to what you have already known and familiar with makes it easier to be part of your long term memory, which is then easier to retrieve.
  3. Make deliberate links – try to make as many connections to the things you know as possible. Similar to the previous point, connections are hints in learning and memorizing. The more hints you have, the easier you can recall when needed. 
  4. Tap into emotions – strong feelings help memorize. Both positive and negative emotions help to learn because those feelings also represent your own experiences and reactions to the situations.
  5. Repeat – regular practices keep brain neurons and muscles active. Repeating the same materials help move the information from short term memory to long term memory, as well as, leading to the faster recall.
  6. Keep it fresh – excitement catches attention. Even you are learning the same things, learn from new perspectives and different methods can make you feel more passionate to learn and review.
  7. Use storytelling – remember and share materials like you are telling others an impressive story. When you gather all the details and relevant points of a topic you want to learn, try to make them an easy remembering story. You are learning, recalling, and teaching when you are telling the story to others.

Have you ever tried any of these ways? Are they useful?
Or any other learning methods you wan to share with me?

I was firstly attracted by the keywords “Tips” and “Learning Psychology.” I took Psychology of Learning class before, and I understand that everyone can learn as diverse as they want and as efficient as possible. They just need the appropriate strategies!

I agree with the tips shared in this article that I use most of them for my years of school life. Learning and teaching are lifetime activities that people should find ways to keep themselves passionate. Together with other reinforcement strategies, I believe that learners can boost their learning capability in a stress-free environment.

How to make brain-friendly learning that sticks (Expert interview)

If you are interested in more learning tips, this article may help. Full video of Learning Psychologist Stella Collins’s interview is included in this article.
A image of two people chatting.
Feel free to share your experiences!

Thanks for reading my first blog and sharing your ideas with me! 

Please don’t forget to follow me on Twitter for updates and more article sharing.
Twitter: @PoYeeWong4