This second week started out full of stress and ended with some great ideas and tools to add to my educational repertoire. Week one was an eye opener which showed the importance of the net generation and how educators are responsible for making engaging and worthwhile lessons for these new tech savvy learners. The following video is an interesting little project which is a Q&A for the Net Generation, or as they refer to it, Generation Y.
Some of these responses were quite intuitive and helped to identify how the net generation see’s itself. Being a member of this generation I can relate to many of these people. I too believe that the information that is accessible to us is amazing and unprecedented.
This video and the ideas which the net generation puts forth connects to this weeks major topic which is the many applications and uses that the internet has. For this post I’m going to discuss one of the topics that I found to be quite interesting, Twitter and education. I’ll be the first to admit that I was a bit biased towards not using Twitter mainly because I thought it to be a social networking site which didn’t offer much besides the mindless ranting of tweens and celebrities.
But, luckily for me, my misconception that Twitter was a waste of social media changed. The notes and websites that we explored this week showed that Twitter has another side which can be a great asset to educators. Being able to limit what type of Tweeting you will receive takes Twitter from the mindless Tweet to the specified content Tweet. Having scrolled through the various Hashtags that are available to educators I checked up on a few. One that really made me happy was #sschat. This hashtag limits posts to only ones which discuss Social Studies ideas and comments. I had only looked briefly, but these tweets certainly made my appreciation in Twitter grow. I even went as far to delete some of my old followings and started to make my Twitter account follow a more educational approach. My plan for the future is to make my Twitter account a source for ideas and new lesson planning techniques by following more educational Twitter accounts.
As week 2 moved on I now see Twitter in a whole new light as I expand my Personal Learning Network.
Blog de Mike 
Glad you are starting to see a possible use for Twitter, Mike. I use an app/site called HootSuite. With HootSuite, I can manage multiple twitter accounts. I have an account for professional purposes and a personal twitter account. With HootSuite, I can see both Twitter Streams and post to each of them separately or at the same time. This permits me to be mindless sometimes, and use Twitter for totally useless purposes, while still keeping my PLN intact and separate. But to be honest, the only mindless thing I do is post to and follow the Pittsburgh Pirates twitter feed. đŸ™‚
I’ll have to check Hootsuite out, it sounds like it can be very beneficial to what I want to do.