Tweet…Tweet

Ok, let's just say that I was not too excited when I saw that we were going to be required to open a Twitter account for this course.  I don't care who broke up with who or what someone thinks about the cold weather.  I had absolutely no clue about how great it can be for professional learning.  I thought this was going to be a quick, effortless assignment for the week so I decided to cross it off the list late Saturday night (great social life, huh?).  A good hour later, I was still there.  Was it effortless…absolutely.  Was it quick…no way.  It was so easy to sign up and create my account, but that was the end of the "quick" part. Follow, unfollow, tweet, retweet…I was hooked, checking out all the great resources that others were sharing.  I already have found a great blog to follow because of it!  We will see if this new found excitement fades away as the weeks roll on.  But even if my interest dies, I can say that this was one assignment that I was happy to have had.

The Benefits of Blogging

This week I have been doing a lot of reflecting on the way to use my classroom blog.  Up until this point, I have encouraged students to share the site with their parents and family member and to share their thoughts about the content of the post.  Starting this week, I will be having two students write their own posts about the classroom happenings that they choose to share.  I really think this may get some of the students who haven't spent as much time navigating the blog getting a little more involved and interested in the process.  I am also going to be taking some class time to make sure that students understand just how they can interact with the blog.  They may not always be able to have a response to the question that I pose or feel comfortable responding to it, however may not realize that commenting on the thoughts of others can be just as empowering and fun.  Besides just having students write posts, I also want to link student work to the blog so that student's feel pride in sharing their work with their families in a different way.