Microblogging and Professional Development

After reading Can We Use Twitter for Educational Activities and watching Better Learning with ICT - Online Communities in the Classroom, I think that microblogging could be used in a few ways for professional development. It can:

1. Increase access to and number of resources available - resources can increase the breadth of materials used and so keep classes fresh and allow the teacher to employ different styles and types of learning to accommodate a wider range of students. An increased number of resources also makes the teacher’s life easier because the teacher doesn’t always have to generate materials.

2. Increase number of peers - peers are important for bouncing ideas off of. Peers allow the teacher to feel more confident before attempting a lesson because the lesson will have been validated already. Peers have the potential to offer a critical twist to a lesson that may make it successful, or they may present an idea that opens the door for a teacher to discover his own ideas.

3. Create a space for conferencing: twittering could be good as a space for many people to discuss ideas from great distances simultaneously.

4. Stay up to date: another benefit of increasing peers and resources is that a teacher can stay current on new ideas and trends. He or she can stay on top of theory and news in the teaching world.

Now I know where to find them!

Upon reading and grading my composition 101 class’s narrative with heavy description essays a couple of weeks ago, I realized that my students did not really get what I was trying to tell them about description. Instead of deep, extended, almost meditative descriptions, I ended up with a couple extra adjectives in a couple extra sentences.

I was thinking that to show them the power of description I should have found a powerful picture, of an old lady perhaps, with wrinkled skin and grey hair and bent up old fingers and displayed the picture. Next to the picture would be the simple phrase: “The lady is old.” I would then ask the students if those words aptly represented the photo.

The answer would be, in one way, “yes,” of course the lady is old. In another way, the answer would be that those four words were not capable of describing such a provocative and intense picture. A writing session would then ensue with the students taking note of the leathery skin, brittle hair, fragile stature, and other important details.

Then I thought to myself that this is a nice idea, but it’s never easy to find really good pictures. That is until I was reading ESL Technology the the other day, and in the post entitled "Writing 1000 Words," the author recommended some good sites to find powerful pictures that might prompt students to write. He recommended Photoshop Contest.com and Worth 1000.com.

And what do you know, while searching through Worth 1000.com. I found this very vivid and detailed photo entitled “We Still Have Each Other” (although, unfortunately, I could not figure out how to get it onto the blog). Now, next time I want to find an interesting photo, I know where to go.