RILE # 6

Well folks, we have come to the last RILE update. If you have managed to follow along with me through my twitter failure, then you might be a little relieved that this journey has come to an end. I think I might be.

As we all know, Twitter and I do not get along, so I have refocused my RILEs to highlighting educators who have used Twitter well. Maybe you can then be inspired by their success, instead of my failures. Today, however, I am going to do something different. Today I am going to write about the power of the hash tag.

#

Hashtags on Twitter is a way to categorize all of the post about a certain subject. For example: everyone who posts tweets about Canada's Wonderland would hashtag #canadaswonderland and if you searched for that hashtag, your post would me among thousands of similar posts who also #canadaswonderland.

For educators, hashtags could be a very helpful tool when navigating Twitter to look at different posts. However, in my search, I have found that educators also use hashtags to have conversations. Here is what I found:

"Many of the hashtags have “meeting times” where educators agree to “meet and tweet”–that is, send out messages on a topic at a certain time on a certain day.

If you do participate at the agreed upon time, you’ll see the tweets stream in live and participate in said conversation (via twitter) in what is nearly real-time. But if you can’t make it, the great part about a hashtag is that it does the sorting for you. You can search for messages assigned to a given hashtag anytime–tomorrow, Sunday night, or during your planning period next week.

Note, this list of hashtags will be updated periodically, including reorganization, and functional linking on all hashtags."

I thought that was pretty cool, and a different way to look at the '#'.

Thanks for checking in!

RILE # 5

EDUCATOR NUMBER THREE

Account: @coolcatteacher

Many educators use twitter as a forum to share different articles, quotes, and educational tools.
Vicki Davis, author of the Cool Cat Teacher blog, uses Twitter to share her thoughts on how to navigate the use of new technologies in the profession. She does this by sharing articles about educational programs, offering tutorials on web tools, or even just voicing her passion for working with kids.

Because many educators use Twitter to share different fun tools, I thought I would add a second educator highlight.

EDUCATOR NUMBER FOUR

Account: @feedtheteacher

Giselle Santos uses Twitter to share different technology resources and gadgets that can play apart in education. Fun fact about Giselle, she lives in Brazil! Twitter, well and the internet in general, allows educators to connect to there professionals all over the world. Although a lot of her tweets are in Spanish, she does share some really good english resources as well. One of the ones that I liked from her account was when she shared this link: http://mashable.com/2015/10/16/childrens-coding-book/#wEPWjyxSHiqW "Colourful children's book introduces kids to the basics of code"
As my presentation group is doing the hour of code, it has been cool to see how other educators are getting on board. This children book use coding symbolize and concepts in introduce kids to the very basics of coding. I would like to get a hold of this book!

RILE # 4

EDUCATOR NUMBER TWO

Two years ago, in a multimodal education class, I learned about a teacher who used her twitter account to tweet about different activities her class was participating in throughout the day. She felt that by tweeting what they were doing, parents were able to see what their children were doing in school. This opened up a whole new opportunity for communication. The parents were able to ask their children more specific questions about what they did at school, and get more engaging answers from their kids. When I first heard of this teacher, I thought it was a great idea. I would definitely lean more towards a classroom blog (as we all know how terrible this twitter went for me), but twitter is another great way to invite the parents into the classroom.
Unfortunately I can not find this teacher on twitter, but I love what she is doing, so I thought I would share.

RILE # 3

I have come to the conclusion that Twitter is not for me.

I check instagram every day, at least. I'm on my Facebook 24/7. And I can't forget my daily dose of pinterest. But twitter however has remained an social media completely untouched.

I had those two goals two week ago. And Im sorry to report that neither goal was accomplished. I just do not like twitter.

So. Because it is our assignment to continuously post about a form of technology that we are trying out, and because I have decided Twitter and I do not get along, I've decided to change it up.

Instead of tweeting and following people on twitter, I'm going to delete my account. BUT. To continue with this assignment I am going to be researching how teachers all over the world use Twitter successfully. Maybe this will inspire other readers to try it out for themselves? (Since I have completely failed at that.

EDUCATOR NUMBER ONE

Twitter account: @TomWhitby

Tom Whitby
Tom Whitby, a professor of education, uses Twitter as an open chat room. #EdChat is a educational chat that tackles different educational issues and topics. What a great way to invite educators all over the world to participate in the same conversation.

Recent Tweet:
"We will always need direct instruction and lecture, but should they be the staple lessons of modern education?"

RILE # 2

I have to be honest, this whole Twitter thing is not going well for me. I could lie and say I'm a twitter machine, but if you looked at my twitter account you would notice that I haven't tweeted a single thing.

I have come up with two reasons why Twitter isn't going well for me:

1. I keep forgetting I even have twitter. I am so used to going on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook etc. But Twitter has never been apart of my daily musings. Out of sight, out of mind.

2. I am clueless. I have no idea what I am doing on Twitter, how to tweet, and why we would retweet.

Here are two goals I have for this week, based on my excuses:

1. I will commit to checking Twitter every day, and participating in at least 3 actives (retweeting, following, tweeting etc.)

2. I will commit to educating myself about twitter.

Here is to next week!


Over and out.

RILE # 1

Third times the charm.

One day, a few years ago, I felt inspired to get Twitter. Mostly so that I could follow comedians and get a couple laughs. It lasted 24 hours before deleting my account.

A few years later I was asked to try a new form of social media for a multimodal literacies class, so there I went and got it again. Apparently I didn't even confirm my account, because once a week since then I've received a "Confirm your Twitter account Miss Willson" in my inbox.

So here we are. My third try at Twitter. I finally confirmed my account. Let's hope this round goes better than the last two. Third time's the charm, right?

I love the idea of connecting to teachers across the globe and Twitter is a fantastic forum to follow fellow educators.

At this point my account is opened and I am pretty confident I follow a few teachers, specifically a lot of art teachers. But that is about as far as I have gotten. Retweets? Likes? Remembering to check it every day? Not so sure what those mean.. but that will be my challenge for next week.

My plan is to connect on my Twitter at least 3 times a week, as well as read external articles about why Twitter (or other social media outlets) are a great resource for teachers.