Following Educators at Twitter

The other part of this assignment that we have to do was follow five educators on twitter.  It took me awhile to figure out what educators I wanted to follow because there are so many that I could follow. After awhile I finally decided on following Ashleigh Catanzariti (@tickytechy), Susan Caldis (@EduTweetOz), Lisa Dabbs (@teachingwithsoul), Steven W. Anderson (@web20classroom), and Ashley Manuel (@AshleyManuelGWG).

I chose these educators because they all talk about different things that I am interested in involving teaching. They also retweet and talk to other educators that I may find interesting as well. There are different reasons that I chose some of these educators to follow.

One of the educators that I do follow that doesn't apply to me right now is Susan Caldis, she is an educator from Australia.  The reason that I chose to follow her is because I am hoping to study abroad my senior year in Australia or New Zealand so I want to get a feel for what topics that they are discussing in another country and see if they have different opinions on subjects.

Another educator that I chose to follow is Lisa Dabbs.  The reason that I followed her is because she is the creator of #ntchat.  This will be an easier way to keep track of the topics that are going on during her discussions.  She also tweets her own ideas and view on things or retweets relevant articles that I may want to know about.

Interacting with Educators on Twitter

In my previous post "Observing Educators on Twitter" I talked about the two educational conversations that I have been following on twitter over the past couple weeks.  For my interaction I didn't want to tweet something at someone and it not make sense with the conversation because the feed moves so fast and it's hard to keep track of the whole conversation.  The conversation that I chose to follow was #ntchat on twitter, this conversation happens on Wednesday nights at 8 p.m.  which is hosted by Lisa Dabbs. 

For my interaction I chose to favorite and retweet tweets that I thought were interesting and relevant to technology I could use in the future. I only retweeted one tweet because I really wanted to read the article and find out more information about it.  I also favorited multiple tweets about different topics or if I just thought that tweet was interesting.  

Observing Educators on Twitter

For the next part of the assignment we had to observe educational chats on twitter between different educators.  The two conversations that we were asked to observe for two weeks was #edchat, which is hosted by Jerry Blumengarten, and #ntchat.

I thought that both of them were interesting, but I really enjoyed #ntchat the most.  This hashtag stands for New Teacher Chat.  I think that I enjoyed this because it is aim more for new teachers, hence the name, so it offers a lot of resources.  Since I am trying to be a future educator this offered many resources that I could use in my future classroom.

The other chat which is called #edchat, which stands for educational chat, was also useful.  Educational Chat covered every topic of education that you could have thought possible. You could find article about anything or possible ideas to use in the classroom.  While that chat is going on you can also see different educators views on topics.

Twitter Setup

When I was in high school Twitter was one of the popular social media sites to use.  I jumped on the twitter train a long time after other people started to get into it.  Once I created twitter and got the hang of it I joined the obsession.   I would check twitter constantly and not only follow people from my high school, but also celebrities and companies that I am interested in.  My parents also decided to create twitter accounts because they knew that I had one and wanted to keep an eye on what I posted, not that I would have posted anything inappropriate anyway.

During my Freshman year at Ohio University I took a class that had me tweet to participate, answer questions, and do assignments.  I have never used social media like that in a classroom before and I thought that that was a very interesting way to incorporate it.  To keep track of the tweets that we made during class he would have us use a certain hashtag to easily see who has and hasn't tweeted for the week. That was the only class that I have taken that incorporated social media into a classroom until I took EDCT 2030. 

I have always been told to be careful on what you post on social media because future employers could see what you post and it could possibly cost you the job.  Based off of people telling me this I have been very careful in monitoring what I post or what I am tagged in. I think that it is good to keep your social media free of anything that could be considered bad, like drinking, drugs, and other things.  It not only looks bad to future employers, but it also looks bad to other people and you could get a bad reputation. I have also set up two different twitter accounts just for EDCT 2030.  One is for my personal use like tweeting my feelings or things that make me laugh.  The other twitter account I will use for my classes and also follow twitter accounts related to education and teaching. 

Teaching Philosophy

Hello! I'm Ashley Deck and I am currently a sophomore at Ohio University.  I am majoring in Early Childhood Education, hopefully getting a job in a preschool classroom after graduation.  This blog and all of the posts are for my EDCT 2030 class that I am currently taking.

My beliefs as an educator that uses technology for improving student learning...

1. The role of a teacher is to promote and challenge your students socially, emotionally, and intellectually inside and outside of the classroom.  
2. That students are capable to achieve more than they think that they can as long as they put their mind to it.
3. That community members and parents should be actively involved in the students lives.  Parent involvement plays a huge part in a successful education.  Parents can also help children by allowing them access to educational apps or websites at home. 
4. That knowledge is more accessible now than it every has been before.  Everyone can get a question answered at the click of a button and  this can be vital to helping students.