Twitter and Summary - Part 2

So yesterday I shared the idea of using 140 characters or less to summarize on paper.   If you would like to continue this thought using technology here are a few ideas:

• If you want to create the look of a actual tweet check out:  http://www.classtools.net/twister/ - enter in the given info and it creates apage that looks similiar to an actual twitter page.  This could also be a great writing prompt.  have the Tweet posted on the screen and have students respond to the tweet. 


• If you have access to computers check out TodaysMeet:  http://www.todaysmeet.com/ - you can create a temporary chat room and have the students go to the url and enter their summary in the chatroom.  each response is limited to 140 characters.   This way students can see each other's messages.   You can decide if you want the chat room to last a few hours, a few days, a week all the way to a year.   No email address is required.  Chat rooms can be saved in transcript form to have a record of who said what.

Summarization and Twitter

Summary is a skill that crosses into every subject area.  As a history teacher I wanted to have kids summarize, but I needed some tools to get started with.   As an ITS I am still looking for ways to help kids learn to summarize that is relevant to them, which is what brings me to the topic of this post:

  

Twitter and Summary

 

Background on Twitter: Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging site that lets informal communication happen in small snippets…it is like e-mail, but you have followers that you can keep up-to-date with "tweets" of 140 or less characters. 

Over time twitter has been adapted to meet the needs of the user including the "@" symbol to reply to someone else's tweet or a hashtag "#" to add labels or tags to tweets to allow users to follow topics or to find tweets more easily. #summaryidea

Ask students to compose a tweet to summarize a concept they have learned or a passage they have read in 140 characters or less. Can they do it? Can you do it? I've attached a template that contains 140 squares that can be used to compose the summary statement.

   Summarize in 140 characters or less

 Think about this activity as a ticket out the door activity with a note card you turn in on the way out or a sticky not you place on the door for others to see and review.

Getting Social - in Social Studies and Language Arts

After a week at TCEA, I came home with lots of new ideas.  Here are some of them - Introducing social networking into the classroom, safely.  In this prezi i ahve a few ideas on how to integrate Twitter and facebook types of applications into the social studies and language arts classroom.



Resources:  http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2009/01/teaching-with-twitter.html;   http://www.myfakewall.com/w/Ben+Franklin_1

Web Wandering Wednesdays - Videos

60 Second Recaps - http://www.60secondrecap.com/ - provides sixty second clips about various parts of classic literature.  Nice way to give an overview of what is being read, or to inspire students to create their own 60 second overview of a book they are reading.



Life in a Day - http://www.youtube.com/lifeinaday?x=explore - View videos of a "life in the day" or people from around the globe.   The day is July 24, 2010 and people were asked to video their lie and submit it to this project on Youtube.   The websitea has a nice global navigation that allows you to watch videos from all over the world.  Here is a video explaining the project far better that I can:

Web Wandering Wednesday - Jan 5

This week's web Wandering Wednesday is focusing in on a few maps that track diseases:

Google Flu Trends:  Google tracks who is searching for information about the flu and then maps that information to estimate where the flu is hitting around the world.   Click on the United States and you can see more information about each state.

Health Map - health map brings together information from various resources to try to pinpoint outbreaks of infectious diseases around the world.  You can hover your mouse over a pin on the map and see what disease is currently affecting the area and any relevant information on it including links to the sources of the information.

Cell Phones in Education - The Journey Begins

My Web Wandering Wednesday post got me thinking about cell phones in education.  Although I believe there is a place for them, the mom in me worries about what we are exposing kids to when we begin to more openly allow them and encourage them.  How many more predators have access, how many more bullying incidents can occur, how many more unwanted video clips will be turning up on youtube and how much more time will be spent facebooking rather than working?

As with any new technology there are always the questions and the concerns.  I have begin looking into what people are doing and what those results are.  How do the schools and teachers using the technology deal with the downsides and make the incorporation worth it?  The technology is coming and we must be ready.  The reality is that kids are using them in class anyway, why not direct them to use them in more productive ways?   Even with my own kids if they want to know something we get the phone out and google it.    At ages 3 and 5 this is the world they know.   What kind of technology and access to technology are they going to want when they get to middle school and high school?   If I don't learn how to use it wisely now, I will surely be at a disadvantage when my kids reach that age.

So the research begins to educate myself on the realities of cell phone use in class and not just the fears or hopes.   I look forward to the journey.

Here are 3 sites I found interesting on the topic:

Cell Phones in the Classroom - The results of a pilot program that gave phones to students and what was accomplished.  A great discussion continues in the comments following the article as well.

From Toys to Tools - "A conversation about integrating student cell phones into classroom curricula."   This is a blog site dedicated to the integration of cell phones into the classroom.  The site author also has a book out by the same name.   Lots of posts and links about phones in schools including in the recent post, statistics about cell phones and kids.

Teaching Today - Cell Phones in the Classroom - A brief overview of what is happening with phones in classrooms from a textbook publishers' perspective.

Web Wandering Wednesday - Apps

WolframAlpha - http://www.wolframalpha.com/ -  describes itslef as " the world's first and only computational knowledge engine."  Enter in a location and learn the population, elevation, unemployment rate, etc for the area.   Enter in a math problem and see the solutions appear.  The help page give examples of searches to try.  This is also available as an ap for iPhones and Androids, so download the ap on the school iPod Touch for a good resource for students.

While we are on the subject of  apps...

Top 50 Free Education Apps:  http://www.appstoreapps.com/top-50-free-education-apps/ - pulled from iTunes - this site lists the best/most popular free apps for education.   Some seem a little more gamey than educational, but the list is worth a look.

Droid does Education - http://www.iste.org/connect/iste-connects/blog-detail/10-03-24/Droid_Does_Education_Android_Applications_for_Teachers_and_Learners.aspx - ISTE compiled a list of the best android apps for education.

Free Education Apps for Android OS - http://www.mguhlin.org/2010/07/free-education-apps-for-android-os.html - this list is broken into grade levels.

What are you favorite sites and apps?