Blog Post 2

TLNT Chapter 8 Communicating and Collaborating with Social Media:

            This chapter had a lot of great techniques that I believe are very helpful within the classroom.  Through using digital devices teachers are able to incorporate social media technologies inside and outside of the classroom such as email, instant messaging, and wikis to name a few. The chapter discussed microblogging backchannels, which really caught my eye. A student teacher named Joe decided to use twitter with his class but quickly discovered that not many students were viewing it. When he realized this was not working he took into consideration the students in his classroom and what would greatly benefit them by using twitter. He then began adding things to his twitter that would benefit the students on a daily basis such assignments, power points, tweeting about each lesson before and after the lesson, etc. For the older aged students I really liked the idea of using a twitter with them to communicate on class work such as assignments, power points, etc. Using twitter makes it more accessible for students to know exactly what they need to do and any information that they missed if they were absent.
                I see the use of technology within my second grade class that I am a student teacher in on a daily basis. My teachers have their own website for the students and their parents to look at everyday. They are able to find the homework sheet for the week, upcoming projects, events going on each week, pictures of the students participating in class work, etc. This is a great tool that really seems to work with this class. Considering that I am in a second grade classroom and the students are not of age to use social media apps such as twitter, and Facebook, I believe the use of a website is great because the students are able to look at it with their parents to keep up to date on everything going on.