Thing 3: Twitter & Other Online Communities

This was an interesting one for me.  Although I love technology and use social media, I never considered using twitter.  I know a lot of people who do, but the idea of another social media site to keep up with kind of scared me to be completely honest.  That is why I choose this thing.  I believe that sometimes we need to admit our fears, and weaknesses, and face them head on.  Isn't this what we sometimes ask of our students.  We don't let them say I don't know how to do that and it scares me to learn, we encourage them to try and help them along the way as needed.   Therefore, that is exactly what I did, I jumped in with both feet and created a twitter account and if I get lost or confused along the way, I will rest assured that my friends, and children, will guide me.  So you can follow me on twitter, if you want, @TA_OKeefe.

I plan on using my new twitter account at this time to follow and read other post about education, technology and science.  I will probably venture out as I become more comfortable.  I was surprised that within minutes of creating my twitter account that my brother started following me, I didn't even tell him that I was thinking a creating a twitter account.  As I was reading through various post and articles that were linked to the post, an idea kept resonating with me.  As teachers today, we need to teach our students how to adapt and change to keep up with technology more than how to use a certain program or website.  We need to empower the students to be able to figure out how to find and use different web tools in a safe and appropriate way, without us telling them how each and every function of that particular tool works.  If we can achieve this, our students may begin even teaching us new things.

Although, I still feel twitter is a bit overwhelming at this time, I'm glad that I joined and look forward to reading and learning new and exciting things from others.  Maybe soon, I'll feel comfortable enough to tweet.