For this weeks, review, we were asked to find and follow 3 people on Twitter from Matt Miller's list of "50 people and hashtags you must check out on twitter." Matt writes about how Twitter has made a significant impact on him as an educator. He states "my eyes were opened to a world I didn't know existed", in reference to Twitter, and the great connections with other educators that he has made from using it.
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The first person that I decided to follow was Dyane Smokorowski. Dyane teaches 8th grade at Andover Middle School. She was also a 2013 Kansas Teacher of the Year. One resource that I found while searching her twitter feed, is her use of the hashtag #teachersleading. I found that every month, she tweets out a question, and has other teachers respond to the question by hashtagging #teachersleading at the end of their response. I found that she usually responds back to everyone who tweets along with her, and makes it interactive. For example, one of the October Twitter chat questions was "how might a challenging student receive the message that we as a school building want him/her to be successful?" This is a great way for teachers to collaborate together, and really think about ways that the question can apply to their own schools/classrooms.
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The second person that I decided to follow was Tisha Richmond. Tisha is a culinary teacher at South Medford High. I found that she incorporates technology into her culinary teaching, to really create a fun and engaging learning environment for her students. I found that she has worked with students to create stop motion videos about French cuisine, using homemade play dough. In the pictures that she posts, her students seem to be very engaged and enjoy what they are learning. She also uses a hastag to communicate with other teachers, #xplap. From what I have gained while exploring this hashtag, it looks like other teachers post ideas of games and technology that they have used during their lessons.
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The third person that I decided to follow was Jeff Charbonneau. He is a chemistry, physics, and engineering teacher at Zillah High School. He was also the 2013 National Teacher of the Year. One resource that I found while scrolling through his twitter page was some inspirational teaching quotes that he has posted. He posts pictures of quotes that relate to teaching almost everyday. The one that he posted on November 5th reads, "focus more on learning about your students and less on how to discipline them. If you do the first, you won't need the second..." These are great resources for teachers, because it's almost like a little daily reminder of how we can be and do our absolute best for our students. He also ends these posts with #edu and #edchat, to connect and extend to other educators.
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The hashtag that I choose to learn more about is #edumatch. On Twitter, it states that #edumatch "connects educators of similar interests" and that it's goal is "to foster collaboration. Learning together. Education for educators, by educators." Teachers use this hashtag to collaborate on Twitter, and share ideas while learning from each other. This hashtag has quite the following, with 20.3 thousand tweets and 21 thousand followers. Some teachers even share pictures and videos while using this hashtag. It is a great way for teachers to get involved online, and learn something new.
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