There are lots of tools and technology that enable people to connect with each other, such as mobile-phones and blogs. One of the powerful tools for networking is Twitter which has a lot of potential for its use. People can use Twitter both professional and personal purposes. As a teacher, I would like to use this in my language class for teaching platform as well as my professional development.
Grosseck and Holotescu (2008) introduce the use of Twitter in education in their article by providing pros and cons of using it as well. Among the suggestions, I believe Twitter can be mainly used to establish classroom community in that students can ask questions and have discussions, and teachers provide additional information outside the classroom. This microblog, Twitter is especially beneficial when the class has a project, so ideas and information need to be shared by all the students. Anyone in the class can provide useful resources with the help of Twitter.
I could explore additional tool for microblogging as well, among which I am very interested in Edmodo. Edmodo is specialized for classroom use with useful functions that reflect teachers’ needs. What I like the most about this tool is its high practicality by putting very essential and core functions such as grouping students and creating polls, in a well-organized format. I also like this tool giving more control to teachers and blocking any harmful effects from random outsiders. I can use this tool for classroom announcement, assignment, managing students, giving group and individual feedback as well as information, and for grading. This is just perfect for me as a teacher.
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