Twitter is A Double-edged Swords

                Twitter is a very inspiring platform for us to send and read the microblogs from people that we follow. Users can build their own social networks by following one another. As future teachers in such a digital age, how can we make the best use of it in our teaching?

                 I read Great Twitter Tools for Your Professional Development. I found a lot of interesting tools here, especially the twitTV. We can click the link and watch a lot of interesting videos in it. Also, Teachers Guide to the use of Twitter in Classroom is also a very practical one. Twitter is a good way for learners and educators to communicate, collaborate and to be connected, enabling learners to improve "global literacy, information literacy, network literacy, and digital citizenship." In the future I will create a twitter account for my class, offering my students an avenue to communicate and cooperate among each other. I can @ my students to invite them to participate. Plus, we can follow others to get more inspiring resources and help students to build a bridge to seek more learning opportunities. If the students find some interesting topics or ideas, they can post it on twitter and the other students will see it when they log in. Hence, information is selected and filtered. I think I need to promote students to post their original work on their twitters, instead of simply retweet each time. Creativity is a big matter. If they have any inspiration or feeling, they can write it down. They can also take some beautiful pictures or make some poems and share it with peers. Additionally, Twitter HOTS & Establishing a Twitter Routine in the Classroom gave us good insights of how to use twitter to promote higher order thinking skills and establish Twitter routines in the classroom.

          

             However, I watched the video from Professor David Crystal, one of the world's leading linguistic experts, who demonstrates some myths and realities about the texts and tweets. The myths he covers are: 1) Youth text messages are littered with mangled abbreviations; 2) the youth use abbreviations as a way to trick adults; 3) the youth don't know how to spell; 4) youth school essays are filled with inappropriate abbreviations; 5) we are rearing a generation of children who have no responsibility toward language.

            This is a very thought-provoking standpoint of view. To solve this problem, I think as educators, we need to teach students the digital etiquette and set up rules for the students when they post.

           

                           

Question: Does Social Media aid or harm Literacy Levels?

Further reading: 

http://www.vocabulary.com/articles/wc/does-texting-harm-or-help-literacy/