Twitter, or the Mystical Pit of Resource and Snark

I never understood Twitter. The whole concept always seemed completely ridiculous to me: write a 140-character blurb about what's on your mind. As a person who will willingly use twenty words when about four will do the trick, only getting to use about a dozen words blew my mind. It also seemed like a garbage dump of pop culture and philosophical quotes from angsty teens, not necessarily my cup of tea. From the outside, it didn't seem to provide the substance and meaningful connections that I prefer. I made an account my senior year of high school, tweeted one golden tweet...and didn't touch my account again. It seemed pointless. The idea that some educators purposefully use the site with their classes didn't make any sense to me. What could you get from social media that couldn't be learned in person?

Honestly, I had never even considered using any form of social media in the classroom up until the start of this class. I had always thought I would be a traditional English teacher: assigning books to read outside of school and having deep, socratic-style discussions during class time. It's not that I hate technology. I think it's because I survived high school without class-required blogging or online classrooms; consequentially, I make the mistake of assuming that my students will be perfectly fine in learning the same way. But the world in which my future students are growing up in is already vastly different than the one I experienced. Social media has become less of a mindless time-waster and more of a digital extension of the real world: a place to connect with others, exchange views, and share information. It is their world now. The articles we've read over the past couple weeks have really shown me how truly beneficial social media can be, as long as it's used effectively.

Brian Croxall's overviews of social media sites within the classroom in "Reflections on Teaching with Social Media" were very helpful for me. His idea of teaching students "transferable skills" through the use of social media made sense. In the real world, people need to collaborate and interact with others on a variety of platforms, not just through paper and pen or speaking. I quite liked the idea of the "social sixth sense." When students use social media to collaborate and connect, they are not only gaining new and unique insights. They are learning new ways to read people and how to navigate the complex digital environment they live in. As the venture on into the workforce, this will be a vital skill. Croxall's three lessons for educational social media use were so important for me to hear.

1. Be ready for problems.             
2. Be conscious of tool fatigue.
3. In the end, it is worth it.

           *Abbreviated slightly

These forced me to realize two thing. One: it's not going to be perfect; it'll probably never be perfect. But, I shouldn't let it stop me from trying to integrate new media. Two: don't use a tool for the sake of using it. Find something one thing that works and run with it. Too much technology equals a brain overload. Brain overloads are never good.

Twitter seems to be the best place to start in integrating social media into the secondary classroom, at least for me. "Twittering, Not Frittering: Professional Development in 140 Characters" did a really good job outlining how Twitter can actually help my networking and development as a teacher.
Even though the article was clearly from the earliest stages of Twitter, it still helped to provide an solid overview for the site for the newcomers (aka yours truly). As much as I hate the minimal character allowance, the way it forces you to be say exactly what you mean, perfect in a world where conciseness is a desirable skill, helps you to learn to synthesize rather than memorize. Like Suzie Boss mentioned, the customizable feed, not unlike Facebook, means that I can make my feed as professional and as education oriented as I want. The more and more I've used Twitter for this class, the more I've come to appreciate the resources it provides me all the time (The fact that I found an algorithm that analyzes the rhyming structure of Hamilton doesn't hurt). Thanks to "19 Educational Twitter Chats Worth Your Time", I've been able to track several different hashtags, including #edchat, #CatholicEdChat, #engchat, and #mschat, all of which tie into the kind of education professional I want to be. No longer are educators limited to the views of their school, their district, or their region. Twitter gives me access to see what educators do differently on opposite ends of the globe. It helps connect me the the larger world. With the growing globally community, globally-connected teachers are required. Twitter helps me to be that teacher.

I now want to try to incorporate Twitter into my classroom structure in some way. While it's not feasible in a high school setting to have students posting on Twitter every day, the ability to connect with and exchange ideas with multiples students at once is almost unbelievable. After taking in Croxall's observations in his own classes, I think it would take a little finagling to find that perfect place where students are tweeting because they have something meaningful to share, not because their grade requires it.

My dream Twitter classroom would have to mimic what Mark Sample blogged about in "Twitter is a Snark Valve." Yes, his students did learn to engage critically with each other, allowing their classroom conversations to extend further. Those "Hey, look at this!" posts show that students are absorbing and retaining what they learned. I want that kind of engagement in my own class, where they are genuinely eager to find out more. But, even more than that, I want the snark. It seems contrary to everything a teacher might want. If you think about it, though, we talk so much about the importance of relationships, and allowing students to feel safe and open in their environment. All that sarcasm, joking, and fooling around means they trust you. If students trust you, they're more likely to tell you what they really think about something. Sample mentioned that this snark allows students to take "an oppositional stance." Isn't that the dream for all educators, that students are dissecting a topic in such a way that they form their own unique opinions on it? Twitter offers the ability to hear what is typically unheard. Who knows what insightful ideas might be gained and what long and unexplored paths they may lead us down because of one snarky tweet. Even in a high school setting, this would be so beneficial–allowing and encouraging that "uncensored, no-holds-barred opining" [sic] that can lead to lightbulb moments in education.

I was going to touch on so much more in this blog post, mainly the idea of a flipped ELA classroom and utilizing GoogleDocs/GoogleClassroom, but this is already long enough as is. Perhaps an extra post might be in order? Despite all of that, I am starting to appreciate my forced entry into the Twittosphere (Twitosphere? Twittersphere? Tweetosphere?) and the resources it has already provided me in my short amount of (active) time of the site. It's only up from here, I suppose. I just hope that Twitter is still relevant by the time I have my own classroom, so that I can share this medium with my students. I can only imagine what they'll discover then!

The Murky World of Technology in the Classroom

I am a person who thrives on clarity. Clearly-defined structures, focused objectives, and consistent guidelines are necessary for me to feel confident in my work, whether it be as a student or as an instructor. And that, I think, is why technology scares me so much. What I hadn't already known before, the assigned articles for my Teaching and Learning in the Digital Environment class made very clear: technology is a fuzzy, ever-evolving mass that requires constant vigilance to stay on top of. It's kind of like my scary boogieman; if I don't keep one eye on him lurking in the corner, he's gonna gobble me whole. Though they all focused on different aspects of the topic, all the articles pointed to one big idea–technology is here to stay. My duty as an educator is to sift through and make sense of the blurry forms in order to provide my students with a strong foundation for using technology to improve their education.

I have come to realize the gap that cuts between today's students and teachers. In "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants," Marc Prensky argues that growing up in a world of instantaneous technology has altered students' brains, causing them to "think and process information fundamentally differently." You would think that growing up in the technological age would have made me a staunch believer in the good of digital media, but, shockingly, I found myself identifying with both groups. Like the Natives, I prefer multitasking (music is a studying necessity for me) when I work, and enjoy education situations where the content is presented in dynamic, exciting ways. However, like the Immigrants, I often question when students claim they can't focus to a simple lecture and prefer what Prensky calls legacy content. As I read the article, I caught myself rolling my eyes at some of his claims.
Of course students can learn the traditional way. Don't be ridiculous!  He's just making excuses for their poor attention span and weak work ethic. When I was their age...
And then I realized something (other than the horrific realization that I am a stubborn baby boomer stuck inside the body of a 20 year old). Education is about the student, not the teacher. I've spent countless hours practicing presenting content in engaging, relevant ways, making it practical and applicable to their lives and the world they live in. This world is technology-centered. No matter how hard teachers like myself may try, technology cannot be removed from the classroom, or learning in general. By refusing to accept the inevitable changes that technology has already caused and will continue to cause, I am just as bad as the stubborn immigrant parent who insists that their child cling on to the old ways that no longer have relevance in the place they are at now. Understanding this, for me, was the key to finally grasping concepts like TPACKS, which Matthew J. Koehler and Punya Mishra flesh out in their article, "What is Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge?" Technology is central to teaching. As it grows and evolves, it affects everything it touches, especially the content we teach and the pedagogy that we use to present that knowledge. Finding that sweet spot is the key to making what we teach in the classroom relevant to today's students.

As a English teacher, I am the go-to promoter of literacy among people. Though I had a small idea of the importance of being digitally literal, I never gave it much thought. I assumed it was extremely similar to reading literacy: you need to be able to know how to work with the material, collaborate with others to create, think critically, make your work acceptable to a larger community, etc. But, while all of that does apply, an even more important, and much more difficult, aspect is understanding and following the ethical and moral guidelines of technology. One of the most obvious ethical issues involves plagiarism. We know what it is–taking another person's ideas and passing them off as our own without offering proper citation. It's something we've had every teacher and professor lecture about on the first day of class for practically our entire school careers. Don't do it. You will fail the class. Read the syllabus. Follow the school's guidelines. And after that, we almost never hear about it again. As a student, I lived (as still live) in constant fear of plagiarism. The threats of failed classes and expulsion from school gave me panic attacks as I frantically checked citation guidelines to ensure I wouldn't be accused of siphoning ideas from others. I had acquaintances from other schools who would talk about having to submit their work to plagiarism checking platforms before receiving grades. The threats, the mandatory checking, the fear, all of this happens in schools across the country. 

Looking at it from the outside, this is a terrible way to confront the plagiarism. This method puts students on the defensive from the beginning. It says to them, "We don't trust you. Even accidents are bad." In their article, "Technology and Academic Virtue: Student Plagiarism Through the Looking Glass," Cynthia Townley and Mitch Parsell point out that this process does nothing to prevent plagiarism; it simply attacks where problems arise. In an environment where trusting relationships are key, it creates a distrustful display of power between teachers and students. In "Write from Wrong," Barry Gilmore questions whether reduced levels of plagiarism because of these tactics is a result of genuine understanding of why plagiarism is harmful, or if it's because students simply "are afraid of getting caught." I've always questioned these types of plagiarism policies, especially in the secondary education setting. How can we expect and accept children making mistakes when it comes to learning new information, yet give them a one-strike policy when it comes to citations and accreditation? Moreover, if we automatically expect that our students will resort to plagiarism to complete their work, wouldn't that be a failure on our part as teachers? Teachers and administrators need to be proactive, rather than reactive. What I found most powerful was Gilmore's observation regarding learning versus completion. He felt that students who didn't understand the value or purpose of their writing assignments were more likely to cheat or plagiarize their work. This is a topic we've been focusing on in my Teaching Writing class. Writing assignments need to be relevant, meaningful, and engaging, not time wasting. Students need to be made aware of how a particular paper will help them in their overall understanding of the content as a whole. Even more important, I've realized, is leading by example. If I want my students to be ethical, cognizant writers, I have to show them how, all the time. Even if it means citing my sources and crediting ideas in presentations, even though I don't **have to**.

Technology will never stop changing. There will always be a new program, an updated software, and  a whole new slew of ethical issues to research and attempt to clarify. I am never going to fully understand technology, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't try. In order to teach my students, I need to make sense their world, and that world is centered on advancing technology. I am not going to be that stubborn old teacher who is stuck in her archaic ways, not if I can help it, and I see this class as being the first step on my journey.