Reflection

Twitter, blogs, and podcasts are becoming valuable tools in education.  Unfortunately, not all teachers are familiar with their use in the classroom.  Some may also be uneasy about getting these tools setup and put into use.  With many how to websites and how to videos available online, setting up and using Twitter, blogs, and podcasts is not as difficult as one may think.

Of the three tools listed above, I believe Twitter is the easiest to setup and use.  To use Twitter in my classroom, I would like to set up an account in which parents can check to see what's going on in the classroom, post upcoming events or cancellations, and any other special information.  By doing this I feel it may help to cut down on back and forth emails to, and from, parents.  I could also show photo and videos directly in the tweets for the parents to view.  

One way in which I would use a blog log in my classroom is doing a "blog pal". Instead of using the traditional pen pal format of sending letters to a class in another school and then waiting for their responses to be mailed back. It would be much easier, and faster, to set up a blog with the teacher instead.  I think children would stay motivated doing this project because they would get a quicker response from their pen pal and not have to wait for letters to be delivered through the mail.

I would like to use podcasting in my classroom to create booktalks with the students. After reading a book the students would create a podcast that would be a presentation, created by the student, which would be used to persuade other students to also read the book.  Each student’s episode would be combined into the book talk podcast series for the class. This podcast could also be shared with other classes and with parents also.