The school year is here, which means educators need to be encouraged and fed continuously through their Personal Learning Network (PLN). Right now, you are in an environment where you can incite change. However, many of us can become preoccupied with the madness that surrounds our professional calling! Listed are a few tweets to keep you motivated and enriched as you inspire change within your students and the educators around you. These tweets are listed in order from the most current to the earliest tweet in the week. If you enjoy this series, you may want to subscribe to receive regular updates or check out previous posts by clicking here!
Valedictorians in Their Own Words
Margaret Haun supplied this very inspirational link from the New York Times that shares images and audio of valedictorians giving advice. Whenever you wonder why you give so much to your students, just imagine the enormous impact and influence you have in their lives. How do you help create forward thinking within your students? Follow more of Margaret Haun’s (@Ellyn32) tweets or visit her blog!
Words to Remember
Ced Paine’s quote via Adrian Bruce is just what we need to motivate us to keep up with our PLNs and professional development. Adrian created a humorous cartoon on his blog worth checking out to illustrate his point that educators can choose to stay current with educational technology. Check out more of Ced Paine’s favorite links by checking out this Diigo site or follow Ced Paine on Twitter!
Japan Standardizing the English Accent
As an English language teacher I keep up with various issues concerning linguistics and phonetics. Neal Chambers incited thought-provoking discussion with this article by asking his PLN, “What do you think?” If you ever want to engage in discussion, ask your PLN questions. Moreover, most of your PLN will be directed to inspect the link if a question is attached or you place a strong opinion before or after the link. Engaging others in discussions helps you hone your own opinions regarding various issues in your field! Engage in more thought-provoking tweets by following Neal Chambers or reading his personal blog. You can also access various materials for teaching English language learners at his site, English Sparks.
Second Life Graduation
Entering the school year means lesson planning. Therefore, you should be quite familiar with the Bloom’s Taxonomy method of having students use higher-order thinking skills. Tamas Lorincz provided one of the best sites I have seen explaining Bloom’s Taxonomy. Zaid Ali Alsagoff actually created a wheel of the levels and provides various images, links, and resources about Bloom’s Taxonomy. You can even download a free pdf! Follow Tamas for more valuable links or engage with him on his wonderful blog!
Second Life Graduation
The beginning of the school year often makes you long for the end of the year when your students graduate and move on to the next level of their learning. Russel Tarr is well-known for providing extremely useful links and runs two great sites, Active History and Class Tools! His tweet once again shows why I am so excited about using Second Life for teaching my adult English language learners this year! Bryant & Stratton College hosted the first college graduation on Second Life in June and the guest speaker was Second Life founder Philip Rosedale. All this was performed on a virtual learning platform! Follow Russel Tarr to keep up to date with his various educational links!
You may know that several other teachers and I sponsor free teacher orientations on Second Life. The main reason we do this is because Second Life engages students with visuals, interactive exhibits, and opportunities to engage in thought-provoking dialogue.
If you would like to see the educational opportunities Second Life has to offer then join our SLife is Life ning full of educators willing to mentor you!
Have you missed my previous favorite tweets of the week? Just click here for the posts!
Challenge:
Share Twitter with another educator at your school. You can show them this series for great examples of how Twitter adds to your professional development!
Would you like to recommend a favorite tweet for next week? Please contact me to share your favorite Tweet! Please mark the tweet as a favorite so that I can find the tweet!
