Thing #23 Classroom 2.0 and Twitter

Classroom 2.0 is the brainchild of computer technology educator Steve Hargadon, who narrates the tour of his web tool via video of himself moving about the site and showing some of what it offers. He demonstrates how chat, audio, video, tags, topics and threaded dialogue can all be incorporated around discussions of a particular nature. Hargadon calls it a "social networking site for those interested in Web 2.0 and collaborative technologies."

For teachers Classroom 2.0 is an extremely valuable and helpful way to find answers, to seek out and share information and experience, and to explore up-to-date applications of web tools regarding esoteric subjects related to educating students.
My response to all I took in on the tour is that it is a bit overwhelming to think of all the potential within. Even the home page and layout is so busy-looking and complex that it is a reminder of how much time it would take to participate in such a venture. On the other hand, like so much of technology today, it would also be very time saving, once getting into it, to contact and learn from others in one's own tagged interest area and get input from others who walk and talk education.

From a specific question like, "Do you know of a book appropriate for 6th graders set in South America?" to blogs about technology in the classroom, to calendars about (on- or off-line)events, tips, classes, webcasts, etc. coming up or announcements of a Global Education Conference, there is something for everyone in the field of education to reach out and enter into social networking thereby.
As for Twitter, my impression of it changed totally to great respect once I delved into it. Twitter—the oft-derided social networking platform on which participants share text dispatches of no more than 140 characters—to connect with colleagues from around the world and generate ideas for teaching and professional growth.

When I sampled our "23 Things" Fearless Leader's tweets I learned so much, and agreed with the previous article's assessment that Twitter is a source of collective intelligence, it's getting information quickly, though not taking the place of Professional Staff Development. Because of the Twitter constraints of 140 characters per tweet, it reminds me of the reading comprehension summarizing skill activity called "Get the Gist," where we teach students to pare down a piece into approximately 10 words. It forces one to express the main idea succinctly. Twitter does that by people getting right to the most meaningful, richest kernel of a topic.

The Thirty Interesting Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom were amazing eye-openers. If a classroom of students beheld such activities on a Promethean Board before their corporate eyes, what a powerful learning opportunity that would be!
Now, as is the nature of ever-burgeoning technology, with the new version of Twitter and all it offers there are even more possibilities to bring our students into modern, cutting edge technologies like Twitter.