Twitter, Jing, Edmodo, Wordle

Twitter

Twitter is an online social networking service and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, known as "tweets". It was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July. The service rapidly gained worldwide popularity, with over 140 million active users as of 2012, generating over 340 millions tweets daily and handling over 1.6 billion search queries per day.  It has been described as "the SMS of the Internet.”  I have a twitter account but I really don’t know how to use it.  I have tried many times but I have never been successful at learning how to operate it.

Here are a few ways to use Twitter in a classroom:

• Use Twitter to inform students of upcoming exams, assignments, trips and projects. This live feed of class activities helps students remain on task. The ability to use Twitter for class announcements also provides greater flexibility when making changes to the class syllabus.

• Post conversation topics and example questions on Twitter for student consideration. Enabling students to reply to the class Twitter feed encourages class discussion outside of the classroom. This is possibly the greatest benefit of using Twitter in the classroom as it promotes a greater sense of community.

• Twitter is a large community with many professionals in every field of study. You can use Twitter to host a class discussion with the author of a book, a politician or an award-winning scientist. The accessibility and speed of Twitter can yield some inspiring virtual classroom visits.

Here is a "how to" video for Twitter that may help others grasp a better understanding of how to use it.

Jing

Jing is a fast and easy way to capture images and create videos of what you see on your screen.  With Jing, you can capture what you want to say with a picture or a video instantly.  I had never used Jing until I got to this class and I found it very beneficial for putting pictures of videos online as opposed to saving the whole picture.

Here are a few ways to use Jing in a classroom: 

• Give your students the information they need, when they need it. 
• Record your feedback as you grade papers.
• Take a snapshot to share with your class.
• Your students can even use it to collaborate, or ask questions.

Edmodo

Edmodo is a free, secure, social learning platform for teachers, students, schools and districts.  Throughout this semester, I loved using Edmodo because it was so easy to turn in classroom assignments and to see when things are due.  Also, I loved being able to look at my grades any time as well as projects that I have created throughout the semester.

Here are a few ways to use Edmodo in a classroom:

• Edmodo provides teachers and students with a secure and easy way to post classroom materials.
• Share links and videos.
• Access homework, grades, and school notices.
• Teachers and students can store and share all forms of digital content--blogs, links, videos, pictures, documents, presentations, and more.

Wordle

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.  The first time that I had used Wordle was at the beginning of the semester.  I really liked it because you could create a picture with your choice of words.

Here are a few ways to use Wordle in a classroom:

• Summarizing the content of an essay or any piece of work. Useful way of telling people what the essay is about.
• Wordle can be used by the teacher as a means of assessment. Student creates a Wordle of their presentation and uses that as the basis for a discussion.
• Self Reflection.
• Summarizing survey results from text fields.
• Illustrate a student’s writing with a picture.