Every Educator Should Be On Twitter + 10 Educators to Follow

June 1, 2012 by 25 Comments

I have been actively using Twitter for several months now and I am starting to appreciate it for what its worth. After going to the Iblog8 summit last weekend and hear edtechguro lament on the lack of local educators on twitter and having their own blogs, I want to encourage more teachers to tweet and blog.

Initially I had a headache using it, as the feed was fast and furious. It was hard to keep up. I barely could understand hastags.  Random people or should I say bots come and follow you and send you some stupid links. I have learned to discern authentic accounts and I follow selectively.

Twitter

So why Twitter?

  • Great links to education news and resources
  • Connect and Network with Teachers all over the world
  • Share ideas on teaching and education
  • Drive traffic to your blog/website
  • Inspiring quotes on education
  • Build a professional learning network
  • Challenge your creativity (you can only post 140 characters for each tweet)
  • Share information easily to your network
  • Join Twitter Chats related to Education

So there, plenty of benefits to using Twitter.

Here are 10 International Educators to Follow on Twitter.

My criteria for choosing them include:

1) They are influential, i.e. a lot of followers

2) They provide relevant and useful content

3) They engage their followers.

I know there are plenty of great educators online and I have only scratched the surface of Twitter world, but here are 10 International Educators to follow as a start :)

1) https://twitter.com/#!/ShellTerrell

Education thought-provoker, The 30 Goals Challenge author, International Speaker, #Edchat founder, Host for AM TESOL Free Fri Webinars, SC Mgr @TheConsultantsE

@thenerdyteacher

Just a guy who likes to write and speak on education, technology and all things nerdy. The ‘Lady Gaga’ of teaching.

@Larryferlazzo

Inner-city High School teacher — ESL & Mainstream

Sacramento, CA · http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/

@justintarte

Junior High Assistant Principal using social media & tech as professional growth tools; growing & developing through group collaboration & sharing of ideas.

@web20classroom

Educator, Speaker, Blogger, #Edchat Co-Creator, #140ConfCharacter, Edublogs Twitterer Of The Year, ASCD Emerging Leader. Do You Use Social Media In Education?

@ElemntryMatters

I’ve been a teacher for over 30 years and love sharing with other teachers. I have a passion for the brain, kids, learning, singing, and the Red Sox.

@coolcatteacher

Best teacher blog award winner, co-founder- Flat Classroom Projects, Conference, Digiteen, NetGenEd, known as the Wikinator by my students, author

@aliceleung

Head Teacher Science at a Sydney high school, technology enthusiast, gamer. All tweets are my own opinions & doesn’t represent my employer’s views

@AngelaMaiers

I believe these 2words can change the world - #YouMatter - I’m an Educator, Author, Speaker passionate about literacy, learning, and power of social media

@NMHS_Principal

Principal of New Milford HS (NJ): NASSP National Digital Principal Award Winner (2012), Google Certified Teacher, ASCD Conference Scholar, Author, Speaker

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Yes, please follow us on Twitter too :)

Are you an educator on Twitter? Please share your twitter id below so we can follow you :) Share also how you use Twitter as an Educator.

Do you have other recommendations as to who to follow on Twitter? Share them in the comments below.

 

Argee Abadines

Argee Abadines is the founder and chief content engineer of this website. He is a brain based educator and his educational interests are higher order thinking, creativity, and educational technology. He reads up regularly about trends in education and online media. You can visit his personal blog at pinoyminimalist.com

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Online Resource Highlight: The Khan Academy

April 7, 2012 by 13 Comments

The Khan Academy is one of the projects creating the future of education. It literally is leading the charge for the flipped classroom. A game changer.

 

Learning at our Fingertips

Salman Khan, a former Hedge Fund analyst decided to turn his advanced math knowledge into video form for his cousins. It sparked a learning revolution and has since become a staple online resource for many schools. Now, it has over 3000 videos on various subject matters including math, the different sciences and even economics and finance.

The Khan Academy is backed up by Google and the Bill Gates Foundation.

Here are the cool features of the Khan Academy:

1) Extensive video library. Over 3000 videos. All videos in this gigantic video library are interactive and fun to watch. Each video is bite size and lasts for around 10 minutes only, which is very in line with brain based teaching. Students can easily access them outside the classroom with an internet connection on their mobile device.

2) Problem Solving, Drills, and Exercises to help students master the sub skills. All the scores and duration spent on the exercises can be tracked by the teacher using Khan’s Academy Learning Statistics that tracks each student’s learning progress. It gives a comprehensive picture of the student’s strengths and weaknesses. The best part is that everything is self-paced. There is no pressure for the slower kids to catch up always with the faster ones and the faster ones can go at a pace they are comfortable with.

3) The Khan Academy also makes use of A map of knowledge. It gives a macro look of all the challenges, skills and concepts. By following the map and completing them all, your students can declare they have mastery over the topics they have covered.

This is excellent because there is immediate feedback and there is the element of challenge and satisfaction in completion of  problem solving challenges. These factors motivate learners in doing more and gaining more mastery.

4) It’s a game! You earn badges for completion of challenges and tests. That’s it! I’m going to join this academy :) This is clearly the future of education.

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Check out the TED video of Salman Khan:

Using Video to Reinvent Education: Salman Khan

Visit the Khan Academy and try it out yourself before introducing it to your students:

Khan Academy

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Please share this resource to your colleagues :)

Follow us on our twitter@tfilteacher and our Facebook Page on the right side of the home page :)

Argee Abadines

Argee Abadines is the founder and chief content engineer of this website. He is a brain based educator and his educational interests are higher order thinking, creativity, and educational technology. He reads up regularly about trends in education and online media. You can visit his personal blog at pinoyminimalist.com

More Posts - Website

Filed Under: Brain Based Learning and Teaching, Brilliant Online Resources, Technology in the Classroom Tagged With: , , ,
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