Talkshoe

Animoto.com

Thoughts on Twitter

Microblogs, such as Twitter, could be useful to some as professional development, because some tweets have interesting websites posted on them. However, like my classmate Jackie suggested, it would not be the first thing I turn to. I find more uses out of educational blogs, Ning, and educational RSS feeds. I understand that microblogs are like blogs, social networking, and instant messaging all rolled into one service, but there is a minimum requirement for the amount of writing. Also, pictures, audios, and videos cannot be uploaded to this service. That makes it a little more difficult to express thoughts geared toward professional development.

On the other hand, I did enjoy the annotated bibliography-Twitter, Social Networking, and Communities of Practice. This gave some great ideas of how to use microblogging in the classroom as a form of language development. The ability to practice with and through another language to solve problems, give ideas, or analyze comments instantly with others of that target language, could be extremely beneficial for the language learner. Learning through community connections is the best way to positively affect the acquisition of another language.

Blogging Feeds from Bloglines

While adding feeds onto my bloglines account, I came across a great feed from Blog-EFL. I particularly found it interesting to listen to a talk from Nik Peachey about Teaching English in a Second Life. It takes a little bit for him to really get into talking about the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of English language learners and the use of internet resources. Therefore, I suggest skipping into about a little less quarter of the entire speech. The feed is wonderful because it gives a great outline of the speech to read before, during, and after Nik Peachey's talk. This is helpful, because Nik tends to get a little off topic a few times. Check it out, and let me know what you think!