Social Media: What Teens Can Teach Us

The first thing I did when I opened by computer today was read "tweets" from sophomores in the Honors World Literature class here at CJ. They were tasked with summarizing sections of Oedipus Rex in 140 characters or less and to share them in a forum on their Moodle page. I had helped the teacher design the assignment earlier in the week, suggesting a discussion forum on Moodle as a venue for students to share/turn in their Tweets. 

Though the students mostly ended up paraphrasing instead of summarizing, the result of the assignment was a "feed" of "tweets" that both captured the essence of the play's drama (they were working with the end of the play - secrets revealed, eyes gouged out, etc.) and displayed a witty use of that simple symbol that has taken over social media - the hashtag. I had to share a few of them here:

The teacher who gave this assignment was pleased with the results and is considering make it a regular task in the class - good practice with an essential skill and a little bit of fun make for a good assignment in my eyes. That the students embraced this assignment and got creative with these hashtags signifies a victory - and I'm pretty sure the teacher (not on Twitter or Facebook... or any social media, if I recall correctly) learned something about Twitter and hashtags via this simple assignment.

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A bit later, another colleague stopped by my desk to share a blog post with me... and it was very enlightening. I'm sure it has made its way around social media already, since it is all about social media, but I'd still like to share it here. And wow, did it make me feel old and out of it...

The author, Andrew Watts (@thatswattsup), gives an overview of what he has observed about social media from the perspective of teens - and between his initial article and a follow-up post, he covers all the big ones.

I hadn't heard of many of the apps and platforms he explains, and many of them just don't seem relevant to me at this stage in my life. But as an educator working with teens and technology, it's good information to have.

Time to go exploring...

Blogging is SCARY

I had no idea what goes into maintaining a blog. Granted, right now my goal is simply to provide information, resources, etc. to my colleagues (not get famous or make money) and a blog seemed an easier venue than a newsletter, but wow. As I explore Blogger and read, well, blogs ABOUT blogging, I get intimidated. So many things to consider.

On top of that, I'm also trying to delve further into social media as a way of getting professional development... which puts one more thing on my daily to-do list, but can also be helpful in this blogging thing. Just checked Twitter for the first time in a week (goodbye, spring break) and saw this linked by another local ed tech colleague (thanks @sueandrewstech):

Like this infographic? Get content marketing advice that works from Copyblogger.

Definitely a resource I will revisit and encourage my coworkers to visit when they venture into blogging some day. Here is the blog post in which the infographic was originally published; it's full of links to help with the 11 ingredients.

Scrolling through my Twitter feed a little more, I stumbled on a post from one of my favorite ed tech bloggers, Richard Byrne (@rmbyrne). I've been following his Free Technology for Teachers blog for a few years now (I was still teaching English when I discovered it) and have used and shared many of his posts. This caught my eye:

The Schedule of a Full-time Blogger and Consultant http://t.co/EbgLEUOnvV
— Richard Byrne (@rmbyrne) March 24, 2014

I know that people make a living by blogging, but the idea is actually exhausting to me.  So I thought this blog post could give me a little perspective. And yes, it did. But what I really learned by clicking Richard's link and reading the post was that he maintains TWO blogs. WHAT?! A blog about ed tech and a blog about... BLOGGING. He really might be my new guru.  

UPDATE (3/27/14) - I had initially figured out how to embed the infographic into this blog post thanks to the instructions on its source.  Now I'm excited because I just figured out that I could embed a Tweet into a blog post.  No more opening Snipping Tool, applying Snipping Tool, saving picture, inserting picture, etc.  Just a little HTML code to plug in!