Week 3: Exploring Twitter and YouTube

The whole process of getting familiar with Twitter and YouTube was very difficult. I had some experience with YouTube but none with Twitter and had no interest in learning about it or how it could be used for the classroom. Once it was an assignment peace was made! Starting with Twitter a tool I knew nothing about and had the most to learn about.
Twitter:
My Process:

• Create an account.
• Write a profile of and insert a picture.  (Developed an avatar was best)
• Realized Twitter is a fast-moving site (before completion of set up had 8 followers.)  Was advised that some people are habitual followers without who are what they may stand for. That was very strange to me.  But this is part of my discovery. 
• Spent time discovering all the aspects of the site, how to tweet, what was retweet, deciding on who follow according to my interest.
• Discovered that Tweets should be meaningful and of interest to the reading public. Unfortunately, first couple of tweets did not meet that criteria.  (Just didn’t know what tweeting should look like.
• Read that a tweet should be a quick reference for networking information between professionals in a specific field or life interest.  (You can tweet a question and before the day is over several people will give you worthy answers that can be used to get a task done or information on a specific subject.)
• A good tweet will contain a picture a movie or most importantly a web site address and a hashtag reference to another information site.
• Tweets are only 140 characters long.  (But far from that if it takes more than 140 characters you are saying too much! Found a site with common an acronyms or Twitter shorthand to increase speed and reduce word count while tweeting.
  • To help learn the shorthand created a directory for use in OneNote
  • Along with a list of websites that will have important information different kinds of apps that can be used
• Tweets must be concise and to the point. Learned that from a YouTube video.
• Created a catalog of YouTube videos on using Twitter use in the classroom.
• Clicking on the Twitter bird symbol you can embed a photo or picture into a tweet
• If you like a Tweet you can re-tweet it
• How to use hashtags to locate other related and interesting information.

In an article put out by USA Today on “Helping Twitter Newbies with Ten Things You Need to Know” it gave information on how business use Twitter and how it has affect commerce across the world.  

It was a surprise to find the number of organizations and groups who are associated with and use Twitter. Found an article written by a businessman, Ken Krogue, from Forbes Magazine that listed five tools to help you research hashtags:

• Twitter Toolbar – search by terms and keywords even people
• Hashtag.org: a place to is a site for businesses to help them improve their social networking strategies. For teachers, the site:  Teacher’s Guide to Twitter through Edudemic.com
• There are also a couple of tools for businesses to help improve their analysis of their tweets and hashtags: Topsy, TweetReach, and Social Mention.

The more I learned, read, and researched about twitter the better appreciation gained for its use for educators, and for students to help them learn about so many different subject areas to gain knowledge in different things. The pedagogy that is taught through the use of Twitter is a valuable to the classroom teacher and

YouTube

My next adventure was YouTube.  I thought I understood this tool but quickly discovered all I knew was that it existed.  I really had not done very much with it even though I have a couple of feeds that I followed because of my varied interest.  Understanding exactly how YouTube worked was another task that I spent three full days trying to understand and master in some small way.

Edudemic.com also offered a Teacher’s Guide for Using YouTube in the Classroom, which I found helpful, just like their guide for Twitter.

My Discovery Process:

Found out that if you’ve ever gone to YouTube you already have an account if your operating system is Google. Reviewed the guide on creating a playlist (Was not aware of the flexibility this tool offers a teacher. Used videos in the classroom even embedded them in PowerPoints, but still knew very little about how they worked or how to get the best use out of them. Also was curious as to how individuals earned money with a YouTube feed.

I have an extensive library of United Streaming videos for science that I used often when I was in the classroom.  But YouTube has videos on any subject that interest people and you don’t have to be good at it to have a YouTube video.  If you don’t know anything about a subject or you want to DIY and need instructions on how it’s done there is a YouTube video to help you. The list is exhausting of the many subject areas and the number of videos available for viewing.  All of them are not necessarily of high quality, but these are everyday people and professionals who all have something to share and YouTube gives them that venue. Whatever your talent or not you can create a YouTube to display it.

The first endeavor I approached was creating my own personal YouTube site where I could collect information on those things of interest to me.  What I discovered is that YouTube had already began to collect information on me every time I viewed something from the site.  When reviewing my history site log everything I’ve researched on YouTube was there for me to go back and either add to my play list or not.  Also, the two feeds that I faithfully followed where listed there as well. Every one of the videos that I reviewed was lined up for me to see its title.

As more videos are viewed and articles read from my classmates’ sharing’s I learned even more.  I found out how to create a playlist to add to my library and how to categorize list and to create a real video library.

To say my metacognitive knowledge was increased would be putting it mildly. There was so much and so many aspects of these two tools that I knew nothing about and after three to four days of “play” my head hurt. When I started the adventure I was doubtful that there was anything there for me to learn or appreciate.  I had been so closed minded about Twitter I could not see it value to an educator.  All that’s changed; still not a big Tweeter user and my Tweets are not impressive, but I do appreciate what it can do for me and am comfortable using the tools.