Twitter: The Cornerstone of Web 2.0

I remember a time that whenever I, or anyone else, had a question about anything, my first reaction was "Google it." Now, I say "Tweet it." The response is individual, instantaneous, and completely relevant. There are no 43,954,873 pages found that you then have to sift through to find what you need. Any page mentioned is personally chosen based on your question by an individual versed in that subject.

Why do I call it the cornerstone? Traditionally the cornerstone of a building was the stone that decided the placement of all the others in a foundation. Over time, this stone began to be decorated, documenting and/or demonstrating important information about the building itself. Well, I see that same thing happening with Twitter. Someone sets the foundation by creating a hashtag (the filing system for tweets, shown with the #). All of that topic's masons then build the rest of the foundation using that hashtag as their guide. Soon, you have a collection of houses full of relevant tweets. Now whenever you want to find information about that topic, you simply skip all the other irrelevant "houses" looking for that cornerstone.

So, what does this mean for education and educators? Everything, if you are hoping to move from Web 1.0, where you and students just search for information others have created, to Web 2.0, where you and the students are creating content and building your own relevant curriculum. Remember that it only takes one person to build a cornerstone. Others just have to notice it and realize that they have something to add to that building. How powerful is it to be doing a research project on a subject you are passionate about, find others who are also passionate about it, and begin a dialogue where soon your thoughts are being shared (or retweeted) to a larger audience? Now others are looking to you for ideas and answers; it's no longer about finding or regurgitating the "right" answer to my teacher but creating an answer that will help someone else. And it all happens in an instant. It means that we, as educators, need to reassess our belief that student research can only be valid if they get their information from "the experts" (whoever THEY are) and begin to teach them how to become the experts themselves. Isn't that what teaching and learning are all about? It also means that we have to stop believing that true learning can only come inside our classroom with discussions that we lead.

Getting started is easy. Go to Twitter and create an account. Choose some topics you are interested in and find some people to follow. Use your 140 character limit to talk about what you are passionate about. For education take a look at this Google Doc of Educational Hashtags created by an educational tweep (person who tweets). Use a relevant hashtag to organize your thoughts (or create your own cornerstone). You can then decide the format on which you want to follow and create tweets; many applications are available, even ones for your smartphone. NOTE: At the bottom of other people's tweets, it generally says how they sent the message; look at the different applications and try them out to find the one that works best for you. You should also check out Steve Anderson's LiveBinder "An Educator's Guide to Twitter"

Getting students started is just as easy. You will be surprised how many teens already have Twitter accounts, even if they don't use them regularly. A great feature for working with students is that they can block their account so that only those with permission may follow them. If you want the students to comment inside or outside of class on your discussions and topics, simply find a hashtag no one is using (make it personal to your class), and have the students file their tweets there. Easy for you to follow, monitor, and assess for understanding. If you just want them to start seeing it as a tool for more than mundane musings about daily rituals, give them a list of hashtags to follow and join. If they also add your class hashtag, you can give them extra credit for participation. The whole point is to get them creating thoughtful content and feeling empowered in their world. Specifically for language students, there are various chats (#charlando for Spanish, #parlons for French, etc) where the students can converse with other learns and native speakers of the language in the language. It's a great way to get them practicing when there may not be a large speaking population in your area.

Twitter can be an outstanding educational tool for parents, students, and teachers if you take the time to find your topic. When I first tried Twitter, I quickly gave it up as a collection of mindless drivel. I tried it again and found that I could find and follow some important people in my field (other educators, professional organizations, politicians, etc), but I still didn't see its worth until I understood the hashtag organizational system. It's really all about looking for that cornerstone. Now I consider Twitter the first place I go for relevant professional development. Any time of the day or night there is someone, somewhere, ready to give ideas, comfort, and direction for making my job as a teacher easier. I never get that sitting in our school's library for 6 hours during our sporadic staff development days.

Assessment or Testing...Exactly what are we doing and when?

A recent discussion about children and literacy assessment in my grad school class prompted me to reflect on the ways in which we assess students, primarily in high school foreign languages, as that is what I currently teach, but also in other high school courses.

One of the first things we learn is that we should assess students regularly to gauge student learning and adjust instruction. Testing should be an infrequent occurrence that determines mastery of concepts. Unfortunately, we have now blended the two, using testing as assessments of learning AND determinant of mastery. We must reevaluate our definition of and purpose for assessment and/or testing.

It is my observation that in high school foreign language classes, teachers assess students throughout the course using multiple types of assessments: reading, writing, speaking, listening, grammar exercises, cultural projects and products, vocabulary matching quizzes, etc. At the end of the year, however, many revert to the standardized form of multiple choice and true/false "testing" as a way to determine that students have mastered a certain percentage of the course material. What skills, then, are being tested, and what exactly are they supposed to demonstrate mastery of...guessing skills, process of elimination skills, recognizing context clues? This phenomenon is not isolated to the languages; teachers of biology, through no design of their own in NC, are also guilty of this practice. Throughout the year, the students learn about life forms and perform experiments in line with their learning. In my school, most of the teachers engage the students in problem-based learning. At the end of the year, however, the students take a multiple-choice, End-of-Course test that has no performance component. How do we know that the students have mastered the skills necessary in the field of biology and not just memorized the steps of the scientific method and an extensive vocabulary list?

In all of my years as a student, and my six years as a teacher, I have not yet seen a multiple-choice test that can truly evaluate mastery of skills, except for test-taking skills. True mastery comes in spontaneous use and verbalization of the concept and skill. How can you bubble that in on a sheet? So, this idea of true mastery brings me back to my initial question: How, when, and why to assess? Testing, in the one-size-fits-all form, is irrelevant, unless you are on an assembly line.

So, what I am suggesting here is a focus shift, if you will. Let's take what we consider "testing"--paper/pencil, one right answer--and use that as our formative assessments. A student can demonstrate recognition of vocabulary and knowledge of the steps in the scientific process on a bubble sheet before we teach them to think critically about how to use that knowledge and integrate it into hands-on production activities. If our goal is, at the end of the year, to know that students can communicate in the target language, shouldn't our final assessment require them to demonstrate that ability, or better yet, shouldn't they be able to choose how they demonstrate that ability? Thinking, processing, and communicating cannot be measured by a question that has only one right answer.

How did we, as a culture, decide that valid summative assessments look like the format of Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and ask students if a, b, c, or d is their final answer? Maybe, just maybe, a little more explanation is needed for the student to show what they've learned. If we can grade projects, essays, lab write-ups, dance routines, presentations, blogs, etc. all year long, why do they disappear at the end of the course? It's time to stop doing what is convenient for us and do what makes sense. Decide what really matters and assess it in a way that is relevant and demonstrative of true mastery. Otherwise our kids will continue to be "tested" like lab rats and will gain very little from the experience.