Twitterature?!

After perusing another book title discussing Facebook lingo/classic literature on Amazon, I noticed this book as another recommendation and thought I'd post the cover image on here.  I didnt realize it, but Twitter has made it into the literary world!

The book is in the bargain section (and didn't seem to get good online reviews), so I think it's safe to say that twitterature isnt going to replace real literature anytime soon....but it's interesting to see the twitter impact. And I'll admit the cover image is pretty cute:)

Tweet Tweet!

I have finally joined the world of twitter, tweets, and everything else the site entails. Despite being a huge fan of Facebook, tumblr, and a multitude of blogs- I’ve never really had any desire to join the tweeting revolution. Sure, I’ll admit that I’ve checked out celebrity tweets more than once to get a glimpse into their sporadic thoughts (sometimes discovering there isn’t a whole lot of thought going on), but that’s about the extent of my experience. I didn’t really see why I would need one, since I have status updates on Facebook if I really want to let people know what I’m doing or thinking.

Twitter was relatively easy to set up, and very easy to connect with my classmates. However, it only took about two minutes after joining that Julia and I were both messaged by a random tweeter asking, “are there any single guys there to chat?”

And we weren’t the only ones that got spammed right out of the gate- everyone saw that charming comment referring to male parts posted on our class feed right after it was created.

The issue of spamming and inappropriate comments/links makes me continue to lean more towards the Twitter is bad  party, since I’d rather not have the experience of listening to a chorus of Grade 11’s in my classroom saying, “Miss Patten? Someone from Colorado is messaging me to chat!” (Or any other variety of equally awkward scenarios- you get the idea.) With e-mail and classrooms sites such as Wikispaces, I sometimes wonder if that is more than enough online connection for students and teachers? I’d like to think that students can still survive the 21^st Century classroom by actually bringing paper sheets home from school and writing due dates in an agenda rather than an e-reminder. We all did it, and we still made it to university! I’m leery to become dependent on technology to share the breadth of our classroom thoughts and discussions, because (as we all know)- technology does fail from time to time. How sad would it be to lose all that collective effort if nothing was actually written on paper?

However, I do see the potential in Twitter. It could be a fantastic way to send out those last-minute reminders to your students about exams, papers, and alike. A class feed would allow students to post questions/comments and they would be able to respond to one another, continue classroom discussions, or even post upcoming events that may be of interest to their fellow classmates. I realize that we, as teachers-in training, need to keep an open mind and try to experience a variety of media that we’re bound to run into in the classroom- or at least recognize the influence they hold in our students’ lives.

So here we are, one day later and I’ve tweeted about four times. I’m giving it my best shot to see what potential this service holds, but so far I’m not sold on its place in the classroom. That being said, it has only been one day so I’m not giving up on Twitter just yet.

Happy tweeting everyone!

Here we go!

Though I am relatively new to the blogging scene, I’m looking forward to having somewhere to share ideas about all things education-related (which encompasses a lot of stuff!) with not only my fellow student teachers, but also the online community as a whole. It’s exciting to think of what kind of knowledge we might gain by opening up our teacher education up to an open, online forum!

Here's the basic educational facts in a nutshell: I graduated from UVic in June with a BA in English, and I am going to be teaching English and Social Studies: History. But more importantly...

I want to start my blog off with a bit about why I am in the PDP with all of you...

I have known I wanted to be a teacher since kindergarten. No joke. Since then, I’ve told anyone who’s asked me the same answer. The only thing was, I was dead-set on being an elementary school teacher. In fact, before last year, I really hadn’t put any thought into the idea of secondary. So after graduating high school in 2003, I set forth to go for that B.Ed in Elementary. I completed my Associate of Arts Degree from Camosun College and then transferred to UVic to finish off the rest of my prerequisites for the Ed. Program. After applying for the Elementary Program (and subsequently being denied due to my GPA- those damn math courses), I sat down and really thought about what I was doing.

I realized a few important things: One was that I loved my English and History courses, and I was incredibly sad that, in finishing my undergrad, I would no longer get to study poets such as Gray or Keats, or get to analyze such topics as the cultural and social changes during the Renaissance. Another was that I really enjoyed working with teenagers at my Aquatics job- and I’d been able to build great relationships with many of them. I realized the massive potential teens have if they are exposed to great educators- and since I have been successful in teaching at the pool, I felt like I could bring that experience to teenagers in a classroom.

So with that, I decided to set forth. I busted my butt last year to get my grades up as high I could to apply for the PDP- and here we are!

Sure, there are still a bit of nerves I’m going to have to overcome (I think we all have a bit of that)- but I’ve realized, after just two weeks of classes, that I think we're going to have an incredible support system in each other to get through the next 16 months...

And we’re all gonna ROCK! J