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Microblogging for Learning

What a week! I spent my week learning about microblogging. When I heard the term microblogging, I did not understand what it was or that I was already doing it! You might be asking yourself, what is microblogging? It is a form of blogging using short posts. Think of social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TicToc, and Pinterest as microblogging sites. Microblogging is important because it allows you to quickly communicate with audiences through a conversational tone where messages are sent in various contexts, including text, images, video, and audio. (Zhao et al., 2022). 

Cleveland et al. (2016) and Froytlog et al. (2022) stated microblogging has many benefits for education: 

  • Users can use hashtags to curate information
  • Connect with experts for deeper learning
  • Professional development and networking
  • Class updates
  • Question and answer forum
  • Peer and community instruction
  • Sharing and learning knowledge

I have accounts at all the social media sites mentioned earlier, but Facebook is my preferred microblogging site. I spent ten years cultivating a professional learning network (PLN) on Facebook that connects educators worldwide. During the pandemic, I utilized my PLN to assist the teachers I work with in shifting to virtual learning. One of my favorite Facebook sites is EduProtocols Community. This microblog provides innovative technology integration ideas using the same tools but changing the content involved. Students thrive in this context because they are used to the tools and how to use them, which means they can concentrate on learning the presented content.


I joined Twitter six years ago, but I am more of a follower than an active contributor in this community. My favorite two Twitter contributors are Alice Keeler and Matt Warne. Both of these contributors provide edtech ideas that elevate my teaching. I just discovered Matt Warne on Twitter, but he quickly became a favorite because of his ability to integrate coding projects with Scratch and Sphero robots into authentic learning experiences for his students. 


Reading Alice Keeler and Matt Warne's ideas inspired me to step out of my comfort zone and try something new with my students. This week we used Tinkercad to create 3D worlds. Each world had to include specific landforms, housing types, and communities because that is what the standards require students to learn about. Students were excited to explore and design with Tinkercad. Here are a few examples of their work.

Student community built with Tinkercad
Image Credit: Vicki's Tech Hub

Tinkercad built community showing mountains, village, and water
Image Credit: Vicki's Tech Hub

Tinkercad built village including entertainment, housing, and farmland
Image Credit: Vicki's Tech Hub

Tinkercad community including 4 beach, mountains, farmland, and desert
Image Credit: Vicki's Tech Hub

Tinkercad built community including a busy town with a waterpark, parks, and community gathering places
Image Credit: Vicki's Tech Hub

What creative idea can you find through microblogging to inspire your teaching this week?

References

Cleveland, S., Jackson, B. C., & Dawson, M. (2016). Microbloggin in higher education: Digital natives, knowledge creation, social engineering, and intelligence analysis of educational tweets. E-Learning and Digital Media, 13(1-2), 62–80. https://doi.org/10.1177/2042753016672130

Froytlog, J. I. J., Rasmussen, I., & Ludvigsen, S. R. (2022). How microblogging affords conditions for realising student voices about the body and sexuality in science education lesson. Cultural Studies of Science Education, 17, 661–682. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11422-022-10101-y

Zhao, J., He, H., Zhao, X., & Lin, J. (2022). Modeling and simulation of microblogging-based public health emergency-associated public opinion communication. Information Processing & Management, 59(2), Article 102846. https://doi.org/10.1016/j/ipm.2021.102846


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