A Description about the @CI350class Twitter account

1. 1. Harold Blanco - @CI350class:
Throughout the semester,one of the Twitter accounts I followed along with was Harold Blanco’s
account for the CI 350 class. During the months of March and April, Harold did not tweet every day, but
on the days when he did tweet,he would post multiple tweets containing interesting links to blogs and
websites concerning education. The month of March mainly consisted of tweets about how to utilize
social media in the classroom, which I found very interesting since I am always trying to think of proper
ways to use it in the classroom. There were many articles I found helpful, and I even pinned some of them
to my “Teaching” board on Pinterest! Two articles I enjoyed reading were tweeted on March 10 and were
titled “A Guide Book For Social Media in the Classroom” and “Social Media for Schools: A Guide to
Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest.” These articles gave excellent examples of how to implement these
social media platforms into the classroom whether it is through broadcast accounts, communication with
parents, creativity in student projects, and a variety of other uses. I noticed Harold used his Twitter
account to post informative articles as well as “broadcast” useful class announcements about the arts and
bots project. This actually helped me a lot, because I had forgotten that we were supposed to use pictures
in our Live Text post, and I remembered thanks to the class Twitter account. There was another very
interesting article that was posted about the “exodus” that is occurring among young people and
traditional forms of social media. For example, as more parents create Facebook accounts,more young
people are going to social media platforms such as Twitter, Snap Chat, and Instagram to avoid their
parents and family. This is important for teachers to keep in mind as we try to introduce social media into
the classroom, because if we use platforms that students deem as “outdated” or “uncool,” they may not
buy into it. In relation to the tweets about social media, there was a great post about the top six iPad apps
to use in the classroom, which I thought was really interesting since I love reading the lists teachers post
online about helpful technologies to use with students. The most recent Tweets from April 20 were about
critical thinking skills and how to enhance them among people. One of the articles talked about different
team building exercises that could be used to increase critical thinking, and they seemed like they could
be appropriate to try with students. Overall, I found the tweets from Harold’s class account very
interesting, and I enjoyed reading the articles about how to bring social media and critical thinking to the
classroom. I will continue to follow this account even after the semester ends,because it shares many
helpful articles I can use to be a better teacher!