The document summarizes the author's observations and learnings from following various educational Twitter accounts, including @wiseinwv which tweets about sexuality education, @ci350class which is the account of the author's professor who enjoys long bike rides, @uberfacts which tweets interesting facts, @gwenethjones known as the "Daring Librarian" who shares teaching ideas and articles, and @mzimmer557 a blogger about technology who discusses how technology has made the world more connected and lists tools to help students access webpages.

1. Twitter Assignment:
While first looking through or “creeping” on @wiseinwv I noticed sexuality, condoms,
gay couples kissing, and birth control tips. I was not expecting this, but then I saw them
tweet that it is “STD awareness week” so I guessed that was the reasoning. Then I went
deeper into the older tweets, and most are about the same sexuality based topics.
Following this observation, I finally went to the biography and it was explained. Wise In
WV is “An initiative of WV FREE, WISE is working to institutionalize sex education in
WV schools in an effort to reduce unintended pregnancy & STD rates”. I love that there
is a program out there that is doing this because it is much different from when I was a
high school student. My school, Cabell Midland, liked to promote abstinence and that is
pushed on the students in health class. Which is a good thing to try to teach, but the
students also need to be taught what to do when they want to have sex to prevent
themselves from STD’s or pregnancies. Midland did not even give out condoms to
students who asked, which is ridiculous in my opinion. Even though the preferable
option is abstinence, for students who ask they should be given.
First thing I learned from @ci350class is that you, Dr. Blanco, enjoy riding your bike for
many, many miles. It’s documented that you’ve biked in Barboursville, Huntington and
even Ohio. After going deeper into older tweets I found helpful articles that you had
shared with the world. The first article I read was “A Yearbook Advisors Guide to
Handling Privacy Dilemmas On Social Media”. It discusses how even the “private
policies” aren’t so private. Facebook is notorious for their confusing and ever changing
privacy policies. TreeRing is an online yearbook that is private to each school, and can

2. be monitored by the parents of the students. The next article I read was “The Teachers
Guide to Social Media” which gave a list of guidelines to give to the students on what
not to look at on the internet.
@uberfacts is a verified account with over 7.4 million followers. Just like the name
claims, they tweet interesting facts. They list their sites and are credited with giving
accurate information. This would be a great one for students to look through since it’s a
learning tool free from inappropriate information. For your entertainment, I will list some
of my favorite tweets from the last day. “Just like humans, cows moo in accents specific
to their regions”. “Whales and dolphins are known to have interspecies relationships”. “It
typically takes a sleepy student 5 hours to do 3 hours of homework”. Even though the
facts being told are not necessarily information that will end up on a state test, it is
information about the world they are learning.
@gwenethjones is known as the “Daring Librarian” due to her love for reading and her
occupation of being a teacher librarian. She uploads many different activities, ideas,
articles, and helpful hints for teachers. She is especially helpful for me because she
mostly uploads elementary appropriate work. One article, discussed the importance of
engaging your students in everything you do. Then, it discussed a teacher who would
greet the students with an inspirational message at the door every day. The students
claim they look forward to seeing the different positive messages and it makes them
excited for the day. Another great article that I read from @gwenethjones twitter is

3. “Because I Said So”. She discusses how that phrase is used when students ask “why?”,
but how wrong it is to do so. “As a teacher, if you can’t explain why you are doing
something, then should you be doing it? Kids have the right to understand why they are
being asked to do things in school and we have the obligation to explain that to them”
@gwenethjones claims. This hit home for me because my parents used to say
“because I said so” to me anytime I questiond something. That response made me feel
like the only reason I was doing the task was because I was being dictated too, which
made me want to rebel and not do it. So, I will keep this article in mind and try not to use
that expression to my students nor my own children.

4. @mzimmer557 is a blogger of technology. The first tweet I read was a submission into
his blog from October 21st, “2.0 Connected Classroom”. He discussed how when he
was in school, he had a pen pal from Asia which felt like a world away from him. Today
though, Zimmer claims “technology has flattened our world” and people feel connected
to people all over the world through the internet. I had first heard about this idea when I
read the book The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman, and Zimmer expanded on that by
talking about the different categories: blogs and skype. I also really enjoyed his blog
“Tools that Can Help Students See and Hear Webpages”. He lists many different sites
that are tools to read the webpage allowed. I checked out one of his suggestions, which
was “Speak It”. Speak It is an extension of Google Chrome, when installed anything you
highlight on the screen, right click and press “Speak It’s Page”, then it will be read
aloud. This would be very helpful for hearing impaired students.