1. Twitter Assignment
Kayla Triplett
CI 350
This assignment has provided me with an opportunity to follow 5 different
influential educators on Twitter, and given me a perspective on educational
strategies and advice that will be valuable in my future career. The five individuals
that I chose to follow are: Pernille Ripp, Lyn Hilt, Chris Wejr, George Couros, and
Aviva Dunsiger. I also started follow my class twitter, @CI 350, which posts different
information about technology in the classroom.
Pernille Ripp:
Pernille Ripp is a very popular fifth grade teacher and mother of 4 from
Washington. She is also the creator of the Read Aloud Project as well as an author.
Throughout the period of time I have been following her, Pernille Ripp has tweeted
2. many, many tweets with helpful videos, blogs, images, and just inspirational
messages to her fellow educators. She seems to be most concerned with increasing
and promoting effective reading strategies and techniques for encouraging student
motivation in the classroom. Ms. Ripp has her own blog “Reading through the
Fourth Dimension” where she also posts very useful information that is geared
toward helping students receive the motivation they need to love reading. She is
very much a supporter of going the “extra mile” to encourage and promote reading
in her classroom by providing students with whatever they need to enhance their
reading. I found Ms. Ripp to be a true inspiration for myself as an aspiring teacher.
She seems to genuinely be willing to do whatever it takes to make her students
succeed. She also is of the opinion that tests and letter grades do not necessarily
reflect the learning that is actually taking place. I ultimately agree with her, and also
believe that a letter does not appropriately measure the learning of a student.
Overall, I am very happy that I chose to follow Pernille Ripp because of her
informative and interesting tweets, and her obvious commitment to bettering
education.
Here are a few of her tweets:
3. Lyn Hilt:
Lyn Hilt is an Instructional Technology Integrator at the Elementary level,
and a former Elementary School Principal from Pennsylvania. She is very active in
4. promoting the use of educational technology in classrooms across the country, and
frequently tweets links to blogs, short videos, and websites that revolve around 21st
century education. Lyn Hilt seems to primarily focus her tweeting on using
technology to promote learning and expand the classroom beyond the actual
building walls. She is an advocate of class twitter and Facebook accounts for
breaking down barriers of communication. In addition to her twitter, Hilt also has a
blog where she shares her thoughts, tips, feelings, and ideas with her fellow and
aspiring educators. She is definitely someone who has experience with the effect of
technology in the classroom and shares her experiences with the world of twitter.
My personal opinion of Hilt is one of agreement. She firmly believes that
incorporating technology into American classrooms is necessary for an education
that is up to date with our ever-changing society, and I fully agree. I am pleased
with my choice to follow her because I know she will provide me with tips and
information that I can utilize in the future.
Here are a few of Lyn Hilt’s tweets:
5. Chris Wejr:
Another individual I decided to follow is Chris Wejr, a Principle of an
Elementary school is an avid supporter of leadership and parent involvement in the
classroom. I am definitely a supporter of Wejr, especially his promotion of parental
engagement because I feel strongly that it is an extremely important aspects of
education. Wejr also frequently tweets about increasing student involvement in
their own education and the most effective ways to do so. He firmly believes that
educators need to work on uplifting all students, not just the ones who frequently
succeed, because the students who struggle are more often in need of
encouragement and support than the students who do well all the time. I am in
complete agreement with Mr. Wejr when it comes to his ideas for improving student
motivation and teacher support and positive reinforcement in the classroom. After
following his tweets for the past month, my eyes have been opened to the need for
6. fundamental motivation that must come from the students. I fully intend to
continue my following of Chris Wejr and plan to use the information he is providing
to shape my teaching strategies for the future.
Here are a few of Chris Wejr’s tweets:
7. George Couros:
George Couros is another individual that I have had the chance to learn from.
Couros is a Division Principle of Innovative Teaching and Learning. He is very
passionate about the importance of student collaboration and the employment of
technology in education. The central theme behind the majority of Couros’ tweets is
the importance of the use of technology in the classroom, and effective ways to
incorporate said technology. As a huge advocate of Web 2.0, he is involved with
launching these applications in classrooms across America. In addition to his Web
2.0 work, he also advocates collaboration between teachers and administration to
ensure they are creating the best work environment possible for their students. I am
a huge supporter of this collaborative effort. If administrators and teachers aren’t on
the same page, how can a school operate successfully? Following this specific
individual has opened my eyes to the many possibilities of using Web 2.0 and the
importance of teacher/administrator collaboration. I fully intend to apply the
8. information on leadership and technology that Couros has and will continue to
provide when I have a classroom of my own.
Here are a few of Couros’ tweets:
Aviva Dunsiger:
9. The final individual I have been keeping up with is Aviva Dunsiger, a woman
who has experience in teaching grades K-2, 5, and 6. She is currently teaching 5th
grade and is very supportive of group projects and project based learning in
education. Dunsiger frequently tweets links to her blog, “Living Avivaloca”, and
images of projects her students are working on. Her students recently finished a
“Passion Project”, where they create a presentation on something that they are
personally passionate about, and that they want to teach their classmates about.
They were to be creative in making their presentation; every student’s project was
completely different. Some were made of Paper Mache and others made theirs from
construction paper and poster board. I love the idea of having kids teach their
classmates about something that is important to them personally because if it is
something they really care about, they will put forth all of their effort to make their
project the best possible. Dunsiger is an avid blogger and promotes “small bloggers”
in elementary and middle school classrooms. This means having young students
blog in class or at home, and can they can be about any topic of the student’s
choosing or an assigned topic. “Small blogging” is mainly about introducing kids to
the world of blogging, and hopefully making it something kids will continue to do
even when they don’t have to. I feel like I learned quite a bit from following Aviva
Dunsiger’s blog, especially in the area of Project Based Learning, and I hope to be
able to incorporate some of her tips and ideas in my own classroom one day.
