"Microblogging enables a real-time interaction between users, using different devices, technologies and applications." (Holotescu C & Grosseck G) Twitter, one of the best known microblog platform has more than 600 million users among which one of five are college students. The great potential of education Holotescu and Grosseck's study, they presented a course using a specially designed microblogging platform called Cirip.ro. they suggested that differing from Twitter which open to all the public user, specially designed microblogging, Cirip.ro, comes with the following features:

use in microblogging had already stimulate educators to develop new methodology and explore educational features in micro blogging. In

•   Users have the possibility to specify the domain about which they will write the notes; this makes finding microblogs from a specific domain easier, particularly the educational ones;
•   Creating user groups; pupils, students, teachers can create public or private groups(in the private ones the notes are visible only for members);
•   The possibility to embed images, audio and (live) video files, presentations, documents in notes;
•   The possibility to subscribe to search feeds or to feeds offered by sites / blogs / social networks –the same as users and groups, the feeds can be monitored, online, by IM, or by SMS.

  They suggested that using such a educational microblogging, students gained interest in life-long learning, motivations and flexibility in developing their own educational and vocational route. The advantage of flexibility was also mentioned in Tweeting for learning: A critical analysis of research on microblogging in education (Gao F. 2012). "learning can happen beyond pre-scheduled class times, and learners' time on task may be significantly expanded by opportunities of spontaneous and sustained learning."

  But microblogging in education also face challenges. One of the most inmportant ones is participants' unfamiliarity with microblogging. The technology developed so fast that the Twitter now isn't the same as is was half year ago. A starter may face great challenges to use microblogging and this may lead to their uncomfortable feeling in the learning process. So it's teachers' responsibility to help learners to learn how to use microblogging and help them find the great advantages in this form of learning; show them the joy of express and share ideas in the unlimited network. Though it is a long way to go, we already have a good start.

#Find Your Interest#

  I joined #edutechchat this Thursday. I am not a new microblog user, but really a novice of Twitter. So before I joined the Twitterchat, I took a little time to research what a Twitterchat is. I am very familiar with Weibo, a mainstream Chinese microblog, and I dig it from my memory that there's something with # as well. So, I made a comparison between Weibo and Twitter to make a better understanding about Twitterchat.


  The word "chat" was a little confusing for me. In Weibo, when you post your piece of microblog with #hashtag#， then your blog will be categorized into what we called 话题(topic). So, anyone who want to share his/her mind or looking for others ideas about this topic can search those microblogs and also post theirs with #hashtag#. It's a really fun to search topic like #what will you do or #super recipes in Weibo. But usually what we do is sharing or reposting with short comment such as "perfect!" or just a . There's really few communication between users that could make me connect it with "chat". This function is really as same as Twitterchat, the only difference is two # vs. one. The picture on the right is what I searched for #EnglishEdu in Weibo.  One more thing I found is that the Twitterchat isn't limited in certain time, whenever I come up with an idea or problem, I can Tweet it with #hashtag and wait for someone discovering it.

  Consider my teaching career, I regard Twitterchat as a very eye-opening way to explore useful resources and an approach to get help from other teachers, even those famous, influential ones. I found many who in the same chat sharing  teaching methods and new invents within the field. These tweets can be retweet a million times and spread to world in a few minutes. This means twitter is one of the fast way to acquire the latest information and learn the newest creative thinking. And talking about getting help from others, it is amazing because I will never know who will help me solve my problem, it might be dean from Oxford who I've never met. Through the chat, I might know more people in my field as well. So Twitterchat really gathers people from the same field and provide a space for them to exchange ideas, for my professional development it is really a contributing tool. But I must say, the twitter needs  long-term keeping and active participating; it's just like the human resource network. The more influential, the more chances your tweets would be focused  in millions of tweets.

Classroom 2.0

   Talking about Classroom 2.0, "This website is really doing it seriously.", that's what came into my mind
when I was filling in my applying information. The website requires me to give the reason why I want to join this network. "Wow, that's something I never expect." Then the administrator will decide whether you can join this network. What does this mean? This means this website is really specifically  professional; the members on this network are all real professional in this field. Because they are qualified for such a standard.
    And it really is professional. You can explore various educational resources on the site; it provides literature, videos for new teachers which are really helpful to widen their horizon. Within this site, it also forms a network among teachers from all over the world. From the view of connectivism, this is definitely a huge resource to learn from if you fully enrolled in it.
   I

What’s mine is yours!

    This is an era of information explosion. Siemens G. mentioned the extent that the knowledge expanding in Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. “One of the most persuasive factors is the shrinking half-life of knowledge. The “half-life of knowledge” is the time span from when knowledge is gained to when it becomes obsolete. Half of what is known today was not known 10 years ago.” In other way to think about this, what you have learned now will not satisfy you in 10 years. We need to absorb knowledge and refresh our minds as quickly as we can to keep pace with the changing world. The traditional way of learning won’t fit; you may never think about this, we learned a lot through on-line network through the last decades. We are a new type of learners, the connectivism learners. What is connectivism? "The relationship between work experience, learning, and knowledge, as expressed in the concept of ‘connectivity, is central to connectivism, motivating the theory's name.” The central aspect of connectivism is the metaphor of a network with nodes and connections.  In this metaphor, a node is anything that can be connected to another node such as an organization, information, data, feelings, and images.

So, learners are like sponges in a big vessel full of knowledge of water. Every sponge will absorb certain part or amount of knowledge at first as we start to learn knowledge. Then we squeeze the water out as we share knowledge with others. In this process, the knowledge will mix and maybe create more chemistry as motivate new ideas and then be absorbed by others again. This ‘absorb-squeeze-absorb’ process happens among every sponge thus creates a multi-linked network. Through the network exchanging knowledge, we share information and learn new stuffs from others. Back to reality, this network exists in our internet technology. Today our connections base on social networks such as Facebook and twitter connect us more efficiently. The network is learning, isn't it? Being educators, we should make advantages of all these technology to instruct our next generation learn in a fast-pace world.

    And one more things to mention, when you read this, you’ve already become a connectivism learner!

Create Your On-line Library

If you are also a fan of technology and love reading on-line instead of holding heavy books. DIIGO is an amazing site for you. Just quickly sign up a free account for it, then you will have a cloud library. The best part of Diigo is that you can make on-line notes and highlight lines right on the sites when you visit any websites, and all the notes you made will be saved once and forever! Then you can bookmark the websites you would like to visit some day again and share them with your friends. For convenience, you can put tags on every site so all the websites you collected are organized into lists according to tags. You can also explore new sites by following others' diggo and make new friends who share the same interests!

If you are a expressionist, then Diigo seems a little bit plain. Try Scoop.it! With Scoop.it, you can save your favorite websites with fancy title pictures and show them all on a 'photo wall'; isn't it fancier to watch your collections show off than simply get a list? What's more, Scoop.it will automatically provide you suggestion about websites according to your topic key words. You can do all the same stuffs that you can do on Diggo, like commenting websites, giving tags, following friends, EXCEPT you can't make on-line notes or highlight lines :( What a pity! But at least you have a fancy collection websites :)

I would suggest Diigo to those who consider more on working convenience using mobile devices; and Scoop.it is the best choice for those who want to make a social net work while collecting web resources. Anyway, the best way to figure out which one is your thing is check them out yourself!

Classroom and Teachers of Tomorrow

What do you think the future classroom will look like? A giant floating classroom? Robot teachers? Directly put knowledge into your brain? Wow, that's cool.

Take a glance at what classroom of tomorrow will look like. You might be a little surprised and disappointed. But yes, we are already experiencing a part of future classroom. The technology is changing our classroom and we have already put some hot stuff into use. We use smart phones and tablets in the classroom to read, calculate, search information and give lectures and presentations. These devices not only replaced heavy books and notes, they tend to become all-purpose belongings. With diverse apps supported, we can use them in so many ways in the classroom, like rulers, lights, or maybe broadcast radio station.

       Technology is still developing at an unexpected speed. The smart touch technology has made our dream come true to use only our fingers to operate different apps on large screens with touching and swiping.  Mobile devices can be used everywhere and at any time, especially when you want to make a difference. What will be the next change? Everything happened in science fiction movies may become real tomorrow.

The changing of technology of classroom also requires teachers’ constant learning and adapting. Years ago, “Adapting and evolving, teachers digitally empower diverse learners to connect, communicate collaborate, and create in an interactive technology-rich environment” is exactly a vision of 21^st century teachers. Have teachers reached the goal yet? Yes, absolutely, I think. With technology as a tool, students grasp knowledge more efficiently under teachers’ help. They have more resources to learn, share and have more spaces and possibilities to invent and explore. But because of the fast pace of technology development, teachers have to spend more time learning and exploring useful tools and preparing classes; this set a higher standards in the field of teaching. Quote Dana J. “Who dares to teach must never cease to learn.” As teachers, we mustn't fall behind the pace of technology. 

What students expected is also what we should make our effort to achieve. I will try my best to work on this, will you?

Teaching with blogs

Blog, as an innovative product of internet culture, serves as platform for everyone to express ideas and thoughts; the blog culture stimulates people’s desire for knowledge. For it is open and has a variety of features, there are many possibilities to engage blog in language education use.

We can put reading resources and relative links on blogs and have our students post feedback on their own blog or comment on what they interest most. Due to the development of mobile devices, we can easily access blog everywhere; inside or outside school, students and teachers can share what they hear and see whenever a spark jumps out of mind. By reading others’ posts, one may follow the posters’ mind and get the knowledge from others; while the posters get satisfaction feeling being one of knowledge discriminators. Thus, blog provide a bridge of positive communication between teachers and students and even build a study network within students themselves.

Blog can also be used as a multimedia resource index. As mentioned above, we can put reading materials on blog. More than that, thanks to technology, we can have multimedia tools on blogs to share with our students. For example, for a student who is writing linguistic paper, we may introduce him how to type IPA symbols in the blog. We may also categorize our blogs for students so they can search information easily. Generally, we can use blog as a specific library that accumulates what we've studied. It can be useful for a teacher to improve his teaching as well.

What do you think? I’d like to hear your comments. Here are some official learning standards that meet my ideas:

ACTFL standards

COMMUNICATION

COMMUNICATE IN LANGUAGES OTHER THAN ENGLISH

• Standard 1.1: Students engage in conversations, provide and obtain information, express feelings and emotions, and exchange opinions
• Standard 1.3: Students present information, concepts, and ideas to an audience of listeners or readers on a variety of topics.

       COMMUNITIES

       PARTICIPATE IN MULTILINGUAL COMMUNITIES AT HOME & AROUND THE WORLD

• Standard 5.1: Students use the language both within and beyond the school setting
• Standard 5.2: Students show evidence of becoming life-long learners by using the language for personal enjoyment and enrichment.