The power of Twitter

Recently, a student of mine needed some help. Instead of giving up, she picked up her phone, logged onto Twitter, and her and I had the following conversation:



She was able to explain her thought process in under 144 characters. What happened next, made me smile even more!! I asked her if she understood the first concept of the class, when she expressed that she has not had a chance to look at it yet, something amazing occurred. Check below:

Liam, graduated from Notre Dame last year, and because of the power of the virtual world, is able to assist students who are now enrolled in the course he excelled at!!

Lastly, Twitter is free and the possibilities are limitless!

Why I blog and tweet

Over the last 4 months, I have tweeted 1500 times and written 90 blogs.  The total of this text would be over 100 pages.  Lately, I have been asked, “Why do you do it?”, with which I responded with, “Why don’t you?”.  I will now share my story.

First, I feel that I have done more PD in the last 4 months than I ever have.  This is not a criticism of conferences I have attended or speeches I have heard, but actually a compliment of the power of twitter and sharing my knowledge through this blog.   Here are some stories:

I would not feel right if I did not say a very huge thank you to Joe Bower (@joebower) as he was the inspiration that started my transformation.  Joe, an amazing teacher here in Red Deer, has shown me the power of sharing.  His blog “for the love of learning” is where I started reading articles about education reform.  He has truly been my “connector”, and I feel as our friendship has grown deeply.

Next, I have helped Paige McClement (@pjenn86), a teacher in Cochrane, in her teachings of mathematics.  Even though she is a flames fan, I looked past her shortcomings, and still responded to her tweet asking for help.  When I shared a perspective with her, she responded with an alternate perspective on a topic I had blogged about.  I was truly sharing with another teacher whom I have never met face to face.

This brings me to Chris Wejr (@MrWejr), an elementary school principal in British Columbia, who has given me more support than I can ever say thanks for.  During a time of frustration, Chris and I had a conversation, through Twitter, where Chris gave me needed guidance and encouragement to keep “trucking”.  If it wasn’t for his advice, this blog may have been closed down months ago, and I would not be writing this today; Thanks Chris!

As the MCATA (Math council of the Alberta teachers association) co-conference director, I was looking for two keynotes for our upcoming math conference in Edmonton.  While searching I had met Dan Meyer (@ddmeyer) and David Coffey (@delta_dc).  After conversing with them, I have booked them both as our keynotes for the conference.  I cannot express the anticipation and excitement I have to meet with these two amazing educators face to face.  Little do they know, but I might be asking for autographs!

Lastly, my blog on the "Sound of Music" day,  was read to the students of the play by the director.  I was informed that the majority of students started crying with "happy tears".  One comment from a student, to the director, was "I can't believe we have inspired a teacher at our school!".  Also, three other teachers have approached me saying they are also going to try this "Sound of Music" day.

The list could go on and on as I could probably list hundreds of amazing educators I have met online but never face to face.  I would, however, be lying if I said it has all been green grass.  My blogs and tweets have caused multiple people question my intentions, disagree with my statements, ask for clarification on a topic, and even dispute research.  But….I don’t see these as negative occurrences. 

Debate, discussion, argument, and dispute, when done respectfully, should NEVER be discouraged.  Only when these tasks are promoted, can positive improvement occur.  I encourage people to disagree with me, as it is a powerful strategy to see an idea from another perspective. 

Last, if you are reading this and do not tweet or blog I will now ask you a question: “Why don’t you?”

Twitter-like in Calculus

Recently I tried to embrace the idea of using twitter in my calculus class.  I used the website www.polleverywhere.com  this site can create a Twitter-like environment for my students. 

Two essential ideas of calculus are deriving the slope at a specific point of a non-constant function, and determining the limit of a function at a point.  Without boring all my non-math followers, these are ideas which can be explained many different ways and some students have a trouble understanding them as they are quite abstract. 

The task:

My students, in groups of 4, had to come up with the process of determining the slope and a limit at a point.  As I circulated through the class I noticed some groups had a lot of extraneous information on their page.  Trying to promote a concise solution, I loaded up the website and asked my students to take out their cell phones. 

Each group had at least one person who had a cell phone with an unlimited text plan.  Students where then required to text in an answer, for both questions one at a time, using 140 characters or less.  I turned off my projector and gave my students time to think.

In the picture is one snapshot of the answers.

The learning did not stop there.  As a group, we went through the answers and critiqued them, adding any missing information, or taking out non-needed information.  I was amazed at the engagement and learning that occurred.  Students were even “googling” "when can you not find the derivative"; a concept that was going to be introduced later in the week.

Math is no longer "Page 46, the odds" out of a textbook.  If you put emphasis on repetition, in your math class, then I forewarn you that your students were learn to hate the repetitive nature you are asking them to do.  If you don't believe me, and you teach through repetition, I ask some small favour:  Ask your students if they find merit in your daily homework, and if you made the homework truly optional would they still complete it?