Journal Four: Join the Flock and Enhance your Tweeter Experience.

Ferguson and Miller, H. S. (2010). Join the flock, enhance you tweeter experience. Learning and Leading with Technology, 13--15. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/issues/Join_the_Flock.aspx


 SUMMARY
The article by Ferguson Join the Flock talked about his experience of starting from scratch.  He did not even know what PLN stands for.  He took his time building a community of users using tweeter.  First he set up an account that included his picture and his biography.  These made the website more presentable and real to all his community of users.  Second, he learned how to follow someone on tweeter.  You got to be interested in what the others are discussing otherwise the discussion is meaningless.  Users follow a topic  Also, he encouraged teachers to build their PLN (Personal Learning Network).
Enhancing your Tweeter Experience by Shannon Miller talked about how tweeter helped connect with teachers from New Zealand and Hawaii.  These experiences has helped her realize how valuable technology is (tweeter) in connecting and collaborating with others around the world.  One of the things she did was to first, use tweeter organizer to manage what she wants to know.  Second, she created discussions using hashtags, and allow her to follow others who are looking for the same thing.

REFLECTION
What these two individuals talked about shows how far reaching the power within our reach to connect and collaborate with others around the world who are looking/following the same information.  The sky's the limit as to what we can do to utilize the power of the internet, and in this case tweeter, to find information.  I was involved in a discussion that went on on tweeter and it was amazing how it works and how fast it moves.  I also liked it because you can only put in 140 characters and it moves really fast.  Yes, there is no denying.  Tweeter is in and we need to get used to it for educational purposes. 

Questions: how can one make the experience real?  Answer: by posting a picture and a bibliography so the users know they are dealing with a legit user and not a fake person.

Question: what advantage(s) does tweeter have over having to borrow books from the library?  Answer: tweeter helps you connect, collaborate, and share with people around the world in real time.  You don't have to wait and, check-in or check-out books to get things going.  You can get a wealth of information right away with the internet.