Ethan Zuckerman raises some extremely important concerns in the video, Ethan Zuckerman: Listening to Global Voices. He first shows the vulnerability of people who use social network websites such as Twitter. Although we believe that we are globally connected, our social network is comprised of people that we choose to have contact with. Therefore, our sources of information may only consist of people just like us, which limits our global contact.
Zuckerman also presents some very interesting visuals such as a map of flights around the country that show how much more limited the contact is between the continents of Africa and South America compared to that of the United States and Europe.
This video really would be great to show my students because I don't think that they realize how limited the information is that they receive, and they often forget about important issues that occur internationally. Zuckerman's cause is a very important one, and I hope that changes can be made to help create a more global representation of world issues.
Twitter is a great resource that can be used for professional development. Some great websites with reasons for using Twitter were created by Laura Walker or Richard Byrne. Be sure to check them out!
As educators, we spend the majority of our time working with students, and we don't have that much time to collaborate with our colleagues. Using Twitter is a great way to collaborate with other teachers for new ideas or suggestions on how to better our teaching of a particular topic. Twitter also gives us the opportunity to communicate with people from different areas of the world, so we have plenty of different resources.
Because each Twitter page is unique, teachers can use their pages as a journal to reflect on their teaching. For example, if I felt my lesson went really well, I could tweet about it so that other people following my Twitter page could find new ideas that might work for them. On the contrary, if I was having trouble with classroom management, I am sure their would be many other experienced educators that could offer me some great advice. For these reasons, Twitter is a great resource for teachers!
