Why use Micro-Blogging for Faculty Development?

The most common uses of the Internet are to collect or receive data or information (Solomon & Schrum, 2014). Along with this common utilization it would only make sense to utilize this tool for the sake of educational purposes. Predated arguments that were critical of the Internet’s use for education have since been superseded and proven against using validated and evidence-based methodologies that are currently considered best practices and prompt learners to construct their own knowledge (Uzunboylu, Bicen, & Cavus, 2011). New tools also lend to providing the learner with the capability of creating content within courses or blogs along with their peers. There is a growing abundance on online educational tools for teachers and learners to profit from. The tool that we have chosen to educate others effectively and provide learner response and collaboration is the Blog. The blog is a dynamic way for people to collaborate and converse over topics, questions and problems. Since the advent of Twitter and social media platforms which were built to share and promote attention to external sources, blogs have become popular ways of both disseminating knowledge and recruiting knowledge as well. The combination of Twitter and Blogging have been coined micro-blogging and have proved to be fruitful in their application and spawning higher-level metacognitive thinking for learners in higher education (Gomez-Sanz, Ortego & Pavón, 2016).

References

Gomez-Sanz, J. J., Ortego, Á., & Pavón, J. (2016). BoloTweet: A Micro-Blogging System for Education. In Methodologies and Intelligent Systems for Technology Enhanced Learning, 6th International Conference (pp. 53-60). Springer International Publishing.

Solomon, G., & Schrum, L. (2014). Web 2.0 how-to for educators. International Society for Technology in Education.

Uzunboylu, H., Bicen, H., & Cavus, N. (2011). The efficient virtual learning environment: A case study of web 2.0 tools and Windows live spaces. Computers & Education, 56(3), 720-726.