Tweet? Tweet!

Today, I followed #Edtechchat from 8:00 to 9:00 PM. It was NEW WORLD because I was really connected to the Twitterchat  and talking with other people from different areas as if I am with them. Reading what they mentioned was very helpful. Since it was the first time for me, I sometimes forgot to add #edtechchat when I tweeted. Time was flying. Even though I made some mistake, it was really fun and I really enjoyed it. It was a great opportunity for me to share experience with more experienced teachers. There were several questions about education in teaching and everyone answered. For example, one of the questions was ," How should a school district support professional learning to promote the conversion to a digital classroom?" Many people think different way from me and their creative ideas made me excited. Also some introduced useful websites. Attending a Twitterchat is absolutely useful to teachers because exchanging ideas helps teachers broaden their perspectives, which allows them to be a better teacher. By taking part in Twiitterchat, I can not only stay current but also be an expert!

Do you want to "Explore" ? You are the learner of the Digital Age!

A learner is like a member of an expedition who explore unknown areas. They need three things to explore there. Basically, they need knowledge about what they want to find and where they can find it. Not only that, media literacy is crucial since there are tons of information and new information consistently comes out. The ability to draw distinctions between importatn and unimportant information is vital. (Quote from Connectivism: A Learning Theory For the Digital Age, George Siemens ) In order to find out something they need, they  have

to select necessary information. The other thing is social networks. As the old saying geos that many hands make light work, the more knowldge they get, the more easily their work can be completed. This is what learners in the twenty-first century are doing.

In the past, what I have to learn is physical things such as books and pencils. Since teachers have much more experience than me, I have to listen to them carefully. Learning meant building extensive knowldege and was usually one-way, which indicated little interaction between teachers and students. At the advent of the Internet, technology only supported me in learning. I thought my life will be more convenient. Ironically, my life is getting more complicated. It is technology that makes my life more complex. Since what I learned a few years ago becomes obsolete, I have to try to learn something new from various sources not to get left behind. Also, I have difficulty in deciding something because of thousands of information. That is why the following sentence resonated with me. Decision-making is itself a learing process. (Quote from Connectivism: A Learning Theory For the Digital Age, George Simens ) Not only as a learner but also as a teacher, life is getting challenging. To stay alive, I should know about networking with using technology.

Networking is the learning. What I mean is the way we are connected to other individual is largely responsible for our ability to continue to stay current..... (Quote from The Networking is the Learning) It is fundamental to learn how to network with other people. Their experience can be mine and we can work in a group. As a group, we can share different ideas and get positive feeedback from one another, which makes a larger network. I want to stay current so that I can apply my everything to my teaching. I am willing to be a member of the expedition!

Which one is better, Diigo or Scoop.it?

I am happy to learn about two valuable tools, Diigo and Scoop.it! They can be used not only in my daily ife, but also in my teaching. These two have similarities and differences.

In terms of similarities, both of them allow me to follow others or be followed by others so that I can make a group with other people. They are quite "social" and let me share a lot of information related to the topic. In addition, they have the function of multiple tags, which we can categorize each site according to the topic and helps me find the aricles more easily.

However, they also have different features. Diigo has a fabulous function which is called "highlight". When I want to keep certain paragraphs of documents, I can just highlight them with a different colors and even write notes about them. They can be stored in "My Library". As a teacher, "My Library" is very beneficial for collecting and researching materials. It can definitely help students,too. On the other hand, Scoop,it has another fantastic feature. Most of all, it is visually attractive. It can also allow me to post comments on my site as well as others's sites By doing so, I can actively share information with others. Lastly, Scoop.it provides the function of "suggestions" related to the topic, which is absolutely valuable. 

I really like those two tools and want to continue to use both of them in the future, but if I had to choose one, it would be Diiigo because of "My Library" function. It is easy to use and  I can use it well. Yet, since Scoop.it has  fascinating features, I hope I can have one that has the advantages of both.