7 Ways Teachers Use Social Media in the Classroom

I found the article by Jess Fee interesting regarding teaching and social media. you can read the full content from the link below.
http://mashable.com/2013/08/18/social-media-teachers/


Have a good day.

Dean Shareski's Presentation.

I was so interested from the whole context of Dean Shareski's presentation. From his explanation form how teaching and learning different in 2013 to the levels of engagement from setting class goals to using technology in class. In my today's blog I want to say something from his presentation regarding setting class goals.


I always think as a new teacher I will have a very had time setting class goals for my students based on their interest at the beginning of the school year because all of my students don't have the same reasons why they chose to attend high school. For me this is not about  planning for the year of preparing lesson plans, rather I will be worried what skills my students will get at the end of the school year, I will be worried I may spend too much time on things which have nothing to do with the skills my students need in the real world, am I  going to have enough time to teach students critical thinking or problem solving skills? am I going to asses my students based on the goal I set at the beginning of the year or am I going to use the traditional assessment tool to asses every student as if they are all going to college.


Finally, we should all try to set class goal based on what skills we think  our students should acquire by the end of the school year. As Dean Shareski said on his presentation though, the basis of our class goals must include 1) Learning is social and connected   2) Learning is personal and self-directed     3) Learning is rich in content and diversity and 4) learning out to be fun!!!!!!


Have a blessed day!!!

My First Blog

For the past weeks I was in a constant struggle with myself how/where to start writing on my blog. I was so worried that my blog might not be good enough to others or the content might not make sense to others and so on.
One other reasons to my struggle on blogging my thoughts was my experiences when I was in my home country. In my home country people could be mocked, bullied, harassed, detained or even killed for what they wrote or said. We were taught not to disagree or have different opinion against any the establishment.


I have cousin a prominent journalist in Ethiopia. He was sent to prison for 15 years for writing his opinion on a newspaper. Almost 10 years ago I'm also detained with a group of students for going public regarding basic human rights in the country. Because of constant harassment and intimidation I had to flee Ethiopian and lived in Kenya as a refugee for 5 years.


Living in wild, desert  refugee camp  was a different challenge and life experience to me. My main aim in the refugee camp was to stay alive because there was no enough food, no enough water, the locals are nomadic people who used to come to  the camp and killed refugees to steal our little food.


One of my fondest time in the refugee camp was when I was hired to teach math/ science to refugee children. For the last 3 years in the camp I taught hundreds of children in the camp and I had witnessed how education change people life, way of thinking and build a nation.


Sharing a little bit of my experience in this blog is not about to get sympathy for I went through in Africa  rather to share how dangerous can be blogging your opinion in some parts of the world and why I was struggled to start blogging in this site for the past few weeks.


I will promise you that my second blog won't be about my boring life experience.


Have a great day!!!!!