Thursday, March 17, 2011

NOT A PART OF THE "QUEST" .....Coulda -Woulda -Shoulda...Said ...

You know how it is..
You write something, you hit the send button, and then too late, you realize either you could have said it in a more clear manner; you would have said it more succinctly; or maybe should not have even said it or hit the 'send' button at all!
With Twitter, or Tweeting, part of the allure is that it is rapid-fire... -just get the idea out of your head and onto the canvas -or cyberspace. Get the message out there! For "noobs" (Newbies -for those less in tune with the popular culture vernacular) -posting ANYTHING without thinking carefully and rewriting is very scary. The printed word is necessarily a measure of intelligence -preserved forever -for the world to see. Godforbid there be any grammar, punctuation or -horror of horrors... spelling errors! -And for second or third language students... this anxiety is augmented exponentially.
To the rescue... a low risk and fun activity that incorporates some research -a library activity; and use of the computer for image search.
An accompanying activity could be to make a timeline that students use to locate their figure or Tweet (fake) in history. Hurrah... embedded content in the Composition Classroom.... The premise is to write and post fake tweets for an historical figure. It’s pretty simple, enter a fake twitter handle (be creative), their real name (used to pluck the images from somewhere), the tweet they might have said (use #hashtags! @people! bit.ly links!), and the date to put on the tweet. Here is a link to my friend Cogdog -real name Alan Levine -and some examples that he has made... He has mad skilz.. -And here is the link to the website to make the 'fake' tweets: Class Tools

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