I scavenge Twitter for many ideas and resources to help me with teaching. I often come across things that I think are pretty cool or could be useful to teachers that are not me. I often send these links and ideas on to colleagues in the building. I am sure they get sick of this, so I try to limit it, but I do send out ideas quite a bit.
Yesterday I sent out back to back emails to elementary teachers. The first tweet quickly explained that I found this resources on twitter and that elementary math teachers might find it useful. I forgot that I had come across another idea aimed at elementary teachers. I think it was an app for practicing basic skills that looked pretty fun. (I think it was Math Slicer) The subject line of this email was "i spend too much time on twitter." Trying to poke fun at myself for sending back to back emails to the elementary about ideas that I found on twitter.
After sending this email out I got a response back from 1 teacher, asking about some drama going on in the Twitter world involving our students. She asked me what I knew about the drama. My response to her was that I try to "avoid the dark side of twitter" and I knew nothing.
The use of the phrase "Dark side" got me thinking. Star Wars often talks about the Dark and Light side of "The Force." Twitter can be viewed in a similar way.
It is the Jedi's choices that put them on the dark or light side of the force, the same is true for twitter users.
Twitter connects the world just like the Force flows through and connects all of us.
A Jedi's light saber color symbolizes a lot about the Jedi themselves, much like the twitter user's profile pictures and cover picture.
A Jedi can move objects using the force with just their mind. My autocorrect is almost that good as I type things on my phone.
So all these similarities inspired me to seek out advice from the wise master Yoda. He gives great advice throughout the Star Wars films and surprisingly a lot of it can be applied to use of Twitter. So I made the graphic below to remind myself, and my students of choices, consequences, and digital citizenship.
Chris
I like the Yoda poster. Interestingly, I'm a fan of L.E. Modesitt, Jr. His Recluce saga flips the colors--white is chaos and destruction while black is order and healing.
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