Twitter + PLN = Fantastic Ideas

A couple of weeks ago I became twitterized!  Best thing ever.  Using Twitter to create a Professional Learning Network has been such a wonderful, yet overwhelming, experience.  There are so many brilliant web tools and lesson plan ideas that educators all over the world are sharing.  I have actually had a hard time processing all of the information that I have gained.  So I figured the best thing to do was to pick one idea and try it!

As every one knows, Japan experienced a double natural disaster in March.  Thousands of people have died, thousand more are homeless and all of Japan has had their lives turned upside down.  While I was watching my twitter feed I noticed an intriguing tweet about a way for school children to help those in Japan.  Students Rebuild has teamed up with dosomething.org and architecture for humanity, these non profit organizations have pledge money to send to Japan in exchange for Japanese Paper Cranes - origami.  My geography class is studying East Asia, so this was a natural addition to my lessons for the week.  I taught the students the cultural implications of the Japanese Crane and the Art of Origami last Thursday and on Friday we worked to create paper cranes.  My initial goal was to send 50.  But imagine my surprise when a few students arrived Friday with working knowledge of how to create these origami cranes - they had researched it the night before.  As we worked through the day several more students wanted to work on them through the weekend to give to me on Monday.  Overall, I mailed 232 cranes - I definitely exceeded my original goal.  This real world service project struck a chord with my students - they felt empowered to help others - and all because of a tweet that I read that led me to the Paper Cranes for Japan site.

I have truly entered into the world of Twitter - and can't wait to learn more from my powerful PLN.

Open Mind at Work Here!