Month: March 2019

Twitter is full of bloat

I just had a moment and unfollowed 200+ people on twitter.

This moment came from scrolling through the feed and seeing nothing but posts from two people. I kept scrolling and scrolling and scrolling, and it was nothing but posts from two people. One was live-tweeting comments from American Gods, the other was doing a twitter Q and A on the premiere of their latest TV show.

Twitter is like a cocktail party. At its best, there are multiple conversations that you can dip in and out of. But, I can’t handle one or two voices drowning out all the rest.

So I muted those two (because I both like and respect both those people). Then I went through and unfollowed half of the people on my follow list.

I think part of the problem I have with Social Media is deciding what it is for. Here is what I am thinking so far.

  • Facebook is for Family
  • Instagram is for personal me
  • Twitter is for professional me

So pictures of my son and family comments go to Facebook, because the audience there is mostly family members. My 19 for 2019 list is for Instagram, because that is for me to put stuff that is about just me. Twitter is for my professional development and growth.

This blog? Somewhere between personal me and professional me. I’m still figuring out if it has to be strictly one or the other.

Thoughts on Pear Deck

Pear Deck is a fun way to add interactive questions into a Google Slide.  I can imagine using it when trying to do some formative assessment along the way.  

My two favorite parts?

  1. Picture Annotations:  My favorite part is the ability to broadcast a pictures and then have each student draw on the picture.  You can then see what every student drew. You could even take a picture of some text and have the students annotate the text on screen. (Underline the strong verbs in this paragraph).
  2. Saved Results:  Whenever you have the students do one of these Pear Deck Interactive questions you get a copy of what every student did. You can then have, in a very short amount of time, a copy of every student’s work saved to Google Docs.  

Those two functions are both in the premium version. You start with a free trial to test it out.  At 150 per teacher is it worth it for elementary teachers? I am not sure I can say it is. I do not want my elementary friends focused on making their lectures more interactive, I want them to do less lectures.

If I was a middle / high school teacher who did a lot of lectures would it be worth it?  If I used it with all of my classes once a week, that might work out to 50 cents a class.  Worth it? probably.

In my head I compare it to other premium services. Padlet or Pear Deck?  If I had to pick one, Padlet.

Is it worth playing with for the non-premium version of Pear Deck.  Absolutely!

Next steps for me?  Use it with a teacher PD.