Wordle and Twitter

During this week, we learned about Wordle and Twitter, which were Web 2.0 tools totally new to me. Before this week, I didn’t know anything about these tools, except that Twitter exists. Because I heard many people talking about Twitter, I always said that I was going to sign in and join Twitter “world.” However, for one reason or another, I never did. In this way, at the beginning, just after we were taught in our class how to use these tools, I couldn’t think in a use for these Web 2.0 tools in the math classroom. Nevertheless, after trying them for a while, I came out with some ideas. I think Wordle would be useful in my math classroom in helping students get familiar with important math words or vocabulary. For example, I could provide my students with a list of the vocabulary they need to know or be familiar with for a certain lesson or unit and ask them to play around with these words in Wordle. To make this activity more effective, I could repeat the words in the list according to the importance of each word for the lesson or unit at hand. Learning mathematics without the appropriate math vocabulary is sometimes extremely difficult. Therefore, I strongly believe this activity would be an effective and fun way to help students get familiar with the vocabulary they need for each lesson or unit. Now, outside the classroom, I think Twitter would be a very helpful tool to keep students updated on class announcements, homework, and websites, which the teacher considers helpful and appropriate to use for a specific assignment, unit, or the entire course.