Sunday, May 12, 2013
Twitter Use in the Classroom- Week Two readings/video
I LOVE using Twitter with my students! I don't have a personal account, and at first, was kind of anti-Twitter, but it has been such an awesome way to connect with my students! I created my account in the beginning of the year and put a link on my website, my syllabus and had it written on my board. After a few weeks, I had almost 1/2 of my students "following" me on Twitter! Because this is my teacher Twitter, I do NOT follow them back after they follow me. That is risky because their tweets will show up in your feed which makes you responsible for reporting anything "bad", so you want to stay away from that! Anyways, I will tweet out reminders about studying for assessments, remembering to bring materials, "good luck" to sports/band/choir, links to awesome Spanish sites, ask questions in Spanish that they can respond to, etc.. I have found that it is not only fun, but it really does link me and my students together in a new way! I love to find funny memes in Spanish and tweet them to my students. It is another way I can get the content and the language to them, especially because they are ALWAYS on Twitter! Because I have been using Twitter all year, the video and EDUcause article were kind of "old news" for me, but still a good reminder of all that Twitter can be used for!
I challenge you to create an account and see if your students will "follow" you. I have found that too much tweeting annoys them, but they still like to get tweets from us :)
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That's awesome that you use Twitter in your classroom (and yes, it's important to know that you shouldn't follow them back!). It allows students to use their 21st century skills and engage in learning through social media. Plus, it's appealing to students and their currents interests. I WISH I could use Twitter in the classroom. However, we're not permitted to use social media on school computers. Students can access it on BYOT (bring your own technology), but not everyone has a smart phone. Therefore, I have to stay away from that. Hopefully we'll be able to access social media on school computers soon!
ReplyDeleteLove that you posted about Twitter. This is my second year using Twitter in my classroom (@NHSMrK). All the things you mentioned are great ways to use Twitter. Kids love the reminders, and encouraging tweets I send out, but they also get to see a little bit of our personal side as well. They like to know we're regular human beings. So posting a funny picture, or re-tweeting something you saw can really make their day. Next year my plan is to get more serious using hashtags. I want my students to be working collaboratively using different hashtags to organize their conversations. This will extend the learning beyond the walls of the classroom. At the same time I feel Jessica's concern about students who don't have access to the technology. I hope we are about to see a shift in thinking, as schools begin to realize we need to harness the good things that can happen from social media, instead of only focusing on the bad.
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