When I first signed on to Twitter in 2009, I thought to myself I’d utilize it in my classroom as a communication technique. But, my brother-in-law Brian, the tech-savvy poetry editor of “the rumpus” advised against it, telling me it’s too difficult to dig through for something that would be important for a student. After ‘surfing’ through Twitter for a few days, I realized he was right. If you’re following 10-20 posters, the volume of tweets gets overwhelming. So I decided Brian was right, and just used it for social commentary amongst friends and family (which has proven to be quite fun in its own right).
Now, Im enrolled in “edtech 537 Blogging in the Classroom”, and we needed to tweet as an ongoing class activity (I opened a different Twitter account for this), and I’ve found myself desiring to implement Twitter in the classroom yet again. But now I have some experience under my belt, as I’ve done it in this class! And I want more. So I found a website (teachhub.com) with a list of 50 ways to use Twitter in the classroom. My 5 favorites:
#2 Provide the class with a running newsfeed- I’d love for my stats classes to be following Nate Silver’s fivethirtyeight.com and using some of what they do for discussions and possibly reenactments of their projects.
#10 Live tweet field trips- or maybe our projects as we do them. I do a lot of “hands-on” activities to engage statistics. Live tweeting them might be entertaining.
#15 Sync with blog- I like this a lot. We needed to do it for the course, and I found it a great way to jump to someone’s blog quickly when there was something that interested me.
#35 Teach probability- Or just use the Twitter handle for statistics that we gather in some fashion.
#36 Go on a scavenger hunt- This sounds cool, something that students are tied to through Twitter while they’re searching? I often have geometric hunts for my geometry classes, could definitely see an application here.
Lots of other good ideas on the list. Any tickle your fancy as an educator?
These are some great ideas to use Twitter in the classroom – especially with older students. Twitter for me at this juncture is for professional use as preschoolers do not have Twitter accounts. Although at this rate, they may use them just as well!
Ha! My 4-year-old has shown me a thing or two about my iPad. They (pre-schoolers) are amazingly adept at using these things, although my daughter tweeted a few scores of games she was playing, not really realizing what she was doing. So, pre-schoolers may have a bit to go before they’re tweeting. Thanks, Kelsey!
Thanks for sharing! I need more ideas for Twitter as I am knew. I, too, planned on using it as a communication tool, but you have opened my eyes!
Very cool, I was just at Teachhub.com for another reason. These are great ideas. I love the scavenger hunt idea! Have students hunting for math items would be very entertaining!! What ever you decide to do with Twitter, keep it simple at first. I think we are all more likely to start a new procedure in our classrooms if it stays simple at first. This way it is not overwhelming on top of everything else we still need to get done. Thanks!! – Angie
Thanks for the advice, Angie. Good luck with everything this year!