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Okay. . . so lets dream of a world where we could trust our students to bring their cell phones,iPads,or iPods to class to use only for tweeting about science. I really like the idea of using Twitter to keep students engaged. In the last year I have been apart of a team called "TLT" or Teachers Learning Together. Our main focus has been getting and keeping the students engaged in class. In a perfect world I would use Twitter. This could work on so many levels.
1. Most would be motivated by the use of this "hip/trendy" use of technology in class.
2. I could get students to summarize their learning in snippets of 140 characters or less, therefore, getting my students to get down to the most important ideas.
3. Its a great way to brainstorm together with all the ideas posting to the board as the students come up with them.
4. It could be used as a great tool to review with by having students post their own questions and their classmates answering each others' questions.
5. Oh, and I did I mention the motivation factor here! Huge!
Man, I want a Twitter account now! Maybe I can figure out how to get this started and then take it back to my TLT group next school year.
Here's a link to a blog entry by Chris O'Neal about using Twitter in the classroom. It's a few years old but gives "rookies," like myself, good tips about getting started with and using Twitter in the classroom.
Tweet Spot: Web 2.0 Educators are ATwitter about Twitter
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Works Cited
O'Neal, C. Tweet Spot: Web 2.0 Educators Are ATwitter About Twitter. Edutopia. Retrieved July 9, 2011 from http://www.edutopia.org/twitter-social-networking-tool
I know at my school twitter is blocked, an alternative that you may want to look into is edmodo. It is a classroom version of twitter. I have to admit that you are losing a bit of the "cool" factor with it and also access to outside tweets, but if your district is anything like mine, good luck getting to any type of social media.
ReplyDeleteOr ask the kids, they always seem to know how to get around the filters! :)
I think this would be a neat way to engage students. I think the hard part is convincing administration that kids now days want to do things electronically. I ofter hear that students don't have the resources. I think that in general kids do have access to the resources needed. Kids don't want to sit with a text book and pad of paper anymore. They would rather be utilizing social media. AND I love the comment that they could answer their classmates questions. That's great.
ReplyDelete