When I think of Twitter, celebrities, sports and reality TV
usually come to mind. However, after taking a look at this week’s resources, I
think Twitter can have a dominant role in the classroom for educational
purposes. In the YouTube video, the Minneapolis high school teacher said “If
you don’t engage the kids you may as well be talking to a wall” and I couldn't
agree more. Today there is so much going on around us and people feeling the
need to always check their smart phones and be engaged with it, it’s important
to hold the attention spans of students. So using a social media site like
Twitter can be that little something extra to make them want to participate and
learn.
Q: How could you use Twitter in the classroom?
A: From the list of “35 Interesting Ways to use Twitter in
the Classroom,” the idea of summarizing topics/views as tweets was a great idea
and using historicaltweets.com see what a historical figure could have said to summarize
their idea in 140 characters. The idea of tweeting shared stories was
interesting as well by having students take turns write 140 characters to
create a story. It’s a fun update to the shared story writing experience.
Q: Is it possible to incorporate Twitter in an elementary
classroom setting?
A: I think using Twitter may be difficult to use with
younger students, but it would be a great way to keep parents updated on what
is going on in their child’s class and daily activities. Perhaps in 4th
or 5th grade students could handle using Twitter, but who knows
children are getting more and more tech savvy every day. If they can use an
iPad as a toddler, they can probably figure out social media by elementary
school.
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