Twitter in the Classroom
Twitter can be a great way to keep students engaged and
motivated to learn. This social
networking site makes it very easy to communicate with others, organize class
materials and information, find different resources to use on assignments,
practice writing skills and many more!
The following is a list of specific ways Twitter can be used in your
classroom:
- Post a response to a discussion question
- Post due dates for assignments/quizzes/tests
- Have students collaborate with one another about assignments
- Search for hash tags about a specific topic
- Follow information/people related to class
- Post questions
- Share notes
- Connect with other classrooms
- Involve parents and the community
- Post a summary
- Provide instant feedback
The following is an example assignment that I created for my
Health Education class:
Discussion
Prompt: This discussion will
include a total of three responses that will be completed on Twitter. The first response should be posted by
(enter specific date here) at 10 pm, the second response by (enter specific
date here) at 10 pm, and the final response by (enter specific date here) at 10
pm. When posting the first
response use the following hash tag #initialreponse; for the second posting use
hash tag #secondresponse, and for the last response use hash tag
#finalresponse. Be sure to include
the class hash tag for each response as well, #TAOD.
#TAOD,
#initialresponse: What is a
drug? Name some ways that drugs
can be beneficial for you and some ways that they can be harmful to you. Name three drugs that can be beneficial
for you and three drugs that are harmful to you and explain your selections.
#TAOD,
#secondresponse: What are some
reasons that people take drugs?
What would you do and how would you response if someone asks you if you
wanted to try a drug that you knew was bad for you?
#TAOD,
#finalresponse: Read and respond
to at least one other person’s second response. What advice would you give to them on how they responded to
using a drug that they knew was bad for them? Where/who can you suggest how to get help in this situation?
To view this assignment on my Twitter click here
These are all great ideas for how to use Twitter for education. My students are constantly on Twitter for social purposes, so I'm thinking about incorporating it into my class this year. In particular, I'm thinking about using it as a way for students to post homework questions so that the whole class can participate. Students can respond to their classmates' questions or could see my responses as well. It's also easy to include images or link to other sites within tweets, so that would allow you to use other tools at the same time.
ReplyDeleteUgh, I'm probably the only person in the world who has not used Twitter yet.
ReplyDeleteIn a similar vein to what Kirsten said, I can imagine having a class discussion with my Calculus class (because the class is small and there is never enough time to cover all the material) about homework questions on a snow day, so that the students can at least learn something on a day when schools are closed.