{"id":2138,"date":"2014-10-15T11:37:15","date_gmt":"2014-10-15T15:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/?p=2138"},"modified":"2022-04-13T09:37:59","modified_gmt":"2022-04-13T13:37:59","slug":"making-the-most-of-twitter-in-your-classroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tiie.w3.uvm.edu\/blog\/making-the-most-of-twitter-in-your-classroom\/","title":{"rendered":"Making the most of twitter in your classroom"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"making<\/a>Twitter’s not just a great way to build your PLN as an educator<\/a>, it’s also a powerful tool to connect students with the world around them in very unique ways. But how can you make those connections authentic learning experiences?<\/p>\n

Let’s look at making the most of twitter in your classroom.<\/p>\n

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1.\u00a0Connect your students with the larger learning community<\/h3>\n

One of the most powerful aspects of twitter for students is that it’s currently a very visible and dominant platform in social media. According to the Associated Press,\u00a026% of teens<\/a>\u00a0use twitter in their out-of-school lives, which gives it an authenticity that can be tapped into to create powerful learning experiences. Williston Central School math educator Jared Bailey<\/a>‘s class maintains a twitter account, @SterlingHouseVT<\/a>, through which they not only share the math problems they’re working on, but participate in the #mathchat<\/a> twitter chat.<\/p>\n

You can also use twitter to connect your students with experts who can help round out knowledge related to assignments. Ryan Becker, a science educator at Woodstock Union Middle School (and who we profiled earlier in The Great Twitter Science Teacher Hunt) brought one of his students’ physics questions to twitter and got additional information (with examples!) from science educator and graduate research fellow Mark Olofson:<\/p>\n

\"making<\/a><\/p>\n

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2. Connect your classroom with other classrooms<\/h3>\n

Teachers in Chicago Public Schools use\u00a0twitter between multiple classrooms for twitter Tuesdays<\/a>, where each\u00a0school\u00a0enters into a conversation about appropriate twitter use, with teachers and students alike hopping online and tackling a prompt together. The first twitter Tuesday topic was “What do you like about being a student here?”<\/a> and other twitter chats have involved the 1st and 8th grade classes tweeting back and forth about the progress of their respective hermit crab experiments.<\/p>\n

At Edmunds Middle School, the @NiaLearns<\/a> twitter account faithfully chronicles the adventures of educator Laura Botte’s 6th grade class, while across the hall, Botte’s teaching partner chronicles the other class of 6th graders at @JourneyLearns<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"making<\/a><\/p>\n

Tweets sharing classroom activities, field trips and reflections\u00a0provides students with a glimpse “across the hall” as well as sharing out their adventures with families and the community.<\/p>\n

Incidentally, we curate a list of Vermont schools and classrooms on twitter, in case you’d like to get your students digitally connected with their peers.<\/p>\n

Tweets from https:\/\/twitter.com\/innovativeEd\/lists\/vt-schools-and-classrooms<\/a>
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