Using twitter in and out of the classroom

Tags: Anna Batchelder, blog for teachers, early literacy blog, education blog, teacher resources, technology, Tom Barrett, Twenty-Two Interesting Ways to use Twitter in the Classroom, Twitter, using Twitter in the classroom

At the moment, I am working with Curriki on a number of open education initiatives in the Middle East and abroad. Today a post went live on the Curriki blog that I think many Literacy is Priceless readers will find of interest–a post regarding the use of Twitter in and out of the classroom. To see the original post, click here. I’ve also pasted a copy of the post below.

I would love to hear your thoughts about using Twitter for within the classroom. Feel free to share your comments here or on the Curriki blog!

Anna (@Osakalumna & @Bon_Education)

P.S. Thanks to @moriza for inspiring my recent interest in using Twitter in the classroom!

Using Twitter in and out of the Classroom

Recently there has been a surge of interest around the use of Twitter and other social media tools in the classroom. As this article points out, educators are increasingly experimenting with Twitter as a teaching tool in and out of the classroom to share resources, increase communication and prepare their students with skills for the 21st century workplace.

For Curriki members that have heard of Twitter, but don’t quite know what it is…Wikipedia states:

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers).

As you explore ways to effectively use Twitter for educational purposes, take a look at this presentation by Tom Barrett titled, “Twenty-Two Interesting Ways to use Twitter in the Classroom”. For example:

• Idea #1: Student can use Twitter to gather real world data up-to-date data by posting questions to fellow tweeters about location, historical facts, temperature, etc.
• Idea #3: Students can use Twitter to summarize their opinions or topics they’ve learned in class.
• Idea #10: “Word Morph”. Students can use Twitter to ask peers for synonyms and other word-related information.
• Idea #17: Students can use Twitter to communicate with experts.
  

As you explore the use of Twitter in your classroom, we welcome you to post your lessons and ideas on Curriki. In addition, feel free to follow our tweets here. Curriki uses Twitter to share information about education technology, to highlight resources contributed by the Curriki community and to connect and solicit feedback and ideas. See you on Twitter!