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Social Media in the classroom approval - Before school year begins (Summer)

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Social Media in the classroom approval - Before school year begins (Summer)

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Bring the idea of using social media within the classroom to administrators and superintendent and ask for approval. Share a draft of the social media consent letter with them and check for what permissions or actions would need to be taken next before moving forward.

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Students will use Twitter to utilize social media within the classroom

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Students will learn how to interact with others appropriately online using hashtags and Twitter threads. Students will learn how to ask questions and respond to others online using Tweets as a means of communication. Students will begin with a hashtag specific to our classroom (ex. #D33Rodriguez) and then move to more general hashtags reflecting what we are studying in class (ex. #RevolutionaryWar). This will provide them the opportunity to collaborate and communicate with others outside of the classroom on the topics that we have been studying.

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Students can introduce themselves to the class using Twitter and the class hashtag (#D33Rodriguez). They can then take turns using Twitter for a Q & A session to practice how to tweet and respond to tweets from their peers. It is a great way for students to all have the opportunity to navigate the website, have their voice heard through a digital format, and get to know each other.

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A thread can be created for students to provide feedback, questions, comments, and more related to their classroom. This will be a running list of what students are thinking throughout the year and questions that they have. Responses can also be given on the Twitter thread for all students to access and view the responses.

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Have students Tweet a summary about what they are currently reading for homework or as a personal read. It gives students the chance to summarize their story with a limited amount of characters, forcing them to condense their answers and writing only the most important information.

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Many critics of Twitter believe that the 140-character microblog offered by the ubiquitous social network can do little for the education industry. They are wrong.

K-12 teachers have taken advantage of Twitter's format to keep their classes engaged and up-to-date on the latest technologies. The following projects provide you and your students with 50 ways to Twitter in the classroom to create important and lasting lessons.

1. Tweet about upcoming due dates or assignments.

One of the simplest ways that teachers can use Twitter in the classroom involves setting up a feed dedicated exclusively to due dates, tests or quizzes.

2. Provide the class with a running news feed.

Subscribe to different mainstream and independent news feeds with different biases as a way to compare and contrast how different perspectives interpret current events and issues.

3. Use Twitter in the classroom to create a career list.

Set up an interesting assignment requesting that students set up Twitter for education lists following feeds relevant to their career goals and keep a daily journal on any trends that crop up along the way.

4. Track memes.

As inane as Justin Bieber's popularity is, at least an educational opportunity lurks around the corner. Instructors concerned with communication and sociology issues can easily find a number of different lessons on ideas engaging Twitter for teachers and fads spread throughout different media sources.

5. Coordinate assignments.

Rather than keeping up with an e-mail train, students can use Twitter to collaborate on different projects and keep a quick reference on any changes.

6. Track a hash tag.

More ambitious educators may want to incorporate Twitter in lessons that track hash tags for another interesting lesson in how trends spread and the various ways in which people use social media to communicate ideas.

7. Connect with the community.

Partner up with local government or charitable organizations and use education Twitter to reach a broad audience discussing the latest cultural or educational events in the area and encourage others in the community to attend.

8. Follow the issues.

Bring a little technology into debates by asking the class which issues they would like to follow. Subscribe to relevant hash tags and accounts from all perspectives and compile an updated resource cobbling together as much research as possible.

9. Write a story or poem.

Many writers and poets have experimented with Twitter's 140-character format to bring new, serialized works in small chunks to attention-divided audiences. Some educators may like the idea of asking their students to apply their creative writing skills to a restrictive social media outlet.

10. Live tweet field trips.

Sick kids or paranoid parents may like the idea of following along with class field trips on Twitter, and smart phone-enabled teachers can keep them engaged with pictures and descriptions of the lessons learned.

11. Ask questions.

Monica Rankin at University of Texas-Dallas uses Twitter as a way for her students to keep a running stream of questions going during lectures - an application that works in any computer-enabled K-12 classroom.

12. Set up a foreign language news stream.

Keep foreign language students informed of current events from relevant nations while simultaneously challenging them to use their translation skills by keeping a specific news feed.

13. Role play.

Computer-savvy teachers can keep history lessons engaging for children by asking them to tweet ideas and quotes from their favorite figures. Alternately, they can also pretend to be famous fictional characters as well.

14. Take and share notes.

Classrooms with enough resources can allow students to tweet their own notes during lessons and share with their peers - perhaps even printing them out for home use if they do not have internet access.

15. Sync with a blog.

Wordpress and other free blogging websites sync with Twitter, posting notices of new entries. Educators who require students to keep their own blogs may want to follow updates using Twitter rather than having to click through bookmarks for each one.

16. Chat with industry professionals.

Older high school students who need to explore their career options before spiriting away to college benefit from real-world discussions with professionals in paths they're considering. Twitter helps them connect with primary sources and facilitates educational communication.

17. Connect classrooms.

Teachers and students from around the world can collaborate on projects using Twitter as a communication tool that simultaneously educates students in different classroom and cultural protocols.

18. Facilitate research.

Typing keywords into Twitter's search engine wields every microblog entry on the subject, providing an excellent way for students to research ideas, opinions and movements as they happen.

19. Engage parents.

Parents of K-12 students interested in daily classroom activities can follow teacher tweets discussing some of the lessons learned and any progress on projects with one quick and handy trip to a dedicated Twitter feed.

20. Become politically active.

Any teachers responsible for educating kids in politics or government may like the idea of encouraging their students to use Twitter as a forum to make society aware of issues that affect them by retweeting relevant events, news stories, blog posts and other media revolving around a chosen theme.

21. Track the government.

Numerous local and national government organizations maintain their own Twitter feeds, and educators working within any of their related subjects may like the idea of compiling them all into 1 convenient space for a quick reference.

22. Write reviews.

Any media studies classes - including literature - can use the Twitter format to write microreviews of the different movies, books and music devoured.

23. Post sample questions.

Save paper by using Twitter to post up sample questions for upcoming exams for students to research and consider without ever having to put down their computers.

24. Post supplementary materials.

Retweet articles, news stories, opinions and other interesting tidbits relevant to a specific class as an excellent, convenient supplement to classroom lectures.

25. Facilitate discussions.

Take supplementary material postings one step further by requiring students to post their own succinct responses to the main theses and open up intelligent discussions with one another.

26. Play the stock market game.

High school economics teachers frequently use stock market games as a real-world project involving the fundamentals of investing. Students can use Twitter to follow the businesses, markets and analysts that help them make wise choices with their (fake) money.

27. Live tweet a book or a movie.

Ask students to use the microblog format to record their initial reactions and responses to movies and books as they indulge in them for class. It certainly makes for an excellent lesson in how perceptions change over time as more information and perspectives become available.

28. Make recommendations.

Benefitting both students and their parents, teachers may like the idea of using Twitter to discuss films and documentaries or books to check out at home - preferably as a family. Doing so especially benefits younger students, as they typically perform better in high school and college if their parents are involved in their lives and educations.

29. Plan field trips.

Encourage parental engagement by asking them to voice their opinions on where to go and where to avoid when it comes to planning field trips. While it is impossible to please everyone, moms and dads will appreciate the transparency and ability to

connect more with what their children are doing and learning in school.

30. Design a background.

Art teachers curious about how Twitter can benefit their classes may like the idea of asking students to design their own creative backgrounds for friends and family - either digitally or using traditional media scanned into a computer

31. Compare religions.

Because so many religious figures and institutions use Twitter to discuss their beliefs and teachings, it stands as an awesome resource for liberal arts educators to compare and contrast the various faiths that have shaped humanity since its inception.

32. Post syllabus changes.

E-mail inboxes often filter out important messages as junk and students lose papers or miss class for various reasons, meaning that some of them may miss out on important announcements regarding any changes to the syllabus. Twitter keeps a permanent record of any new bits of information so nobody has any excuse for missing out.

33. Take a poll.

Teachers who enjoy polling their students on what activities to do or their opinions on current events may want to keep a running tab of results they find when working in conjunction with SurveyMonkey or another similar site.

34. Hook up with Google Earth.

Numerous educators have found creative ways to blend Twitter and Google Earth together for human and physical geography lessons where they use the former's "location" feature to learn all about new places on the globe.

35. Teach probability.

One immensely creative teacher discovered a way to introduce his students to the basics of probability by asking a broad question and charting the answers he received through @ replies.

36. Go on a scavenger hunt.

Narrow the old, reliable internet scavenger hunt to cover only Twitter, varying the degree of difficulty depending on the age range of the students. Much older kids may appreciate the added challenge of deciphering riddles that pull from their lessons.

37. Get a little bit postmodern.

Another way English teachers can stimulate their students with Twitter involves having them compile and edit coherent stories based on pre-existing tweets by other people.

38. Channel that inner Lois Lane.

Send journalism students out into the world of microblogging and assign them to poll fellow students or ask questions of experts for use in assignments on trends, opinions and current events and research.

39. Track weather patterns.

Set up a class Twitter feed that discusses the weather in different areas, charting the findings on Google Maps or Google Earth and making note of the patterns that crop up along the way.

40. Create a character.

Creative writing or English students of all ages can participate in making up a story character of their very own, with each individual contributing a sentence or 2 towards a personality or back story. Teachers can then ask them to write their own stories based on this collectively created literary figure.

41. Create a progressive poem.

Similar to the collaborative character mentioned above, students can also compile their own poetry where everyone contributes one line that flows with the one written before.

42. Play word games.

Post a daily challenge asking kids to unscramble anagrams, contribute synonyms or antonyms or give a definition for any vocabulary or spelling words as another way of getting them more involved in their language lessons.

43. Post math puzzles.

Math, chemistry or physics teachers need not feel left out from playing games and posting teasers on Twitter. Like their literate contemporaries, they can microblog a daily problem for students to solve and tweet back the answer.

44. Post videos.

Educators with access to digital video cameras may like the idea of using Twiddeo to post in-class skits, walkthroughs of field trips, clips of their travel exploits and anything else relevant to their students' lessons.

45. Create an online art gallery.

Kids studying art and the humanities can curate their own shows based around creators, movements, regions, time periods or thematic elements that they enjoy, using Twitter as a way to show the world what they think belongs in a specific exhibit.

46. Play with TweetStats.

TweetStats allows users to input a specific account name and look at a bar graph of the microblog's activity. Students can search for tweeps in their school or town and gather data on how and when their neighbors use Twitter.

47. Network with other educators.

Beyond using it for lessons, teachers who Twitter have at their disposal a vast network of like-minded professionals with whom they can trade ideas and insights regarding social networking in the classroom and other topics.

48. Direct message students and parents.

Because e-mail filtering frequently ships important messages off to the trash can, some educators may prefer talking privately with kids and their parents via the direct message feature on Twitter instead.

49. Join #educhat

One of the best ways to connect with other teachers and keep up with the latest trends and philosophies regarding education by subscribing to the #educhat hash tag and participating in the community.

50. Summarize.

At the conclusion of each lecture, ask students to type a 140-character or less summary of what they have learned and perhaps pose any questions to be considered in the next class.

Using Twitter in the classroom is limited only by an educator's imagination. Though many believe its limitations prevent valuable applications to an academic setting, teachers in the know have learned that using Twitter in education can establish a nurturing classroom for students of all ages.
Do you know how to use twitter in the classroom? Share in the comments section!
Article republished with permission from author. See original article at Samantha Miller's blog.

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Many critics of Twitter believe that the 140-character microblog offered by the ubiquitous social network can do little for the education industry . They are wrong. K-12 teachers have taken advantage of Twitter 's format to keep their classes engaged and up-to-date on the latest technologies.

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Spread the loveTwitter was created as a social media tool, but it has uses outside the social world. Teachers are using twitter in the classroom to improve instruction, connect their students with the world, and keep in touch. In this article, we will list 10 ways that you can use Twitter in the classroom.

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Many regard Twitter as quite a useless social media sharing portal. Some have this negative opinion, mainly because of the fact Twitter allows you to "tweet" or post only 140 characters in length. This length equals the text of a regular SMS, and for some this is simply not enough. However, Twitter proves to be an extremely helpful little educational tool. By using Twitter in education, you can post only a few short sentences, but that is exactly enough to transmit the essence of your message.

Leading such busy lives, people do not have the time or the mood to read long walls of text. They prefer to capture only the essence, and using Twitter in education helps you with that. This social media portal is widely used among the academia all across the world. Students, journalists, actors, politicians, important leaders, and sports people... they all use Twitter. So how can such a tool really prove helpful in the educational field?

1. Tweet homework and assignments.

Both teachers and students can easily and quickly tweet details of homework and assignments using Twitter in education. You can also include links to important online sources/pages, and don't forget to mention the due dates in your tweet. This way, everyone with an account will receive a notification, and they can share, forward or respond to the tweet.

2. Get important educational resources.

Many times teachers are simply out of ideas regarding interactive and creative methods of teaching. Now, by searching for " Twitter for Teachers" resources, you can get instant access to hundreds of important links. Get insightful ideas from other teachers around the world, follow the good examples or share your own efficient teaching methods. Twitter is a good tool for professional development.

3. Student collaboration.

The email seems to become an old fashioned tool for collaboration. Now teachers can motivate students to use Twitter in order to work on collaborative assignments. This way, you can also intervene at any point by giving a good advice, sharing an interesting link with your students, or helping them with important resources for research.

4. Announcing field trips.

Students love surprises. Therefore, write a creative 140 characters long description of the great field trip you will all take together... if the classroom results are good for everyone. Within minutes, you will see dozens of messages congratulating you for the idea. Plus, by advertising the field trip through Twitter, everyone will get a real time notification.

5. Subscribe to relevant hashtags.

Discuss with students in the classroom what issues they would like to follow on Twitter. Have a talk on the relevant issues for your class, and then decide together what hashtags you should all follow. By getting regular news updates through following, there will always be an interesting topic to debate in class. Using Twitter in education provides a great way of socialization and encourages students to speak up for the issues they believe in, and become opinionated.

6. Tweet about changes in the program.

If there is any change your students should know about, you can use Twitter to inform them. For example, if the class will be held in another classroom or if the class will be skipped the next day. Students receive instant notifications, and they can share with fellow students. If there is any last minute change regarding the school program, just send out a short tweet.

7. Organizing contests.

Have students prepare for your next class by writing a nice essay, or by solving a tough math problem. Give them incentives, and motivate them to enter the contest. Students love to interact through social media, and you will get a great number of participants in your school related contest.

8. Syncing Twitter with relevant blogs.

It is very useful for teachers, parents and students. Twitter allows you to sync with WordPress blogs, and all update notifications will be received through Twitter. This way, everyone can tune in and check out the fresh updates of different logs, without actually entering separately each address. Teachers can check the posts of their students by clicking on the link, while students can follow the posts and updates of their peers.

9. Research tool for students.

Any student can quickly and easily find high authority research material using Twitter in education. All they need to do is type in the search bar relevant keywords, and they will receive a list with dozens of relevant websites and blogs. There is also the option to search for specific phrases, key figures, discussion topics, relevant discussion forums, etc.

10. Network through hashtag chats.

Search for any topic that you are highly interested in, and join other great groups available on Twitter. Make new friends, express your opinion on an academic matter, and ask your fellow students or teachers to join. You will form one huge and powerful army of experts and debaters on topics that are of high interest to you.

11. Share interesting topics.

Help your fellow students get a better understanding of a tough topic for class. If you found an interesting article, a website or even someone worth following on Twitter, share it with other students. The same goes for teachers, who should definitely share educational materials and links with students using Twitter as the main platform.

12. Create a unique classroom hashtag.

With so many hashtags available out there, it is quite difficult to find a unique one. However, find such a relevant word and use it for your classroom hashtag. Then ask all students and teachers to join, and this will be your little virtual online classroom. Hashtags are used to find groups of interest and then connect with them, so make sure you give away your hashtag only to those you want to join the respective group.

13. Write mini reviews.

Both teachers and students can use Twitter to write very short and concise reviews of a movie or a book. This way, you will make a recommendation to watch or not to watch a certain movie. Connect with your teachers and fellow students even for entertainment through Twitter. The reviews should be short, but they may contain links to the full article or review you posted on a website for example.

14. Surveying students.

Now and then it is worth engaging students into a poll. As a teacher you can now inform your students about the new survey through Twitter. Find out what they like/dislike about your class, what changes they would want to make, what books they prefer to read, or what recreational activities they would prefer more. It is amazing how many essential things you will learn about your students by having them complete such a survey (Twitter link to Survey Monkey for example).

15. Teach through play.

You could invite students to write collaboratively a nice poem. You suggest the first two lines on Twitter, and then everyone else will try to come up with a new rhyming and relevant line. This is particularly useful for creative writing or English class, and students will love your ingeniousness. Instead of a poem, you could ask them to write a letter, with each student adding a few lines until they create a nice story. Then, you will read the entire work of art in class and analyze it together.

Conclusion

These are only a few ideas on how to successfully use Twitter in education. This micro-blogging portal is not only for entertainment, but it can have a very important role in academia as well. Students, teachers and parents will all benefit of being active on Twitter. The portal also helps forming very united and compact groups, and it helps increase the productivity and responsiveness of students. Now the entire classroom can join Twitter, and everyone can start using all the amazing features offered by the portal: Advertise, inform, share, respond, create a buzz, invite... and anything else you can imagine!

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15 Ways To Use Twitter In Education (For Students And Teachers Alike) - eLearning Industry

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Many regard Twitter as quite a useless social media sharing portal. Some have this negative opinion, mainly because of the fact Twitter allows you to "tweet" or post only 140 characters in length. This length equals the text of a regular SMS, and for some this is simply not enough.

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1. Get a sense of what students are thinking
2. Immediate access to materials
3. Can connect to people outside of the classroom
4. Globalization
5. Connecting with families
6.Learning continues outside of the classroom

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Twitter can be used as a place for announcements, homework, and reminders. A running thread could be created for students to follow throughout the school year.

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Set up Twitter - Before school year begins (August)

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Set up Twitter - Before school year begins (August)

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After receiving approval, teachers and staff will create a school Twitter account using their school emails. Hashtags will also be created for each teacher/class as well as a school-wide hashtag will be shared so that parents can also follow school activity on the school Twitter account.

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Twitter PD - Before school year begins (August)

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Twitter PD - Before school year begins (August)

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Teachers and staff will be trained on how to navigate Twitter, be given ideas of how to implement it within the classroom, and be encouraged to post content using the school-wide hashtag. Posting should occur at least once a month as this program begins, increasing in frequency the following years.

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Parent Technology Night - Beginning of the school year (August)

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Parent Technology Night - Beginning of the school year (August)

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Parents will be invited to the school for an informational night regarding technology use in the classroom. During this night, the Digital Media Presentation will be shared with parents as well as the social media consent letter. Parents will be informed about how Twitter will be used in the classroom to support 21st century student learning. Parents will be encouraged to sign the consent letters and return them as soon as possible.

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Introduction to students/ Digital Safety - Beginning of the year (as students continue to return consent letters)

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Introduction to students/ Digital Safety - Beginning of the year (as students continue to return consent letters)

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Students will be informed about how Twitter will be used during instruction. They will be made aware of what to do if they are participating on Twitter or if they are not going to use Twitter to participate. Regardless, all students will receive lessons on digital safety and how to protect themselves online.

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Begin using Twitter in the classroom - (September/October)

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Begin using Twitter in the classroom - (September/October)

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Teachers will begin to utilize Twitter with their students specific to their class and hashtag. Students and staff will begin posting on Twitter to share their experiences, thoughts, and questions online.

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Parent-Teacher conference share out (Fall)

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Parent-Teacher conference share out (Fall)

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During parent-teacher conferences, students and staff will have the opportunity to share their contributions on Twitter with their parents. Parents will also be encouraged to "follow" the school hashtags in order to follow along with the school activity at home.

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Continue to use Twitter in the classroom (rest of the school year)

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Continue to use Twitter in the classroom (rest of the school year)

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Classrooms will continue to use Twitter throughout the school year in order to utilize social media within the classroom.