Twitter Chats for the Class!

Twitter chats are a great way to get teachers talking. It’s almost like sitting in a meeting with other professionals but gives you the option to look things up at your own pace and even sit in your sweatpants! I think this could be greatly used for Professional Development because it’s a collaboration of ideas, just like other formats, just online. As the NEA article discusses, some younger teachers need guidance and are more comfortable asking questions online. It gives teachers a way to get information with a quick tweet! It also keeps documentation of the information being passed around, making it easier to re-find information later on down the road.

I think having students sign up for an educational Twitter could be a cool way to have discussions because it’s so similar to what they do outside of class but they are able to have a real discussion. They could use hashtags to sort their ideas and follow a string of tweets with the same interests. As mentioned in the Teachhub article, students could use hashtags to document field trips and other events. I feel as though it could be trickier with younger students because they would want to use it as a chat session but it could be cool for older grades. I would love to find Twitter chats that are specific to a topic the students are learning and have them jump into one with others from around the country, like the NEA article discusses. It would be a great way to expand their thinking. Because tweets are limited to small number of characters it would be great for quick assignments. The Teachhub article mentions using tweets for summaries; the students are confined to keep their ideas short and sweet! The NEA article offers another use if students have access to the Internet outside of class - post discussion questions for homework and have students respond right on twitter. This could also be used during class time. There are so many uses for Twitter for education, just be careful to remember that Twitter is also used for social networking and could be an issue for that reason.

The Teachhub article gives ways to use Twitter in the classroom. The NEA article discusses how teachers can use Twitter for learning.