Thursday, July 16, 2009
Twitter In the Classroom
Last week when Liz began to teach us about Twitter, I was very skeptical. Twitter is something that before last week, I did not know much about. I knew that it was a social networking site, but that was about it. Now I have moved from being a Twitter novice, to thoughts about how I can incorporate it into my classroom. I think that it can be a positive tool, as it can allow students that would not otherwise contribute to class discussion become a participant. On the other hand, there is the growing concern that because kids are using technology so much, they are having trouble communicating effectively in everyday life. Will using Twitter contribute to this problem or will it foster more class discussion? Something to think about.
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Thanks for your insights, Megan, I too was a skeptic and now I'm downloading cool twitter apps to my desktop and learning the proper vocabulary to tweet with efficiency and style! Learning how to incorporate it into the classroom is another story, however, and I remain skeptical that it can fundamentally change teaching. Perhaps we can use it to communicate homework and assignments or answer questions in a timely fashion? Even logistical uses can be great!
ReplyDeleteI am in the same boat...I don't really understand the point of Twitter beyond posting updates, however, I am beginning to see it as a great classroom tool (for keeping up with assignments, posting announcements for class, etc.). Having a class Twitter that would address these things could be very beneficial and eliminate a lot of ambiguity. Something like this could even be very useful to prevent the clogging of email inboxes..
ReplyDeleteAfter presenting using twitter I find that it has only added to my confusion about the usefulness of this particular resource. On one hand it creates the opportunity for some individuals who would otherwise be left out to be active in a conversation. On the other hand, when presenting I was not able to read the tweets and thus gave up some of my control as a teacher. Whether having this control is beneficial or not is a completely different issue. Your skepticism and concerns are shared.
ReplyDeleteWe'll have another opportunity to consider the possible value of twitter in educational contexts when Jeff Bradley visits our class for our first fall session of 504. Jeff is a really imaginative science teacher who has been dabbling recently with twitter and facebook as classrooms tools....should be interesting.
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