Twitter is a relatively old social media site that has been around since 2006. It can be used to share online news and for social networking. You communicate by posting short tweets for anyone that follows you to read. The size restriction on the number of characters that can be written in each tweet is what helped make Twitter so popular. Twitter connects you to people around the world instantly by allowing you to see world news, trending topics, or areas of interest for you. Many twitter users, especially students, tend to use Twitter for leisure purposes. However, there are ways that you can integrate Twitter into the classroom as a professional tool.
How to Start using Twitter in the Classroom?
To being using Twitter in the classroom you will first need to create a professional account. To do this go to twitter.com. Next you will be prompted to make an account by clicking sign up. Making and navigating your account is easy to do. Your profile is a place for people to get an idea of who you are and what you are interested in. Twitter is a public site, so anyone can see your profile and tweets unless you go into settings manually and change your profile to private. By changing your profile to private only your followers will be able to see your tweets and they will not be able to share or retweet anything you post. As an educator it would be a good idea to use the privacy setting to ensure the privacy of your students and parents are protected. For step by step instructions on how to make your account private click here.
One way to use Twitter in the classroom could be as a communication tool. You could have your students, if they are old enough, and parents follow you so you can tweet reminders and upcoming events. You could also tweet updates about what you have been learning that day in class. This creates a community feeling within the class because it allows the outside family members to be involved. This will also keep parents informed so they will able able to make sure their child is completing homework, studying for a test, or has any important papers.
Another way to use Twitter in your class would be as a networking tool. Users can instantly connect with others in their profession to collaborate and find new ideas. Teachers can tweet out successful innovative lessons so other teachers can try them. Teachers can ask for help when planning a lesson, classroom management skills, or strategies to help a struggling student and receive feedback immediately. You can search for any topic you are interested in and see what people are saying about it and engage in discussions with them. In a field such as education that is always changing a tool that connects you to current ideas can keep your lessons up to date and exciting. When you tweet something it is helpful to add a hashtag at the end. A hashtag sorts tweets into different categories making them easier to find. For example, if you were to tweet about teaching stem you could add the hashtag #stem, so that when others go to search for stem related ideas they would be more likely to see your tweet. As a teacher it can be a powerful learning experience to see other teachers in action. However, leaving your own classroom to observe another teacher at a different school is not usually practical. Teachers can use twitter to give other teachers a glimpse in their class and see what they do differently.
Advantages of using Twitter
Since Twitter only allows a maximum of 280 characters per tweet it is easier to find the information you are looking for because it is concise and to the point. Twitter allows for you to be engaged in Professional Learning Communities with other teachers from all over the world. Twitter also provides opportunities for real time discussions with live blogging.
Disadvantages of using Twitter
Since anyone can post on Twitter you have to be careful about where you are getting your ideas from because they may not be research based or thorough lesson plans. There are so many new ideas on Twitter that it can be overwhelming and if you do not ever use any of the ideas they will not help your students. Twitter is also a social media app, so it can be very easy to get distracted and end up reading about celebrities instead of researching new teaching strategies.
Personal Experience using Twitter
In my experience as a student many of my teachers and professors over the years have used twitter in their classrooms. In high school I remember one of the best liked football coaches, and history teachers, having a professional Twitter page that everyone followed. From what I remember he mostly tweeted world sports related news, school information such as closings, and upcoming school events. When I look back the main outcome of his page seems to be about building school spirit because he kept the students excited and informed about all the sports teams at school. In college my American Politics professor had a twitter page that he required everyone in the class to follow. He retweeted lots of news articles from around the country and in High Point. He wanted us to read all of them, but the ones that were directly related to our class he would add a hashtag with our class section. I did not like this method of communication because he tweeted so much for all of his classes it was hard to keep track which ones were important for my class and sometimes I would miss seeing the articles I needed to read. So, if you are going to use Twitter in your class it needs to be organized and one way to do that would be having a different page for each different class.
References
Gil, P. (2019, November 9). What Exactly Is Twitter? And What Is 'Tweeting'? Retrieved from https://www.lifewire.com/what-exactly-is-twitter-2483331Hyndman, B. (2020, February 13).
Why teachers are turning to Twitter. Retrieved from http://theconversation.com/why-teachers-are-turning-to-twitter-94582
