The Class Bird is Not the Only Thing that Tweets

It’s hard to think of ways to make social media educational. Sure, we can teach lessons on what not to post on Facebook or Twitter, but can we use social media to actually benefit the learning process?

Twitter can be used in such a way. Twitter is a social media site that allows people to post statuses. These can range from political rants or just informing the whole wide world how you like your coffee. You can even create a #hashtag – a tag that describes your already limited post.

How can you use this in your classroom? One way to include Twitter is to use it as a means for communication with your students and even parents. Teachers can easily tweet an update on an assignment or warn the class about a possible pop quiz. This is also a great way to keep parents informed on what is going on in their child’s classroom: a parent would also be able to follow his or her child’s teacher and get these updates.

Next, Twitter can be used to create an endless possibility of assignments and lessons. For example, a foreign language teacher can have students use Twitter as a way to get connected with slang, natural speech, and written communication of the language. A business and economics teacher can get students to learn about the effects of advertising via social media outlets such as Twitter.

Now, it’s obvious that maybe Twitter cannot be used in every classroom. It may be difficult, and possibly inappropriate, to have 1^st graders tweeting his or her thoughts for classwork. Make sure the context and content is age appropriate. Using Twitter or other social media sites are probably best for high school or college students, maybe even middle school. Also, make sure that all parents and guardians are aware that social media will be part of the curriculum. Student profiles should be monitored for the students’ safety, and inappropriate activity should not be tolerated

Although I provided a few, this site offers even more ideas on how to use Twitter in your classroom. For example, Twitter can be used to help other fellow teachers out. You can use Twitter to network, and to get more inspiration in your classroom. It also offers ideas that can benefit various grade levels, such as tracking a hashtag or posting questions to your students. 

Last, be sure to keep your personal Twitter and professional Twitter separate. Your students don’t want to know about how silly your cat is, or how Whole Foods was out of your favorite organic toothpaste. In fact, no one wants to know that.

Using Twitter may be a good way to implement technology into your curriculum and help your students learning process.

#learning.