Twitter...in the Classroom?

Twitter is something that is highly popularized in today’s society, but I personally have never had a Twitter account.  I’ve been trying to be open-minded towards the whole thing, but I was still really unsure of how it could be useful in the classroom.  Reading some articles about educators using Twitter was very helpful to me to get a better idea of the benefits of Twitter.  One article titled, Nine great reasons why teachers should use Twitter, by Laura Walker, obviously included some of those “top” benefits of using Twitter for professional development purposes.  With Twitter, teachers can form a professional social network to share thoughts, ideas, opinions, links to articles worth reading, and links to new technological resources.  Unfortunately, there is just not enough time during the school days for teachers to truly converse, collaborate, and share ideas.  Therefore, “Twitter can be like a virtual staffroom for me …I can access a stream of links, ideas, opinion and resources from a hand-picked selection of global professionals.”  Twitter can easily give teachers the opportunity to connect and “share these reflections and both support and challenge each other.”  Reading about other teachers’ experiences can give you great insight of what has worked for others, and can therefore guide your current practices.

One thing I think is most beneficial about using Twitter is that the act of reflection and sharing ideas extends towards helping teachers to be “smarter about their work.”  Teachers spend far too much time reinventing the wheel, when in actuality, there are options out there to research what other educators have used/done, to help guide your teaching and save time!  It’s definitely worth being apart of. 

Another great benefit of Twitter is that educators can always stay “up-to-date” with the latest educational advancements:  “users can stay right at the bleeding edge of innovation and creativity, and literally be among the first to know when a new product is launched, article is published or opinion is voiced.”   Tweets about such advances would come right to you to view as soon as they become available, instead of taking the time to search the entire internet for such advances.  In conclusion, educators can truly benefit from Twitter as a professional development resource.  “Following smart people on Twitter is like a mental shot of expresso.”

On the other hand, what are some ways that teachers can use twitter within the classroom, either during class, or as an additional enhancement outside of class?  Since I’m unfamiliar, I was unsure of how beneficial it could be as a classroom resource.  I found this article, Leveraging Twitter in Large Lecture Classes to Increase Participation, that includes a 5-minute video titled “The Twitter Experiment,” where Dr. Rankin, professor of History at the University of Texas at Dallas, wanted to know how to reach more students and involve more people in class discussions both in and out of the classroom. She had heard of Twitter but wasn’t sure how she could incorporate it within the classroom setting.  I was very impressed with this video, despite the fact that it was used within a higher-education classroom lecture hall of about 90 students…a classroom setting that I am not at all interested to teach in.  In a lecture hall of about 90 students there would not be enough ideal time for all students to make comments, and obviously there would be some shy, uncomfortable students not wanting to voice their opinion out loud.  However, this video showed me that there is great potential I was totally unaware of to engage students using familiar technology, and giving them more confidence with participating in class from having the comfort of tweeting their comments.