Brewster Academy Blogs

Twitter can be used in two primary ways in education – to communicate with and engage your students in new ways AND to connect with other educators around the world to share ideas and resources.  Here are a few articles to pique your interest.  If you are new to Twitter and would like some assistance in setting up an account and exploring, don’t hesitate to stop down at the Tech Office to get some assistance.

How to use Twitter in the classroom without compromising your professional relationship with your students
In this article there are lots of links to guide you towards using Twitter as a tool to keep up with subject specific trends, ideas and resources.  Written by Mike Reading who is a Google-certified teacher and has taught in a range of school environments including K-12, high school and a senior college.

Teaching with Twitter: Extending the conversation beyond the classroom walls
Although this article is written by a college professor, I think his ideas could definitely resonate with high school teachers.  David R. Wessner, professor of biology, Davidson College writes “While several studies like this one have demonstrated increased learning gains associated with the use of Twitter, I argue that instructors have not capitalized fully on the most powerful benefit of this social networking platform – the ability to include outside discussants. With Twitter, we can include various people with different areas of expertise in our discussions. We no longer need to be limited by the expertise of the people in our class. We no longer need to limited by the viewpoints or personal experiences of the people in our class. To this end, I have used Twitter in the classroom specifically to engage a larger audience in our class discussions.”

50 Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom
Here are a few of the tips from the article:

Provide the class with a running news feed
Subscribe to different mainstream and independent news feeds with different biases as a way to compare and contrast how different perspectives interpret current events and issues.

Summarize
At the conclusion of a class, ask students to type a 140-character or less summary of what they have learned and perhaps pose any questions to be considered in the next class.

Follow the issues
Bring a little technology into debates by asking the class which issues they would like to follow. Subscribe to relevant hash tags and accounts from all perspectives and compile an updated resource cobbling together as much research as possible.

Set up a foreign language news stream
Keep foreign language students informed of current events from relevant nations while simultaneously challenging them to use their translation skills by keeping a specific news feed.

Chat with industry professionals
Older high school students who need to explore their career options before spiriting away to college benefit from real-world discussions with professionals in paths they’re considering. Twitter helps them connect with primary sources and facilitates educational communication.