One of the things I love about using Twitter as an education tool is the ability to connect with passionate educators around the world, quickly identify trending topics in global education and measure what types of information resonate with the Bon Education and Curriki communities.
I’ve always thought of Twitter as a great tool for the Language Arts classroom because the application naturally encourages users to develop reading and summarization skills—i.e. there is only so much you can say with 140 characters! (See more classroom Twitter ideas in my past post “Using Twitter in and Out of the Classroom.”)
Beyond ELA, recently I’ve begun to see Twitter as a fantastic tool for teaching math, geography, anthropology, marketing, etc. Using Twitter applications such as Hootsuite and Klout, student tweeters can do countless calculations to study and analyze how memes (tweets) spread, where they spread, who are the major influencers/connectors on Twitter, when are the best times to tweet, how changing one word in a tweet can totally change its stickiness and more!
As you think about developing lessons for the New Year, why not try using Twitter as a tool for instruction? While brainstorming ideas, make sure to check out “10 Twitter Tools to Help you Track and Perform Better“–great tools for encouraging students to apply a bit of math and science to their tweets.
Happy Twitter Holidays!
Anna
Founder, Bon Education
Twitter: @bon_education
Great suggestions on ways to use Twitter in the classroom.
Thank you for the mention and link. You guys have a happy new year!
Francisco
That’s a very interesting article Anna, I enjoyed the way you have shared information here in the simplest way possible. Thanks!
Thanks for a great look at this, Anna. At OurKids.net we are of course profoundly interested in the integration of social media in the classroom.
Just found your blog and site….God! it´s great!! BIG THANK YOU!!
Greetings from Mexico City!
Mel
I have become a huge fan of twitter and as an educator I find it very useful to connect with other educators around the world. Following like-minded people and interacting in these professional learning networks is truly a wonderful PD!
Thanks for this blog post!
Mirjan
Hi guys. Great artciel. I am a science teacher in Ireland and have set up a blog and twitter account (www.frogblog.ie and http://www.twitter.com/thefrogblog) as a means of creating enthusiasm about science and informing my pupils about science today and in the past. Blogging was a revelation to me and I was astounded by how addictive and how effective it was. The Frog Blog, as we have called it, has proved an enormous success and I encourage anyone to start blogging. But, twitter has expanded the blog’s potential ten fold, reaching out to other educators and scientists with relative ease. Twitter has reinvented my approach to science and technology and has great educational potential. I have begun to explore the use of twitter inside the classroom of late and this too has proved successful. I’ll be back to read more! Good luck!
I enjoyed the way you have shared information here in the simplest way possible nice way for social media class room