Please post about your first reflections of learning about and using Twitter.
@JWintergalen
As I mentioned in my previous post, I was pretty excited to start learning about Twitter to establish my PLN. After this week, I am still excited, but also a little overwhelmed. The link to Twitter4Teachers was a huge help in getting things up and running. I have tried to search for teachers on Twitter before and not been very successful. This made it so easy to find people with similar interests. I'm not going to lie, I had to go to the Twitter for Dummies page (http://www.blogtips.org/twitter-for-dummies-part-4-the-geeky-art-to-nerdy-tweets/) to get help with the #'s and @'s. It was a great site for explaining the basics. I am amazed at all of the resources that people posted. I almost felt like Twitter was reading my mind. Once Tweets started showing up for people I follow, I was thinking, "Perfect! I was just looking for this!"
I signed up for HootSuite to help me manage my Twitter account. I can tell that I am going to need to spend some more time with this site. I don't entirely get the point of it. The only feature that I can see that I immediately like is that it organizes the Tweets that I mark as my favorite.
Does anyone use Twitter with elementary students or have a suggestions on how to use it with them?
I am so glad I wasn't the only one a little confused by the whole # and @ signs. I definitely read over the handbooks and links in this week's assignment. I will have to explore the Twitter for Dummies site. Thanks for the link. I actually signed up for TweetDeck instead of HootSuite. We'll have to compare features once we've both had some time to acclimated with the sites.
ReplyDeleteI have been looking at several websites and many of them seemed geared to older students. I did find a website that seemed appropriate for elementary students, but it offered just three suggestions. The good news is all three seemed practical. :) I especially liked the second suggestion about @replies to answer questions. I do something similar in Edmodo with students and have them post their responses to the class. The only catch is the character limit in Twitter. For elementary students, that might not be a bad thing though. The link to the website is below.
http://lesson-plans.theteacherscorner.net/technology/twitter-in-the-classroom.php
I am glad that you are considering using this for elementary students. At the high school, Twitter is a tool that we expect the students to be able to use. If they could be taught how to use it educationally instead of just for "social networking", then that would be a huge benefit to us as well. Our greatest obstacle is that the only time our students use these tools is for personal pleasure. It has gotten to a point with some students that you can not give them class time to do activities because all they will do is pull their phone out and tweet someone. I would love for students to be able to discern what these tools are capable of being used for at younger ages so by the time they get to the high school they can appreciate the dual nature of the device.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the helpful link in your post. I added the resources to my Delicious links.
ReplyDeleteTwitter has a policy that you must be 13 years old to have an account. So, you could explore how you could use Twitter as a group (from your account) with your students.
Jennifer I also signed up for Hootsuite, and find it so much easier to keep track of all of these blogs, Facebook and even Twitter accounts. I like the site you shared and found it to be useful. I also like Twitter4Teachers it is helpful to have PLN at your fingertips! Can't wait to keep looking for more educators to follow and start learning more and more from others!
ReplyDelete