Twitter

I am brand new to twitter and am exploring it for the first time. I have to say I have always been intrigued by it, but never really found the time to sit down and use it. It is amazing that you can be connected to so many people all over the world. The possibilities seem endless! I believe that as a teacher, twitter would be a great tool to use to connect with other teachers who may teach the same grade level or subject as you. It would also be neat to use as a tool to connect your class with a class from another country, much like the old fashion "pen pal" writing. Perhaps twitter is the 21st Century way of having a "pen pal!"

I enjoyed reading the article "Twenty-Nine Interesting Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom." At first I could not really pin point exactly how this tool could be used in a classroom, after reading that article it really gave me some interesting ideas. I really liked the idea of using a Tweet to let parents follow what you are doing in the classroom. I also liked the idea of putting a Tweet out to ask people where they are located, and then having the class use that to find information in an atlas and then connecting it to using Google Docs. I can just imagine how interested and engaged the students would be. In my reading class I usually ask my students to write a summary based on money, for example they may have to write a .25 summary. Each word in the summary is worth a penny and they can not exceed the price tag. I could easily transfer this to a tweet with the character limitation of 140. Students would have to write a summary that they could "tweet", and would not be able to go over the character limitations.

Twitter is very interesting to me! I also like the fact that you can follow influential people like the president of the United States of America, as well has famous authors, celebrities, etc.