As discussed in ‘The Global Educator’ written by Julie Lindsay, there are many different tools that educators utilize in the classroom. This is referenced as the ‘Global Educator’s Toolbox’. These tools can be used for anything ranging from scheduling to collaborating to communicating in the classroom. Some of the tools, overall, include Skype, Remind, Twitter, Google Docs, Wikispaces and Pinterest.
In this blog post, I am going to focus on one tool, specifically and that is Twitter. According to the text, Twitter falls under the ‘community and social media’ category and the uses for Twitter are for sharing blog posts, discussions, ideas and other multimedia.
As a communication studies major, I have a knack for social media and I think that it is awesome that it is growing as a popular tool or method for teaching. Twitter can be an extremely educational and helpful tool. It is also a great tool to use for networking and connecting with others who share similar ideas and interests as you.
In the video, ‘Using Twitter in the Classroom’ from the ‘edtechteachers’ YouTube channel, they go into detail and explain just how useful Twitter can be in the classroom. I really liked how the narrator stated, “As teachers, we need to be recognizing what will engage our students and uncover effective strategies to integrate social media resources into our classroom learning.”
Click here to watch that video!
An example of implementing Twitter into lesson plan is from teachingenglish.org. The topic is Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, and the lesson is about creating an entire performance of the play using just 140-character Tweets. These tweets are supposed to be like they are coming from characters in the play. Not only is this a super fun way to integrate the use of Twitter in the classroom, but it also allows the students to work together and interact with short messages.
Read more about that lesson plan here!
Overall, being an educator or anyone for that matter, knowing the digital tools around you are crucial. They help in many ways. I know, as a communicator and an avid social media user, that I will use many of these tools in life.