Tweets and the Ubiquitous Student - A study in application

So I am completely oblivious to the twitter community, so I decided to take in this session.

Using social Networking tools as a means to open the lines of communication in a classroom

Chris Haksell is the presenter a teacher from Biose State. Chris started out by talking about some of the tech tools that, like twitter, have a bit of a negative stigma.

Facebook
Can integrate Media

Incorporates social learning

Gets students communicating in a positive manner

Some teachers have gone too far

Youtube
Can be great tool - free database of potentially great videos.

The site provides a place for teachers and students to collaborate with other teachers and students.

However:
Videos can be Violent, provocative,

Where does this fit into the curriculum? - Has the curriculum caught up to the technology?

Example - Chemistry Curriculum - In the beginning, some bad things happened - poison, explosions, burns , etc. Through education, oversight, accountability, and learning, chemistry is still being taught today. Chris talked about how "We can create some change by introducing the validity of the tools we want to use in our classroom." That is, by using these tools in a positive and meaningful way, and teaching students to do so as well, we can integrate these educational tools in a positive way to improve our teaching.

Twitter:
A service - allows us to reach out to a lot of different places. Things can be input to and output from Twitter. The vehicle is SMS messaging. it can go to social networking tools, cell phones, and email. The SMS services limits messages to 140 characters. Twitter is a free service. This can be used as a form of microblogging, and can be used to share information, links, pictures, and short videos. Imagine using this a way to send messages from principals to teachers, or principals to students. They can send a video message to the entire staff. Teachers or students could receive this information on their cell phones, their email, or their Facebook page.

Parents only have to log on once and set up their accounts and never have to do this again. It makes mass communication easy. Teachers wouldn't have to set up the mail lists. They simply have to provide a set of instructions for parents to follow your posts if they choose.

Applications -

Imagine during a field-trip at the zoo. Tweeting to all your students via their cell phone, "The elephant is having a baby, everyone come to the elephants area."

Tweets can be used to communicate curricular needs in a timely manner.The audience can be students, parents, administrators or even members of the community at large. Twitter can be used as a way to increase the communication and connections to all of these audiences.

Tweets can be embedded in a blog, so if parents don't want to receive an email or a text message for absolutely every tweet you send out, they can go to your blog and read them. SMS messaging to mobile phones is by far the most popular.

Classroom Communication

• Quiz/Test Reminders
• Homework Clarifications
• Corrections to in class mix-ups
  
• Tutorial videos
• Mobile activities
• Communication from the Administration - school calendar, dress-up days, event information, activity information, evacuation information, systematic announcements, school closures
  

Twitter can also be used to communicate with teams, clubs, organizations.

• meeting reminders
• uniform changes
• wake-up calls on field trips
• field trip communication
• more

Twitter can also increase transparency for what we are doing as educators, coaches, administrators, etc. Also, if people are suspect about the communication, it is easy to be transparent about the discussions. Twitter accounts can be set-up for different classes, groups, etc. All in all, like facebook, myspace, and other social networking tools, twitter has a bad stigma and people could be wary of using it as a communication tool. Especially in the wake of numerous scandals involving inappropriate relationships between teachers and students. However, like facebook and myspace, if these tools can increase our ability to connect with students and improve their education by providing opportunities for students to collaborate and connect with others about meaningful topics, they should not be so quickly written off. All in all, this was another great session.