The top listed sites in a number of categories for these awards! They're not language-specific, but you can find a lot of good educational uses of blogs, tweets, wikis, podcasts, webinars, and other categories.
Good example of how an educator used twitter to chat with an author. Also detailed her proposal to admin to override the twitter block. Great if your school blocks twitter.
I wonder how she did this? I think this would be of high interest for my world geography teachers. Would certainly add a new dimension to reporting out on current events in different parts of the world.
Teachers and librarians are finding Twitter’s great for research, too. Karen Burns, a librarian at Gig Harbor High School in Washington state, created a Twitter search widget for current events in Africa to help ninth graders with their research projects.
I almost feel overwhelmed with all this information of how to use Twitter for educational purposes. Some of the ideas are great and they look fun, definitely aiding to the traditional ways of teaching. What caught my attention at this list of creative ways teachers use Twitter is creating a TWIBE - have any of you heard of this before or used it? If yes, how did it work?
______ of the day: No matter the class, a vocabulary word, book, song, quote or something else "of the day" might very well make an excellent supplement to the day’s lesson. When teaching younger kids, tell their parents about the Twitter feed and encourage them to talk about postings at home.
Supplement foreign language lessons: Twitter’s unique spacing limitations make for an interesting way to nurture foreign language acquisition. Tweet a sentence in a foreign language at the beginning of the day or class and ask students to either translate or respond in kind as a quick, relatively painless supplement.
Create a twibe: Build networks beyond Twitter itself and set up (or have students set up) a twibe, bringing together other classrooms or professionals. These networks not only serve to broaden one’s perspective, but offer an interesting lesson in how online communities come together, sustain themselves or fall apart.
An interesting post coming from Gavin Dudeney on why he felt it was time for his twitter to close -food for thought? the opposite side of the coin? Let's discuss!
I read this post, and then looked at what he has to say about PLNs. I must confess that I can't imagine when I will have time to regularly check Twitter (much less tweet) once school starts. And his points about PLNs match mine, too. I guess I am considering new things in this class primarily as vehicles to promote student learning and engage students.
Jan - I had doubts as whether to add Dudeney's post here - but I decided to do so -to see other people's views-and especially those who have been using twitter for some time now (I am a new user myself). I have the same concerns as you and I happen to respect Gavin's work a lot (I am a little bit biased) as I have had the opportunity to meet him online in courses, read his books etc.
The cons of using Twitter as a backchannel discussion. The article debates the benefits of a backchannel discussion and negative effects it may have to the overall understanding of the presentation when the listener's attention is split between two activities.
He says he will help you make the most of Twitter by using an application called TweetDeck. He explains how to use TweetDeck in this video tutorial, part 1. Link to Part 2 included.
I've used goo.gl which is Google's URL shortener. I like it because it also generates a QR code. The code can then be printed out and used for listening practice (the project that I used it with was a recorded dialogue uploaded to YouTube).
automated accounts that don’t have any visible purpose, someone who has nothing in common with you
looking at their follower/updates list; if they are following 10,000 people, have 20 followers, and only 1 update then I’d safely say it’s an automated account and can be ignored!
Pull classrooms, class periods, departments, etc. More centralized than a shared Google doc? I'm thinking yes and participants will be forced to be brief.
Karen, I use a shortener when I have a very long URL - even to include in an email, or to advertise something I want people to go to (a survey I did) and some shorteners will let you pick your own ending so it can be something recognizable rather than random letters. I think Twitter does this automatically for you now.
Communicate the public nature of Twitter to parents. Consider an opt-out alternative for students or parents who are uncomfortable with participating in the classroom chat.
I've also used my school's platform "discussion board" as if it were a twitter chat feed--some students got really into it, and I think I could implement some of these suggestions to make it more universally engaging
assist students in moving back and forth between their own words and technical or course-specific terms. And help highlight particular content with the use of sentence starters.
i've do this, at some level, for almost every new project or activity I do in my classroom--the students feel so empowered when I ask them to share their opinions and reactions to the structures of the course.
Thanks for sharing, Carmen-- I am also considering students who do not have Twitter, or parent concerns, and I wonder if small group work might be a solution- Using the twitter account of one student, another student or group of students help to compose responses, stay hidden from their online contributions.
Hi Veronica--you could also consider making a class handle. I did that with an Adv. class once, and simply gave all the students the info to log in. They could all post from that handle, and sign tweets with their initials.
Especially middle/high school parents/students may feel more comfortable using a platform provided by the district. I am also planning to use the discussion board in the district's platform. I can definitely use the tips in this article.
I provide the correct answer (present indicative or infinitive) in the form of a comment on the same tweet. This gives students who follow the Twitter feed and receive notifications an opportunity to quiz themselves in real time.
Students who do not have a Twitter account can go to my school website and follow along with the embedded stream.
I didn't know you could do that either. I wonder if students without accounts would still be disadvantaged, though, since they wouldn't receive notifications in real time...
In both cases, students understand that I am paying attention and rewarding their efforts and attention to detail, and feel that their hard work is being recognized.
There is great power in positive reinforcement
I ask permission first
For the students who provided the work, this is a great motivator to keep the high-quality work flowing, while for the other students, it serves as an example of good work.
"This study was conducted to examine the use of social media, in particular Facebook and Twitter, as a pedagogical instrument in beginning level Spanish courses. "
Format Flexibility! There are 8 different Padlet formats: Wall, Canvas, Stream, Grid, Shelf, Backchannel, Map & Timeline.
Screenshot from padlet.com
These templates can be templates for a variety of projects.
Content Flexibility! Once you select a format, your posts on the Padlet can be pretty much anything!
Your students will not need an account to access your Padlets or post/comment on your Padlets. They would, however, need an account in order to make their own.
I can also use copy of student entries as a platform for in-class activities.
Customization – Padlet gives you lots of options in the settings area. You can customize the appearance, change the URL to make it easier to access, turn comments on/off, turn reactions (stars, upvotes, likes, grades) on/off, require approval for posts, filter profanity.
Real-time Collaboration – If you choose to allow collaboration, you and your collaborators (students! teachers! parents!) can collaborate in realtime.
2. Second, I didn’t know that Padlet had a Timeline option!After Matt’s tweet, I discovered that a Timeline option was added by Padlet in December 2019