allowing students to answer questions via Twitter rather than raising their hands

This greatly aids studying, too, as they can easily refer back via dedicated classroom hashtags.

an excellent way for his students to continue class discussions after they’ve already ended

far easier to tweet changes, cancellations and other important announcements.

many students use Twitter now to alert their teachers about when they’ve finished their work

The 140-character limit offers a nice little challenge for students, and innovative educators and authors like have taken notice.

Word, trend or hashtag tracking:

ask them to actually tweet a response and open a discussio

Take notes:

For high schoolers and the college crowd, this assignment might very well help them discover some personal career goals.

Share a story:

The first tweets a sentence, the next builds off of it and so forth; try assigning a hashtag to make reading everything faster.

Keep parents informed: When teaching the younger set, parents may like to follow along with what’s going on in their children’s day. Keep a Twitter feed updating them about the different lessons and activities as they happen for greater engagement between the home and the classroom.

For kids just learning about distance, this makes for a lovely way to get them to know more about where everything is in relation to their own cities and towns.

______ 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.

A common hashtag and communicative network is all it takes to share insight and recommendations.

Keep up with current events: Similarly, educators can set up lists with different news sources, allowing their students to stay on top of current events. Separate them by field for quicker access and even more comprehensive organization.

Set up a communal hastag for students and professionals alike to use and exchange their views and lessons.

Host a Twitter scavenger hunt: For fun and education, get students moving and organize a sort of Twitter scavenger hunts — maybe even see if other classrooms or professionals want to get involved. As with many of the projects listed here, such an activity can easily be applied to a wide number of grade levels and academic subjects.

Not only does it help them reflect on their lessons and their world, but it also serves as a nice, guided introduction to social media.

Help students get their names out: College professors hoping to nurture the professional future of their juniors and seniors might like the idea of teaching them the role of social media in job hunting. Business students into the whole “personal branding” fad will particularly benefit from comprehensively exploring such things.

Mobile devices

Have a backup plan.

Gradually give kids more independence.

Relax. Young and rambunctious as the students may be, Forest Lake has not had one laptop dropped or broken beyond repair. Williams suggests you teach them basic care: Wear the camera strap around your wrist; tuck the computer cables under the table; use protective cases when possible. Beyond that, make the kids feel like these valuable tools are theirs, and chances are they'll want to take care of them.

Maintain the same rigor as in pen-and-paper projects.