I love Twitter! It is one of the most amazing source of information for 21st Century educators. Twitter is a social media tool where users can send short messages (up to 140 characters) into the Twittersphere for others to read. Tweets are usually hashtagged (eg. #education #ICT ) to allow people to search for topics. You can follow people and see their tweets and they can follow you. I follow many different people and hashtags. Edudemic, Cybrary Man and OzTweechersPLN provide a quick guide to educational hashtags for teachers. While the Index to Educational Twitter Hashtags is another great place to start out.
TWEETING IN SCHOOLS
There are many reasons why we should tweet within schools but there are also concerns that are raised by some who believe that social media is not suitable for children. In my opinion social media can be successful in schools as long as it is used properly, like all teaching strategies used in schools. I’m sure we have all seen teaching strategies and methods that make us cringe because they are not being used properly of safely. Social media is the same. Use it within the guidelines set out by your school and it can be a phenomenal tool.
The following are some articles which highlight some of the positive and negative reasons for the use of social media in the classroom:
Pros and Cons of Social Media in the Classroom
Social Media in the K-12 Classroom
Twitter in My Classroom
Social Media Belongs in the Classroom
WHAT YOU NEED TO REMEMBER??
Like all social media you can choose your privacy settings… You can protect your tweets so that only your followers can see what you have written, this may be one way of protecting classroom privacy. If you are tweeting as a classroom then all tweets should be approved by the teacher before adding to Twitter. Or use a safer option like Twiducate this site has greater security options available and is specifically for schools and classrooms.
