Using Twitter in Education

Does anyone have any ideas as to how a teacher can use Twitter in the classroom? I know it could be used by students for brainstorming. Any ideas would really be appreciated.

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Permalink Reply by Linda Jones on April 27, 2009 at 2:35pm

Thanks Jenny, the link you suggested on twitter gave me some good ideas.

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Permalink Reply by Greg Noack on April 26, 2009 at 3:39pm

Tweet Homework assignments, classroom events, Classroom successes (make sure you have permission before using student names), have students tweet recall answers, exit polling, informal assessment, microblog a story... depends on what you want them to learn!

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Permalink Reply by Anne Mirtschin on April 26, 2009 at 4:05pm

Hi Jenny, although I have used twitter for my own network for 18 months, I have only started using it in the classroom. I use it mainly for my students if they need resources, links or ideas. eg they were studying semantic award applications and gaming in educations. After a couple of tweets they had quite a few ideas and resources. It had been blocked for 6 months at school. Then we found it had become unblocked. You can read my post.
Once we found it was unblocked and students saw its power, they immediately joined themselves. So I want to work twitter a lot harder and am interested in the responses that you get to this post.discussion

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Permalink Reply by Tim on April 26, 2009 at 5:33pm

I only recently joined twitter myself. I see some of the educational benefits of twitter, but is there a general consensus on whether it is a "safe" place to promote for student/classroom usage? Are there any best practices for keeping students safe on a site like twitter?

What about a site like edmodo.com instead of twitter? Is that a better alternative?

Interested to hear what people think of this issue.

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Permalink Reply by Linda Jones on April 27, 2009 at 2:45pm

Tim, I did not know about edmodo.com. I checked out the site, and it does appear to be a safer mode of communication for students. It might be an easier site to deal with instead of having to worry about safety. Thanks for the information.

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Permalink Reply by Steve O'Connor on May 6, 2009 at 6:28pm

Private Microblogging can be set up in a variety of ways using FOSS software. WordPress (Prologue) and Elgg (Wire) come to mind immediately. I'm sure there are are others.

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Permalink Reply by Linda Jones on May 8, 2009 at 1:01pm

Thanks, Steve. I haven't tried too much microblogging yet. My students are 4th and 5th graders, inner-city, and we don't have many resources or funds. I will investigate your suggestions.