Mid-Year Twitter Tweak!

-
Happy New Year!  January is a good time to take a look at your class Twitter account and see if it’s all it can be.  Below are some ideas to excite you again about the power of Twitter in your classroom!

I came across a great blog post by Mrs. Davison, a kindergarten teacher that showcases many of the ideas below.  She keeps her Twitter page open throughout the school day so it's available if students have things they would like to say. Students get to host a little blue bird on their desks when they tweet! Be sure to visit her blog to see her examples in detail.

Offline Twitter Ideas 

  • Create a Twitter bulletin board that has a map of the world. Print tweets that you receive and have students pin them on the map as a visual reminder of how far their voices reach!
  • Print out cards to give to students when they tweet so they can go home and talk to their family about it.  Here are some I created as examples:

  • Create a bulletin board with a “live feed” where students can use sentence strips to write sentences about things they’d like to tweet about (great practice writing proper sentences for little ones!) 
  • For little tweeters consider creating a Twitter paper that has 140 small lines printed on it so students can practice writing out their tweets.  This helps them practice summarizing. 

Things to Tweet About


Here’s some additional ideas if you are stuck when it comes to thinking about what to tweet.  Remember, you don’t need to tweet all day long.  Once a day (or even once a week) is still great.
  • Tweet something you learned today
  • Ask a question and collect survey data
  • Tweet spelling words in context
  • Talk about books you are reading or novels you are studying

Here’s a 2nd grade class that tweets:  https://twitter.com/2ndRedEsker

Even More Ideas

  • Thank parent volunteers
  • Share links to projects you’ve created
  • Congratulate classmates on accomplishments
  • Share pictures of artwork
  • Follow authors you are learning about and tweet to them
  • Post teasers for students about upcoming events or lessons
Don’t forget that Twitter chats are a great way to gather resources that are specific to you!  Each grade level and subject area has a chat of their own.  Here’s a link to more hashtags that you’ll know what to do with! http://www.cybraryman.com/edhashtags.html  This site also contains the official schedule for twitter chats.  

Coonley Teachers if you need assistance with any of this please let me know!

Finally, if you need a refresher on Twitter be sure to look through my guide.  Happy Tweeting!!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Water the Flowers, Not the Rocks: Tips from 10 Years of Instructional Coaching

-
This June I wrapped up ten years of instructional technology coaching. Soon (tomorrow, in fact) I will begin a new journey in my career where I will still utilize my coaching skills but in a different capacity. This new opportunity has caused me to reflect on lessons learned throughout my time as a school-based coach. If you are a coach or aspire to be one following are ten tips I've learned during my ten years in the role. Be a model . Practice what you preach! If you want your teachers to join Twitter make sure you are already there. If they would like to try a new tool or lesson familiarize yourself with it first in order to lend additional support. Be honest . If you don't know something, say so. As a coach, your faculty will look to you as an expert. There have been several times throughout my career that I've said, "I don't know that tool/concept/strategy but let me see what I can find out about it." If you are a former classroom teacher, remind peo
Read more

Understanding Plagiarism

-
Image
Our middle school is 1:1 with Chromebooks so students spend a fair amount of time researching topics online.  A teacher noticed there is a lot of copying and pasting of information by students and asked me to come in and have a conversation about plagiarism.  I developed a Prezi with an accompanying notes guide for the students to complete as I presented the content to them.  The Prezi and notes guide are below.  As we wrapped up the students were able to use their Chromebooks for a bit of fun (with a topic that isn't so fun).  We played a Kahoot game where they reviewed concepts about plagiarism from their guide.  They loved it!  What I loved is that Kahoot also provides a summary of student responses to the game- I can see which students missed specific questions which allows me to follow up if needed. Resources used in the presentation (good for teachers and students): http://www.plagiarism.org http://en.writecheck.com (this has a plagiarism checker available) https://o
Read more

ChatGPT for Educators

-
 In February 2023 I authored a blog post for ISTE . Below is the piece.  In my three decades in education, I’ve come to learn many things. One is that change moves at a snail’s pace until something steps in to challenge the status quo.  Enter ChatGPT.  As you’ve no doubt heard, since this artificial intelligence program became freely available to the public, ChatGPT has made educators nervous, excited and curious about the impact it will have on our field.  Once resources became available, I curated a list of the pieces I felt educators should engage with to gain an understanding of ChatGPT. I shared this list with a small professional learning network I belong to. One of the members of the PLN took the resources and created an  easy-to-read detailed slide deck , which was then publicly shared throughout our networks, including the ISTE community forum  ISTE Connect . While I encourage you to look through our guide in its entirety, here are five recommendations that are a great place t
Read more