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Using Twitter when the teacher is absent
As an avid user of twitter, I'm constantly aware of the benefits it provides me in terms of finding web sites and lessons, making connections in far off places, and bouncing ideas off other educators. The other day however I came across a whole new way to use twitter- as a remote connection when I'm gone to professional development (or even if I'm sick). I was out last week for the NMSA convention in Indianapolis. This week I had to be out again for a district wide math course I'm in. I happen to have also created a twitter account for my 6th grade team. So I figured what the heck, why not have a student tweet what was going on in the class while I was out. I assigned a student from each of the three math classes I teach to do just that. It worked great. Students kept me abreast on the lesson, told me if someone was off task in a major way ( to which I then had that student come over the computer so I could tweet them a little reminder of what I expected while I was gone), and students were able to ask me questions. I loved it (to the extent that I will use it every time I'm gone from now on and I think my teaching partners are thinking of doing likewise.) Probably the only issues I had were that the students simply hadn't had much time tweeting before so they were a bit slow and didn't really understand the @ response button (not a huge deal as I wasn't focusing on the rest of the twittersphere at this time anyhow just what they were saying). Although I hate being out, I'm kind of looking forward to seeing what will happen next time I'm gone.
Any thoughts on this use? or other uses people might have?
Any thoughts on this use? or other uses people might have?
Views: 16
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Doug Darfus on -
My first response is that students are being used as spies. Second, students have no way to tweet at my school because it is blocked by our filter and cell phones are not allowed. Third, how do you pay attention to the meeting if you're tweeting your students & how are students paying attention in class if they are tweeting you? I'd think they would be a distraction in class.
The one idea have I have thought Twitter might be good for is to tweet the parents after school each day with any homework assignment or announcement.
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Permalink Reply by Victoria Rydberg on
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I do use Twitter to tweet assignments and announcements and parents and students get it directly to their phones. They love it.
Doug Darfus said:My first response is that students are being used as spies. Second, students have no way to tweet at my school because it is blocked by our filter and cell phones are not allowed. Third, how do you pay attention to the meeting if you're tweeting your students & how are students paying attention in class if they are tweeting you? I'd think they would be a distraction in class.
The one idea have I have thought Twitter might be good for is to tweet the parents after school each day with any homework assignment or announcement.
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I have done this before though using NING. My students often respond to readings and are writing on blogs as a part of our class, so when I am gone, I put these activities into my sub plans and then if I have time while I am at a conference or workshop or if I am sick, I can check in, read their responses, comment back, etc. They love it because they can send me messages of what is going on or send me direct questions about an assignment. They like to know that if I am gone, I am not completely out of touch.
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Permalink Reply by Tom Jenkins on -
Hey Eric,
Twitter is blocked at our school, but I use Moodle to stay in touch with my classes when i'm out. An example: I went to UConn a couple years ago for LaunchQuest (A rocket project) and attended a conference with many speakers including an astronaut. Whent he astronaut was speaking- I noted the highlights and the kids responded and provided questions in a forum. I was also able to upload pictures to highlight important aspects of the presentation.
The 21st Century Classroom is an amazing tool!
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Permalink Reply by Eric Biederbeck on -
Hi Doug,
You bring up some interesting points. I think I wasn't completely clear about having the student who is tweeting to me update me on someone who is very off task. I wasn't asking for students to spy but rather to mention to me if noticed someone was off task because they did not understand what was going on in class. Then I'd possibly be able to redirect that student. Really the main goal is to keep me abreast on what is going on in the class as a whole in terms of the lesson and to ask clarifying questions if large portions of students are unsure about what is going on or about a specific part of the lesson.
It's too bad that your school has made the choice to block twitter. Obviously they have weighed the potential educational benefits against the potential pratfalls and have made that choice. My district opens up pretty much everything and let's teachers and students use them in appropriate ways.
On your last issue of paying attention, I really don't see this as an issue at all. The students are tweeting updates every few minutes at most and I'm responding in about the same time frame. My class is likely playing a math game or creating a project related to whatever we have been doing in class during this time. My students aren't expected to be sitting listening to a lecture on some math topic. Both the students and I are multi-tasking. This is not very different from going to a conference and typing a blog post about the conference. Obviously certain students are better at multi-tasking than others and they tend to be the ones who provide me with updates.
I do like the idea of tweeting parents and that is how my classroom twitter account actually started. I don't know that it is all that useful compared to e-mail after school though. Really the idea of twitter in my mind is the immediacy of it (obviously hindered for you by being blocked) so that parents can hear about what is happening in class as it is happening (or very soon after)
Eric
Doug Darfus said:My first response is that students are being used as spies. Second, students have no way to tweet at my school because it is blocked by our filter and are not allowed. Third, how do you pay attention to the meeting if you're tweeting your students & how are students paying attention in class if they are tweeting you? I'd think they would be a distraction in class.
The one idea have I have thought Twitter might be good for is to tweet the parents after school each day with any homework assignment or announcement.
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