A few ideas here on how to use Twitter in the classroom …
I have been trying for the last year or so to get more into Twitter. I tend to keep Facebook for my personal life and Twitter is more based around my professional life. Now I think that could be my problem with Twitter. Not many of my friends are on Twitter, whereas I have quite a lot on Facebook so when I have a spare minute I will check on Facebook to see what my friends are doing. I don’t get that same enticement with Twitter.
So what do I like about it? I like that I can follow anybody and it is completely up to me who I follow. Twitter keeps me up to date with what is going on in my areas of interest. So who do I follow? A few friends, celebrities, colleagues and fellow students for my personal life and a few tutors, fellow students, IT and e-learning professionals and companies for my professional life, plus a few news sites etc for general information.
I thought I would ask my followers what they like about Twitter to show you how interactive, responsive and useful a tool it can be …
https://twitter.com/Jubaru/status/134013127732899840
Unfortunately I only got 2 answers …
https://twitter.com/josieharvey02/statuses/134027264739377152
https://twitter.com/SueFolley/status/134030663606214657
But this was a quiet evening – I don’t know why but nobody seems to be online tonight. Usually I would have expected a few more responses than this. But answers to your questions can be immediate. Students in a classroom can tweet an answer/comment/question to their tutor which can be shown on a screen for the class to see/discuss. Students outside a classroom can tweet for help, suggestions, links, videos … whatever they find.
Twitter is a fantastic resource that is constantly changing – to me this is the sort of interactive dynamism that Sabry and Barker must have been referring to in their article – you just need to make sure you follow the right people.
jubarutumbleweeder 