People are using social media for various reasons but not all have been able to use bring its use into the classroom.
If we talk about Twitter, educators use it worldwide for their professional growth but not ‘into their profession’. Teaching via Twitter can be great if done efficiently with proper guidance and training to students about media literacy.
Few tips are mentioned below. Have a look!
1. The Magic Wand: #tags
A hashtag is nothing more than a word without space proceeded by symbol “#”. For example, #edchat. This symbol is of great use though. Simply type the word you are looking for with a hashtag before in the search section and you will get ample results and people who are talking about it. If you’re interested in a topic, but you don’t know of a hashtag that will be helpful with your research, simply do a search in Twitter using a keyword rather than a hashtag. Then, scan the results to see what hashtags people are using when they are discussing that particular topic.
Getting access to resources is easiest with the use of hashtags that enhance the quality of content you study or teach. You can also assign hashtag to your course, include it on all of your materials, and reference your hashtag consistently to drive the culture of Twitter across your course learning.
Do check: Education hashtag list.
2. Live Tweet Lectures:
Asking students to live-tweet your lectures under the class hashtag, either pulling out important ideas throughout the lecture, or simply tweeting a few of the main ideas after provides a powerful tool for engagement. You might ask a question during your lecture, or end the lecture by asking students to tweet the one or two of the most important ideas, crowd-sourcing the answer live in front of your audience.
3. Ask What is Trending
A conversation is always evolving on twitter. Asking your students to begin some classes by answering the question, “what is trending?” gives students an opportunity to answer the question with examples, and an evaluation of why that issue or conversation is moving online. This will also encourage students to stay updated with the day-to-day happenings.
4. Enhance creativity
The best thing about twitter is the limit of 140 Characters. Watch your students Turning into creative heads. This limit of the characters makes them pro at expressing themselves in the required word limit.
Also Read: Social Media Tips Every Educational Leader Must Follow
5. Track a Particular hashtag
This can be an amazing activity. You can divide the class in groups of students. Assign each group a particular hashtag related to education or a particular subject. At the end of a week, you can ask questions, ask them to make presentations from what all they learnt from all the information they have tracked with the assigned hashtag. This is a great way to add some engagement, teach them peer collaboration along with teaching.
6. Globally Connected Classrooms
Twitter gives you the opportunity to connect to all the like-minded people globally. Teachers and students from around the world can collaborate on projects using Twitter as a communication tool that simultaneously educates students in different classroom and cultural protocols. Also, having experts as guest lectures can be less difficult than the other ways.
Also Read: Educators’ Guide to Twitter Advanced Search
7. Summarize
At the conclusion of each lecture/lesson, ask your students to type a 140-character or less summary of what they have learned and perhaps pose any questions to be considered in the next class. This way you can know about the level of understanding of students easily.
The above are just a few ways but using Twitter in the classroom is limited only by educator’s imagination. If you are already excited about using Twitter for teaching you must check this wonderful guide to using Twitter in your teaching practices.
So when are you going to start tweeting for teaching? Do share your views and practices with us below!
