Using twitter for educational purposes

Once I created my twitter account, I spent a few time exploring this tool, in order to learn a little bit more about it. I didn’t know much about Twitter before, and even less about its possible educational uses. After reading some of the articles related to the use of this resource, I would like to comment several ideas.

As the article 50 Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom says at the beginning, there are some opinions which affirm that a “140-character microblog offered by the ubiquitous social network can do little for the education industry”. Though I cannot say that I totally agree with this opinion, I consider that this condition limits its use considerably, especially in educational issues.  Despite this contra of Twitter, It is certainly interesting the many ways in which Twitter can be applied in the classroom. According to both the article mentioned above and the one titled 60 Inspiring Examples of Twitter inthe Classroom, I am going to present my own Top Ten list with some of the cases in which Twitter could be very useful both for students and teachers:

1.      Tweet about upcoming due dates or assignments: It is easy to use it as a reminder of due dates and assignments. It is quick and you don’t need to text many characters.

2.      Coordinate assignments: Twitter can be used for students to work in group projects.

3.      Track a hash tag: Students and teachers can follow and communicate ideas about different issues of interest.

4.      Write a story or poem: It is a good idea to use Twitter to engage students in poetry and improve writing and literacy skills through short poems and stories.

5.      Ask questions.

6.      Twitter pop quiz: Great idea!!!

7.      Classroom connections: It is possible to establish a worldwide classroom network using Twitter as communication tool.

8.      Foreign language news stream: Students in a foreign language class can build their reading skills and stay on top of the news with a foreign language news stream.

9.      Communicating with experts:  I am actually following Bryan Alexander, the author of the New Digital Story Telling.

10.  Daily word games: Undoubtedly a great resource for word games.