In her October post, Emily Stone talked about using Twitter as a way to engage with her students. It allowed her to create a conversation and foster a community of sharing. These types of interactions are really Twitter’s bread-and-butter. But I’m more of a passive Twitter user. My last tweet was January 31, 2010: “really dropped the ball on this 3-d glasses thing.” (Apparently the Super Bowl halftime show that year included a 3-D component. Unfortunately I didn’t have the glasses. I cannot tell you if the show was good or not.) So don’t follow me. I won’t tweet anything. I just don’t find that I have anything really useful to say, and I’m uncomfortable “broadcasting” my thoughts. But I do log in to Twitter every day. Instead of sharing, though, I use it as another form of information gathering. I have subscribed to several feeds related to my field of study (Human-Computer Interaction/User Experience). I find it incredibly efficient and much less daunting than the 1000+ unread articles in my Google Reader, where I used to try and read articles. I think Twitter has incredible value for others who are more like me. For teachers who may not quite be ready to tweet their assignments, they too can incorporate Twitter in a passive way. Aside from subscribing to tweets related to their field to help stay current, teachers could simply point students toward some of the more engaging Twitter feeds. I found several examples re-creating historical events through “live-tweeting” (or rather the simulation of live-tweeting), which is simply Twitter’s way of reporting on key events as they happen.
Here’s a round-up of some of the more interesting historical Twitter feeds:
World War 2. Each day they tweet about things that happened on that day in 1939. It will continue for the same duration as the war: @RealTimeWWII
Extensive Civil War tweeting curated by the Washington Post. It has some live-tweeting and some quotes from famous people: @CivilWarwp/tweeting-the-civil-war
Live-tweeting the final expedition (1911) of polar explorer Robert F. Scott: @CaptainRFScott
Live-tweeting JFK’s presidency (run by the JFK Library: @JFK1962
Another WW2 live-tweet, using documents from the British National Archive and letters and memos from the UK war cabinet. This feed isn’t very accessible, though, as it just tweets links to where you can download the document in question but it is kind of a hassle to do so, especially if you are accessing Twitter on the go: @ukwarcabinet
Live-tweeting 1948 Arab-Israeli War—it’s from the Israeli point of view: @1948War
These could easily be turned into writing assignments. TwHistory helps teachers create assignments in which their students live-tweets historical events. I’m not sure how much traction this has, but it’s definitely interesting adoption of technology into education.
And for creative-writing teachers, I think one could also make the case for tweets becoming the next haiku. The 140-character limit for tweets is perfect for providing structure much in the same way as the haiku’s 5-7-5 syllabic construction.
There are also accounts that tweet out facts or tips each day. For example, someone named John Cook maintains several Twitter accounts that tweet math- and computer-science-related facts and tips, and @writing_tips posts daily writing tips. Who doesn’t need a reminder on some basic grammar every now and again?
At best I think these Twitter feeds could enhance students understanding by incorporating a technology that they use every day into their learning. At worst, they are just entertaining. And for right now, I’m really happy to be entertained by the World War II tweets. I’ve got six years to go!
Thank you for the interesting ideas for incorporating Twitter into curriculum — I will certainly share these with my Ed. Tech. classes when we cover Twitter and Social Networking applications in education. For now I’m excited to pass on the WWII and Civil War livetweet feeds to all the history buffs I know.
The “new haiku” question is also interesting. I had heard of the 55 words genre in creative writing; 140 characters seems like an even bigger challenge.
Thank you for the wonderful post. I am not a twitter person, but I do like to find new ways to incorporate technology in the classroom. I do have a facebook account so that students can get in touch with me, but, like you, I never know what to post. I also get a little scared of what my students post on facebook.
The real reason for my reply is to mention another site that is incredible for technology-based interactions between students. Edmodo.com is a wonderful facebook-style site that will help with communication. Teachers and students can post thoughts, post and turn in assignments, and create disscussions. If you used this program for your Haiku example, you can ask the students to post it to the wall for everyone in the class to read or turn in for only the teacher to see. I used this when I was a long-term substitute and loved it. The best part is that the teacher can limit who is in the classroom and it is seperate from other social media sites. It can be kept seperate from your personal life and you don’t get all of the random thoughts of thousands of people on your wall.
The down side is that it is completely seperated from other sites. You can’t get information from people outside of your class. You can, however, ask your students to post relivant sites for critique or post your own list of sites.
I also wanted to thank you for this positing. I have always struggled with how to best incorporate Twitter into training and some of the programs I have developed. At the time Twitter was still growing in recognition and I automatically thought that in order to use it I must create content. So I never ended up using it for those programs and now I realize that I could have used it as you suggested, as a learning resource to pull information to my learners. I am interested to see what the next evolution of Twitter will bring. Thanks again!