Let's get tweeting

Well, I have done it, joined the crazy twitter-verse, and I must say, I am liking it. When I first signed up for it, I thought it was a little silly, just a fun place to post thoughts, comments, ideas and be a little silly. However, now after spending time in this course, I have discovered the true power of Twitter.

Twitter allows us to connect with people all over the world, and to see more of the world than we every imagined. I follow Chris Hadfield, and I get to see much more the world than I imagined through his pictures. Through Twitter we can contact people, asking them questions, getting quick answers and share things that we think are amazing. In our BYOD panel, one of the teachers commented that she had discussions with her students about Manitoba history, all because they saw she had made a comment on Twitter about it. This is precisely what we are aiming for, connecting with our students and fostering that interest in learning.

Twitter can also serve as a forum to hold discussion, like Manitoba Education does. Unfortunately, I have not had the chance to check out one of these chats yet, but hopefully I will, when I am not working.

Twitter can also be used when not connected to the internet, as students can have to create Twitter pages for historical figures, characters out of literature or even things like elements in chemistry class. This just requires creating a template that students can use, and then making sure they understand all the elements of a Twitter page.

Twitter, and other websites like it are very powerful resources that we should be bringing into our classrooms, to engage our students and teach them practical, real world skills.