Lisa Fletcher's List: Twitter in the classroom

• We began the year with me posting a few tweets just to get started and try  it out. I wasn’t sure if it would work, or if if the time spent would be  worthwhile, since time devoted to one thing means less time for something else.  Next, I modeled posting on Twitter in front of the class throughout the day,  usually right before a transition while we met to share and review whatever  lesson we were working on at the time. It didn’t take long for them to catch  on, and we were soon composing shared pieces. Students watched the projected  image from my computer as I typed, watching the Twitter character counter  descend from 140 to zero, and then into negative numbers as our expressions  passed the character limit.

   

  Once we typed the message, it was then time to edit and revise so that the  tweet would fall into the range of 140 or fewer characters. I love that  character limit feature for teaching; it provides a real and powerful way, and  need, to teach word choice, ideas, and punctuation. Twitter also creates an  authentic requirement to consider the needs and background of our audience in a  way that most of the students didn’t have to confront in writer’s workshop, or  math, or science, or other writing we did. I find first and second graders are  still so egocentric that considering others is a fairly novel concept. Editing  and revising the messages often takes longer than composing, as the class  debates which items are essential, which are implied, which can be assumed that  our followers (mostly family members) know, and which we can hint at, with the  assumption that family members can ask for more information if they want  it.
• the more we use it, the more  power I have found in it.
• This year, I decided to try using Twitter, and the more we use it, the more
• This year, I decided to try using Twitter, and the more we use it, the more
• This year, I decided to try using Twitter, and the more we use it, the more  power I have found in it.

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