Tweet All About It! 5 Reasons to Use Twitter in Your Classroom!
Although I try to use Twitter on a regular basis to promote all the great things I am seeing in the classroom, I am constantly coming across educators who are not connected to Twitter and just do not understand its value. Some see it as just one more thing to do amongst the variety of daily requirements on our educators, but I see it as a very powerful platform to promote all that you and your students do each day. Here are a few brief and simple reasons why your classroom may be missing out on this very quick and effective communication tool that you should sign up for today!
Make a Name for Yourself - Be a Self Promoter! Establishing an online digital presence can be a good thing and a great way to show off all that you want the world to know. So show off your talents and abilities as an educator! Make sure to tweet about a variety of activities using a variety of tools and apps to demonstrate your flexibility and fluency with various skills and technology. The next time you are in the market for a new position or promotion, your twitter feed will read like your own personal digital portfolio, so make sure to be professional but thorough in demonstrating all of your abilities!
Engage with Parents! Parents always love to see what’s happening behind the scenes in your classroom! Don’t leave it up to your students to tell their parents what they didn’t learn at school today. Connect with parents & share your latest classroom news, or pictures of special event pics or classroom activities that brought your day to life! Those special moments in your classroom that can’t be relived can be using Twitter! Use your twitter feed as a scrapbook of yearly growth and adventure! Not only will your students remember you forever, but they will enjoy going back to revisit those memories for years to come!
Motivate & Connect with Others! The first time we try anything can be a memorable experience, but when it finally goes right, you’ll want to capture it all! Those awkward moments, comments you will never forget and even the aha moment for the student who is hard to reach. Share your Successes! Take a minute to share it with fellow teachers and twitter followers to help motivate others to stick with it when life in the classroom doesn’t always go as planned. Teaching can be very challenging and can take a lot out of anyone if it’s been a while since your last success. So be a motivator, share an encouraging word or quote and tweet your successes so others can too can be touched by your special moment!
Build up Your Students! Even our students struggle with self image. In the daily sea of student questions, handouts and homework, do your students know when you are celebrating their abilities? I am always amazed at their reaction when I pull out my camera to show off their hard work, and they always happy to strike a pose! Tweet out their recent successes, small steps and major gains to let the while world know how proud you are of their effort! No matter how small, the digital compliment will go a long way and pretty soon you will find them going out of their way to give you another reason to share!
Share your Great Ideas! Have a great activity planned that other educators would love to try? Snap a few pictures that demonstrate an overview of the task and Tweet about it! Great Educators like you are always looking for that new twist on an old idea or a new activity they have never heard about. Twitter is a great way to connect with other educators and to see what other classrooms are up to, share some ideas and steal a few that your future curriculum can’t do without! Like what you see? Follow them to get a continuous stream of good ideas from some very influential educators across the globe! Feeling generous? Post a shareable link to your online activity so your hard work can immediately influence & impact other students! Need clarity? Try posting a reply to a tweet to find out more. You just might find yourself a classroom to collaborate with and a new way to connect to others around the world!
Twitter can be a very powerful influence to promote, to share, to communicate and to engage with others. Please sign up today to see how it can benefit your own classroom and Tweet all about it @me today! @AMCarrierEdTech at www.twitter.com
world!Twitter can be a very powerful influence to promote, to share, to communicate and to engage with others. Please sign up today to see how it can benefit your own classroom and Tweet all about it @me today! @AMCarrierEdTech at www.twitter.com