I’ve rarely used my Twitter account believing it was nothing more than a way to “stalk” celebrity tweets or drown in its over abundance of insignificant information. Seeing a recent presentation on how it can be used in the classroom, however, made me reevaluate Twitter as a teaching tool. Twitter can be used to hold microdiscussions, poll groups, and broadcast announcements.
Discussions and polling can be accomplished with the use of Twitter hashtags. Adding a hashtag topic in your tweet will automatically identify that tweet as belonging in a microdiscussion with other tweets containing that same hashtag. For example, I can create a tweet with “#lauriemiles” at the beginning or end of my tweet. To join my discussion, all a person has to do is create a tweet that includes “#lauriemiles”. I can see all the tweets that contain that hashtag (a.k.a the microdiscussion) by clicking on the #lauriemiles link in my twitter account. This same process can be used to poll students during a class. Pose a question and give the students your hashtag. You would simply need to access your twitter account to see the incoming tweets.
Another way to communicate using Twitter is to have your students “follow” you on Twitter. They will see your tweets when they log into their twitter account. Additionally, you can push out a tweet to your students’ cell phones if they have enabled that feature.
Your tweets are public by default. You can make your tweets private so that only people you approve will be able to see your tweets. See How to Protect and Unprotect Your Tweets.
