The last thing that I thought I would be hearing today was that Twitter could be used in the classroom. My previous jobs were in medical offices, and the message was to be invisible on social media platforms. I don't mean "keep your content clean" but to try not to exist. Imagine my surprise when Jeff mentioned schools using Twitter and specific hashtags as a positive influence for morale. There's an old movie called "Footloose" that was about a town that didn't allow modern music or any kind of dancing. You can guess what happened (every teenager in town wanted in on the action). I realize that my view on social media's place in school is somewhat similar. I worry about the #slipperyslope and #whatif scenarios. I searched to see what else I could find about twitter being used at the high school level.
Social Media in the classroom
I found some great science resources by searching #scienceteacher and followed the National Association of Science Teachers on twitter.
You are witnessing the first GIF I have ever searched for. I went hunting in the google search engine and found "animated" under the tools section of the Google Image search.
via GIPHY
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For children's blog posts, I was relieved to hear that comments have to go through a vetting process before they post. It seems like a great way to help students feel that their words are significant to the world.
Here's a link to the children's blogs that I posted to. One girl had lost her two cats and another student had researched how astronauts trained for outer space in zero G airplanes.
https://kidblog.org/class/
Thank you for taking the time to read my post!
I'll leave you with a more uplifting picture to deconstruct than the others viewed earlier.
https://goo.gl/images/w2a65v
Just a little trouble
Nice GIF!! Believe it or not, I have already been dabbling in the world of GIFs. (ok...so only for a month or so, but still)
ReplyDeleteI too was also a little shocked about the whole "lets use Twitter at school" idea. I am really trying to keep an open mind. After all, when I was a kid in high school, I didn't feel like my teachers really understood me and my needs, or even really attempted to. How cool is it that we get the opportunity to connect with kids in a way that is meaningful to them?
I agree with you. My job (as you know) also required us to watch our social media use, and connecting with our kids on social media was a huge no, no. It will definitely take some getting use to. I love that you searched deeper into twitter use. Some of those are really good. I like the idea of creating twitter accounts for book characters and discussing novels through that. Also good job gif searching (also something I am not good at).
ReplyDeleteI was amazed at how much information we can get from just searching a hashtag... I technically do still have a twitter account, but I don't even know if I can log in anymore (that's how long I've gone without it), and yet I can still utilize twitter and all the people who have it! Its crazy how many ideas get bounced around on social media for all of us to benefit from!
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