Tweeting Your Way to Better Grades

Just communication

When aasked to write a 6 word novel, Ernest Hemingway posed this:

"For sale, baby shoes, never worn."

Imagine what some of our budding young writers might do with the additional 112 characters Twitter allows.

The challenge of education has always been to get the students involved and keep them that way. If Twitter or any other social media site helps to accomplish that then I can only say hooray. I have marvelled for years that students will complete reading assignments online while they resist opening books with all the power of their being.

Is Twitter limited? Of course. Limited, but so powerful if used creatively.

@Tony Speranza and @Bryan

Tony: I see Twitter (and the other technologies discussed) as supplementing the classroom experience, not supplanting it. A quick review of student tweets can help an educator assess, prior to class, whether a) students are current in their reading assignments and b) if there are any obvious misconceptions about the passages. This knowledge could then help focus the classroom discussion on a more in-depth exploration of the text.

Brian: I agree with the criticism of using the "internet predator" strawman as a reason to reject these technologies. Aren't they just as likely to be approached by a "physical predator" on their walks home from the school or the bus stop?

Lkefnnrx

uNkItd

Wikispace

This winter my school district experienced several snow days, which impacted my unit on Othello. I wanted to finish the play before the kids took off for their week long February break; because of the snow days, there was no way this was feasible. Out of desperation, I created a wikispace without really knowing what I was doing and told the kids that they would have to post comments and thoughts on Acts 4 and 5 of the play (we were practicing socratic seminars, so the students who were the discussion leaders for those groups had to perform the same role online). It was an amazing experience. I read insightful comments from students who hated speaking in class but have powerful ideas, and they felt comfortable communicating in this format. Kids were able to be themselves, and I felt like I had an excellent opportunity to get to know my more shy students because they had let their guard down. One girl even told me, "She never had so much fun doing homework, that it didn't even feel like homework." Because it was such a success, I continued the wikispace discussion for the kids to use on their book circle novels in the spring. This summer my advanced placement literature students will be blogging away on the wikispace for an online discussion of Hamlet. It has completely added a new dimension of communication in the classroom not only between teachers and students but students to students.

Edline Option

I recently used a "Discussion" feature on Edline with my 7th grade language arts students, and the kids loved the experience (according to their feedback and their parents' messages to me). Edline is our district's communication place where parents and teachers are able to access grades, class announcements, etc. As a part of the students' literature circle preparation, I required several responses to my teacher-directed posted topics, and the students were required to respond to other members' postings/responses. I believe that the insights were much more meaningful to me and to them. As a teacher, I had the ability to post or not to post if it seemed that the students were not responding to the prompt, getting silly, etc. I always posted what they said but had the flexibility to redirect them in writing. I felt that the kids got more one-on-one instruction from me by using this online discussion feature. The district feels more confident with my interaction in the 21st Century learning activity too among middle schoolers.

Outside Criticism

It is interesting to see that opposition to progressive technological solutions in education are met by recurring arguments from those who do not use the technology itself (reminds one of "Rock and roll is evil: the kids can't control themselves under the influence of it!"). The two criticisms levied here are the internet-predators, and cheating.

As to pedophiles using class-run technology to prey upon children: this type of net-safety must be taught in schools, not ignored. If your children are not accessing social networking sites at school, they are somewhere else. If you want to teach kindergarten children to safely cross the street, you take them across the street. Staying "off" the internet will not make children better navigators, just as discussing traffic safety on the chalk board wouldn't improve the safety of our children.

As for cheating, or engaging students with social media, it must go beyond engagement: these tools represent the primary means of communication of our time, and should be at the center of our courses (such as English, Social Studies, and the Sciences), and not merely window dressing that might make the kids come to class. If technology use is not focused around the original outcomes of the course, it will be the distraction and the waste of time, energy and money that its detractors fear.

Twitter and other social media are a leveling device: citizen journalism, student-created course content, and individual, grass-roots driven conversation are its modes of operation. This does not sit well with many in the traditional realm of tests and essay-papers prepared in a vacuum. But does bode well for the working world these students will enter: one that demands collaboration, multiple technical literacies, and an ability to participate in a global conversation of topics which no longer have boundaries. To quote Barry Bennett: "If students are able to cheat on your test, you need a new test."

None of the above implies that Twitter will destroy the written word: but to deny that communication has changed is utter insanity. The printing press changed communication, as did pencils, as did quills, as did typewriters, computers, and now iPhones and the children they will bear. We should be teaching students how to navigate this changing landscape; if we don't, they're bosses will ask why we were not.

Tweet Away

I believe this is an exciting time to be an educator, and the opportunities for creating engaging learning opportunities with social media tools like Twitter are endless. I especially think the ability to have a real-time back channel conversation, "Mr. Smith is really confusing me right now", might give educators some important feedback regarding how effective or ineffective their lessons might be. The quiet kid in the back of the classroom who the teacher never calls on now has a chance to be heard. The question is -- are our educational institutions ready to hear that voice?

Twitter in the Classroom

When teachers bring in technology such as twitter to the classroom they must also evaluate the Family Education Records Privacy Act (FERPA) ramifications of this technology. It is great to see teachers willing to use new technologies to improve learning and I applaud these effort.

Twitter in the classroom.

"However, as a means of expressing complex, abstract thoughts, the development and expression of which I hope are the focus of my English classes, Twitter seems hopelessly inadequate. ... The root of Twitter, after all, is twit."

The best twit is mostly wit. Brevity will serve some classroom ends, not all. It's not the individual content of any given tweet that opens new possibilities--it's the connections that Twitter opens up.

Twits

I can see the efficacy of using Twitter to schedule study groups. In some cases I could imagine using 140 characters to prod students with a thought provoking question, though it seems to me the question would somehow be impoverished by the mediation of a computer, telephone, or Blackberry screen. In most cases I would rather launch my question face-to-face in class. Tweeting, I suppose, also offers potential lessons in efficient writing as it demands thoughts be clearly expressed in very few words. This application of the technology could be even more effective if teachers demanded all words be spelled properly.

However, as a means of expressing complex, abstract thoughts, the development and expression of which I hope are the focus of my English classes, Twitter seems hopelessly inadequate. Witness, for example, the trouble Newt Gingrich bought for himself by using Twitter to express his concerns about Sonia Sotomayor. On a topic that demands nuance, Gingrich came across as foolish at best. The root of Twitter, after all, is twit.