We all know Social Networking is the biggest thing since sliced bread… But how do we get it into the Primary School classroom without breaching the terms and conditions regarding age restrictions? I’ve tried a few things that I think are worth sharing and they’ve been pretty successful across middle and senior school as well as all learning areas.
option 1:
Create a school twitter account and allow students to tweet from there. I’ve done this on a number of occasions. As children are learning about various topics, I have the twitter feed running live. They can tweet, ask questions and respond to one another. This allows those kids who are always eager to share, to share without interrupting. Kids also tweet experts when wanting to gather information. It’s a great way to teach them about Social Networking while being monitored at the same time. I get the kids to write their initials at the end of their tweets so I know who’s saying what. Twitter is also a great way to get kids to summarise because they have a character count.
option 2:
Use Google Docs as a Twitter Feed. I use this on a daily basis and the kids love it! We use hashtags to create a topic and students add to the feed before, during and after learning. They love keeping up to date with it and add to it regularly. It’s also a great way for me to monitor student learning. Students write their names with the @ symbol at the beginning and then add comments. I date each feed and add any links that we might be tweeting about. It’s been a fabulous way for me to teach my students about Social Networking in a controlled environment.
Where to next? Getting other teachers and students joining our feed!
Why not give it a go? Starting Tweeting!
Here’s another great article I came across in researching about using the # in the classroom.
Posted by George Couros http://georgecouros.ca/blog/archives/2609
That is a good idea, but are you ready to bear the responsibility of the inevitable misuse of such communication??
LikeLike
I’ve been so lucky that I haven’t had any misuse. I guess when working with children you need to be aware of things going wrong, no matter what you do. The expectations were clear from the beginning and because each child’s name is associated with each post, they know that everything they type and send is monitored. Setting up clear expectations and discussing with children what’s appropriate is key!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well said! But at the same time, why twitter and not just a closed group on facebook which is much easier to control and share material on?
LikeLike
I don’t use Facebook myself so I didn’t want to use something in the classroom that I don’t use. I really like Twitter. It’s simple and easy to use. I like that there’s a character limit as well. We use Edmodo rather than Facebook.
LikeLike