Twitter in the classroom

Hey friends...

Awhile ago, Chris had posted an article about a kindergarten class where the teacher was using twitter to keep parents up to date about what was going on throughout the day. As most of you know...I teach kindergarten and I LOVE LOVE LOVE my job. I was thinking of the twitter thing and I found it really interesting. I am amazed that a teacher of any grade has time throughout the day to jump on twitter and write anything. I usually don't have two seconds free to myself until it's time for the kids to leave. Not to mention, our principal doesn't even want us to check our email during the day because so many people abuse this and take away from instructional time...which I totally understand being a problem. We really have little time to ourselves so I felt like this would never work for me.

Then I was thinking...I LOVE the twitter idea and I want it to work in my classroom. Instead of twittering throughout the day...I can twitter after school and in the evening...even in the morning before school. I am thinking of using it to send reminders to parents or just general information about what will be going on for the day. I wish I would have done this during this school year because my parents this year were awesome! I'm hoping next year to have another great class and I will definitely use twitter to help post reminders and things.

What do you all think? Whenever I make this twitter account...I will let you all know so you can check it out and let me know what you think about it!

Tags: school, twitter

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Comment by Brian Buckley on June 28, 2009 at 6:32am: personaly im always making presentations to teach one thing or another so i know from experience people learn a lot from the chart and diagrams

Comment by Brian Buckley on June 28, 2009 at 6:31am: easy to in tegrate, could use twitter to teach the kids also, we use power point and such all the time

Comment by Brian Buckley on June 28, 2009 at 6:30am: awsome

Comment by twister7boy on June 17, 2009 at 5:03pm: sounds good. the parent won't be able to say i didn't know about the field trip anymore. peace. gregg

Comment by Kevin Subba on June 12, 2009 at 12:17pm: wow.. sounds grate! new way of keeping parents awake.. :)

Comment by cliffystones on June 10, 2009 at 11:01am: I agree it's great to have as many communication avenues as possible. I'm just a little old-fashioned I suppose. I still have no need for cell phone texting in general, and seldom use more than 100 minutes of air time monthly (usually due to my 9yo daughter talking to her cousins).

If someone is comfortable with using a service like Twitter, I say more power to them! I can see where possibly other parents aren't as reasonable with regard to your time.

Comment by Keith Stoneberger on June 10, 2009 at 9:41am: Twitter of even facebook will work. If you do get time to write a few sentences. Also, if something happens at school before it gets out that the kids have to leave early or needs to be picked up thenm the parents will have a heads up. You can post homework assignments too if you are teaching in the higher grades. Lord knows how many times I hear the words "I don't have homework" and then when I see the report cards all I see is "needs to complete homework on time" written on the report cards.

Comment by MacBaby16 on June 10, 2009 at 6:53am: You'd be surprised but not all parents have an email account that they are willing to share with me. Plus when I do send emails home...I always get long responses and my inbox is full within minutes! This will eliminate that! Obviously, if it is something important...I will send an email or a note or usually a phone call. I know your child's education is precious and I don't feel like this takes away from that at all.

Comment by cliffystones on June 10, 2009 at 6:45am: Maybe I'm just a little slow here, but what's the difference between this and just sending an e-mail to all parents of children in your class? And as I understand "Twitter" the message is severely limited in length. isn't it?

Our children's teachers communicate through official school district e-mail addresses. This has the added security of keeping electronic records of what was said by both parties. And the teachers can send e-mails and responses as time allows, not like with instant messaging.

While I believe Twitter would be a valuable additional method of communicating to those who chose to use it, I personally prefer e-mails and/or written correspondence. Especially with something as precious as my child's education.

Comment by MacBaby16 on June 10, 2009 at 5:28am: RC and E - I see your point. I think a lot of times...I am sending home note after note to inform parents. If they use this to keep up with things...it will save me a lot of time in the end (AND a LOT Of paper! haha) I realize not all parents will be able to access this but for the ones that can...I think it might be great.

Kathy - I didn't plan on using my personal account. I want to make a new one strictly for my class. Also, twitter cannot be accessed from school so I would only be able to send twitter messages while at home. Also...I didn't plan on using names or photos at all!