Why I love Twitter for Teaching!

Or also known as, Twitter's Been the Best Thing For My Teaching Practice (since sliced bread)....

Teachers can use Twitter in the classroom as a communication tool with their students or with parents. I like to use my classroom twitter to share what we are doing and be more transparent in my practice for all. This past year I really made an effort to tweet the exciting things we were learning.

 

From initial observations of labs:   

To provocations of upcoming labs:

As a Science teacher, what better resources are out there than current events or hot topics. So many provocations this year came from twitter:

Grade 8 - Exploring a Critical Issue

Grade 8 Science - Water Systems

Grade 7 - Heat in the Environment

And even though I don't teach History, I found something that applied to our City:



Sometimes I was even able to find Math concepts or post Math activities for when kids were away:



Here's something I used for my speech unit:



When we were picking lit circle books to read, one student found a book she liked but no group, so I tweeted this out!

I had an opportunity to present and attend a few conferences this year and participate in several collaborative inquiry opportunities, and I was happy that Mrs. Sagarese, who was our guest teacher while I was away, as well as my own students were able to document what was happening in the classroom.

Julia tweeted the first one out and Jessica (far left) was a finalist  for our HCDSB contest!

I like to save resources for parents and or students to use, or for myself to use for early finishers.

When we were discussing Lent, who better to guide our reflections?

I try model for my students how to be a good digital citizen. The internet was a bit of a wild west at first, and there are many misconceptions amongst parents and students. The idea of asking students and parents permission before tweeting out, for example, is modelled for them so they will be more likely to follow my example.

I always reflect on what George Couros said about connecting with others in a digital world. I personally love seeing my friends' pictures on Facebook and I know the students like to see themselves on social media as well. As a parent, I would love to see what my kids do at school.

One of the highlights of our year was the Roots of Empathy program, I know one of the parents was following me on twitter and I made a point to tweet pictures of her son holding the baby. Even our Primary Science teacher popped in to chat about that...

Another highlight this year was our confirmation, I love that I can look back with them on our year and cherish all the memories.

 I also have a professional twitter account because it’s my way to save ideas for my teaching practice. I tell my students I would get an S in organization, but technology has enabled me to improve....as soon as I began using more of it in my classroom, the paper became less overwhelming and I’ve been able to better organize my ideas. I consider myself a creative person, but in collaboration with others, what I do in my classroom provides my students more than I could've ever imagined. Here's an example of just one thing I found on twitter this year that convinced me to start a classroom blog.

  

I really do hope more teachers can see the value of using Twitter with their students!