Social Media in Education

From my understanding from these four articles: 1.) 13 Great Twitter Chats Every Educator Should Check Out; 2.) Can Tweeting Help Your Teaching?; 3.) Teachers, students and social media: Where is the line?; and 4.) Using Twitter to Break Down Classroom Isolation, that talk - from various perspectives –  about why “Twitter” or “Twitter Chat” is a good educational tool that educators can use for staying in the loop with other educators and a way they can share resources or information related to class curriculum.

Throughout the articles there were talks saying students can use Twitter to communicate with other students while working on group projects or individually. But seeing Twitter is a free subscription, that means anyone who has subscribed to Twitter is your followers including family, friends, colleagues - and last but not least - your enemies. Yep! All of them.

I also found out that Twitter is a free service - which is good when working on tight budgets - that allows educators to connect with other educators around the world using 140 characters or less. Basically, you got to get straight to the point.

You know who caught my attention the most? Christopher Begeron, a district-level technical coordinator in state of New Hampshire when he said, “some teachers are more open to collaboration and networking. Those who value personal networks are more excited about the technology even if they are not overly tech-savvy”. Now I can relate to him on that. But before this can ever happen an educator must first see if their district or school has a policy on Twitter before proceeding. I allowed, I suppose I could use Twitter for going over my plan of study and to keep students in the loop towards what is going on. These are just some of the many things an educator can use Twitter in their classroom.

If someone is interested in Twitter Chats, Susan Bearden, the co-moderator of  #digcitchat and #edtechcat, and she is the director of Information Technology at Holy Trinity Episcopal Academy in Melbourne, FL, posted some of the more popular chats for starters (besides her own): #edchat/#tlap/#satchat/#satchatwc/#satchatoc/#flipclass/#sschat/#engsschat/#ptchat/#kinderchat/and  #digcit.