Rethinking Learning for the 21st Century

“To tweet, or not to tweet?”

Okay, that was too obvious, wasn’t it? How about…

Whether ’tis nobler in class to suffer
The drool and snoring of our bored students,
Or to plunge deep into the Twitterverse,
And, by embracing it–(do I dare dream?)–
Find (Oh!) engagement! learning, through hash tag,
An @, and long’d-for collaboration?

Right… That was worse. Please excuse the terrible blank verse. (Ooops.)

I decided to not make like “the Dane”: Instead, I twittered away invested almost an entire period getting my ENG4U students armed for twitter. Why? you might ask.

It started with a great lesson plan idea from Jason Lilly that has students tweet their reactions to a series of modern-day occurrences that mirror the plot of Hamlet. I did it in class last year by having my students pretend they were on twitter, and I liked the results. I had intended to do it in class yesterday, but, the night before, while I watched the streamed version of the latest Cohort 21 hangout, I asked, Why have them pretend? Why, indeed.

I had all my students make a new (or perhaps dedicated would be better) twitter account using their school emails. (Most of them who use twitter have their accounts tied to their personal emails.) I figured if the class were only following each other and me, and, importantly, if they “protected” their tweets under the privacy settings, everything would be as controlled as possible. I required that their user names by easily identifiable, and I made a new account, too.

A couple of things to keep in mind if you try this.

  1. If you have too many people trying to make new accounts from the same IP address, twitter gets paranoid, so a few students may need to wait a bit before getting accounts.
  2. twitter only lets you have one account per email, so if one of your colleagues has tried this before, your students may need to create another email account.
  3. My students found my not-for-class account in about 1.5 seconds, so thankfully it’s all fairly benign.
  4. The expert students love helping rookies set up their accounts.

After a lot of following, requesting, pending, and accepting, we were all set up. I thought a google.doc may help here, but most of them just found each other without it.

Before I knew it, they were tweeting Hamlet resources and (awesomely!) suggesting witty hashtags for differed scenarios: #ThatIsTheQuestion when you’re lost or curious; #HamLetUp when punning or for related witticisms, etc.

So… To tweet, or not to tweet? I’ll let you know. Lilly’s LP is on tap next clas, without the pretending.

Stay tuned.

 

 

 

 

 

6 Comments

  1. Ruth Eichholtz

    This is cool. I have wondered whether I can find an authentic use for twitter in my classroom, beyond getting the extroverted ones to just tweet their running commentary rather than blurt it out throughout class… I’m interested to hear how the idea progresses, and whether I can find a use for it in IB Math.

  2. Garth Nichols

    I am in the process of using this concept with my Romeo and Juliet exploration with my grade 10s. We’ve had some great conversations around the evolution of language, what a # means, and twitter handles (names) that people use.

    Here is a great video that focuses on instragram, but captures the atemporal nature of this communication:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv73cRpbQaE

    Enjoy!

    • Alan MacInnis

      Cool. Thanks, Garth. Are you having your students assume a character, then?

  3. Jan Campbell

    I am loving this great exchange of ideas and reflections on using twitter as a teaching tool. It makes me wish I was back in the classroom!

  4. Sarah Bylsma

    Alan, I share a similar experience to you, in that setting up the Twitter handles was labor intensive and took a full period, but was worth it. We used our Twitter accounts to create Tweetlitures (or very short stories that could fit inside a Tweet). The students loved it, but also expressed how difficult it was to use an economy of words.

    However, I did have to find alternatives for students who’s parents did not want them having a Twitter account and was wondering if you encountered a similar obstacle? I look forward to reading more about your experiences with Twitter.

  5. Alan MacInnis

    Sarah,

    Thanks for the note. Great idea! Students–well, all of us, really–need to embrace concision as a quality of effective communication. Twitter’s character count would be great reinforcement. (I wonder: did you require proper grammar and punctuation?).

    So far, I’ve only used twitter with my 12s, and all of them already use it or a counterpart. Also, by having them make a dedicated account, protect their tweets, and follow only me and each other, I think we’ve created a fairly safe and private environment. (If I’m missing something key, here, someone please let me know!).

    I can’t wait to use your story idea!

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