TeachersFirst's Twitter for Teachers Resources
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Twitter is more than just a way to share meaningless tweets about your breakfast cereal or the traffic on the way to school. Who has time for that?
For teachers, Twitter can be a powerful tool for professional development via quick sharing with peers and colleagues whom you may or may not know face to face. Imagine running across other teachers who teach the same things you do and exchanging ideas quickly, just when you need them. Imagine putting out a plea for help and finding others willing to suggest a solution. Imagine sharing the cool finds you have discovered on TeachersFirst or a great way to make dictionary skills engaging in your classroom. We all know the best tidbits are from other teachers, and Twitter gives you a way to create a network to constantly learn.
Twitter can also be an effective way to communicate from your class to other classrooms around the globe. If Twitter is accessible inside your school's filtering, your class Twitter account can be an avenue to interact with classrooms across town or across the world. Share tweets about today's news, environmental data, hot topic opinions, and more using hashtags, mentions, or messages. *A tip from Texas teacher Allison: If you work with English language learners, you will want to avoid some common tweet-shortening abbreviations, such as using gr8 to mean great. Non-native speakers do not easily grasp these abbreviations.*
You do not have to know everything about Twitter to get started. Start out with this video for an overview of Twitter. Set up a Twitter account, and follow @teachersfirst to find other TeachersFirst enthusiasts. You can even follow Geo and Meri of Globetracker's Mission to become familiar with how Twitter works. You can access Twitter on their own web site or use one of the many free Twitter sharing tools available for free download. There are many Twitter tools for mobile devices, also free. But you don't need to worry about any of these to start.
Hashtags (those funny looking things with a #pound sign at the start) are a way of indicating that a tweet pertains to a certain topic or a certain interest group/event. The term hashtag refers to the funny # mark. To see what a hashtag does, try searching for one of these education-specific hashtags on Twitter (or watch them flying by in the little "widget" below. Try to figure out what each specialty is: #edchat, #ntchat, #ptchat, #midleved, #gtchat, #edtech, #artsed, #musedchat, #mathchat, #engchat, #EduIT. This is a good way to find people with common interests so you can FOLLOW them. Send a tweet including your favorite hashtag, telling people you are new to Twitter. Teachers who have searches set up for that hashtag will see your message, and you will receive a warm welcome!
For an easy way to get started, try Across the World Once a Week, a simple way to learn about the details of daily life in other cultures. The #xw1w hashtag pulls the weekly question and responses together in a quick Twitter search. Learn more about it here.
This collection of resources will give you some ideas and places to find other educators using Twitter and some of the various other tools that maximize Twitter's power for specific sharing, such as photos. We even have some reviews of Twitter-alternatives for those who prefer to stay in an education-only network. We have listed our top 30 Editor's Choice. View additional Twitter Resources here
Set up a Twitter account, follow @teachersfirst, and we'll send you a tweet!
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Tweetgen - Tweetgen
Grades
8 to 12In the Classroom
Use Tweetgen as part of your Internet safety and digital citizenship lessons as a tool for teaching students how to use social media properly. Include it as an engaging way for students to share learning about events in history. For example, generate tweets that might have occurred in response to Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Have students add fact check warnings for false information. After saving the images, include them in a larger multimedia presentation created using Sway, reviewed here, that includes student-created texts, images, tweets, and videos. Learn more about social media practice spaces by reading this helpful blog post.You must be registered and logged in to add items to your favorites.
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Twitter Chat: Using Social Media to Build a Sense of School Community - TeachersFirst
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Find resources and explore ways to use social media effectively to build school climate, culture, and community. Share this chat with your colleagues looking for sites and information related to social media implementation.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Twitter Chat: Using Social Media to Increase Student Engagement - TeachersFirst
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Find tools and resources to create lessons that incorporate use of social media. Share this chat with your colleagues looking for sites and information related to social media use in the classroom. Explore the various tools that are shared.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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tchat - Congo Labs
Grades
6 to 12In the Classroom
Sometimes it's hard to stay focused on a group Twitter chat. Take advantage of this tool to avoid distractions and communicate only with the members of the chat session. It's a relief to use this tool and be able to take your time commenting back and forth and not have to hunt through countless other Tweets to find your group and that one comment where you want to reply. tchat is the perfect tool to use with Twitter in the classroom so students will stay focused on your topic. If your class is following a scientist, engineer, politician, or any other professional, invite them to a chat to converse with your students and have the students stay focused. If you are taking an online class and one of the requirements is to participate in a Twitter chat, this tool is perfect to help you meet your goal.Use tchat on laptops during a video or student presentations. Pose questions for all to answer/discuss using an assigned hashtag. Ask students to pose their own "I wonder if..." questions as they watch and listen. Keep every student engaged and THINKING as an active listener. The first time you use tchat, you will want to establish some etiquette and accountability rules, such as respectful language and constructive criticism. Assign students to watch a news program or political show and have a chat during the broadcast. Revisit the chat on a projector in class the next day or post the chat transcript to a class blog or wiki and have students respond further in blog posts or on the wiki discussion tab. The advantage of backchannel chat is that every student has a voice, no matter how shy.
Use tchat to collaborate with other classrooms or teachers at a distance. Use a whole class Twitter account to contribute to a regular chat. Professionally, teachers can join subject or grade level specific Tweet chats that happen in real time. See the Twitter Chat Schedule, reviewed here or Cybraryman's Educational chat and hashtag listings here to find real-time groups you can join using tchat.
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Trends24 - Trends24
Grades
9 to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Use this tool to look at the topics that are trends in the various countries. Compare and contrast the top trends and how they differ from other countries that are neighbors or are far away. This tool is helpful in understanding political or cultural issues that extend worldwide or affect more than one region. Use the trending topics to understand the point of view of various countries. Look at news reports or causes for the change in the trend. Twitter trends could be useful in any subject area but especially useful for current events, civics, health, and economics.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Twchat - TwChat
Grades
9 to 12In the Classroom
Do you use Twitter in the classroom? Use TwChat to create a chat room using a hashtag as invitation. See all tweets related to the hashtag in one place. Consider using a Twitter chat as a collaborative activity to find and share resources about a topic, translate material into/from another language, or understand the meaning behind literary works. Not interested in starting your own chat? Explore the site to discover Twitter chats to match your interests and needs. Find chats that are related to your expertise to learn about issues in the field or to bring a new perspective of that subject area to share with your classes. Find new people with similar interest to follow and build your PLN. Need more information about Twitter? Read more about Twitter at TeachersFirst's Twitter for Teachers page.Edge Features:
Parent permission advised before posting student work created using this tool
Includes Interaction w general public/ public galleries with unmoderated content
Includes social features, such as "friends," comments, ratings by others
Requires registration/log-in (WITH email)
Multiple users can collaborate on the same project
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Educators New to Twitter - Kyle Calderwod
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
After creating an account, look at the page for what else you can start doing. Find other educators to follow on the Before You Begin page, and also look at participating in a Twitter Chat. Find a list of chats to join, and the day and time they meet at Twitter - Education Chats.As a teaching tool, Twitter is amazing! If your school permits access, have a class account for your class to follow people who work in fields and topics you study. Even primary grades can connect with other classes or "follow" many learning experiences via Twitter. Learn much more about teaching ideas and tools for Twitter in the many resources listed on Twitter for Teachers page.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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A List of Twitter Educators by Subject Area - Alice Keeler
Grades
K to 12This site includes advertising.
In the Classroom
Explore the site to discover and follow educators who match your interests and needs. Read the Tweets about what is happening in other classrooms to gain some fresh, new ideas. Looking for more ways to use Twitter in the classroom? If you are the only person in your building who teaches a particular subject, such as gifted or learning support, this list can help you find like minds to share ideas or to set up collaborations between your students. Read more about Twitter at TeachersFirst's Twitter for Teachers page.Comments
what a great resourceSusan, NY, Grades: 6 - 12
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TweetedTimes - Tweetedtimes
Grades
9 to 12In the Classroom
Use Tweeted Times to showcase your own Professional Development over time. Create and share a newspaper from a class or teacher Twitter account as a summary of content learned. Create a newspaper to use for real world learning in any subject (see Thematic newspapers). Share a newspaper of your class tweets with parents (and school administration) to show what students have learned and to highlight the value of Twitter in the classroom. Students can create a newspaper using their own Twitter account to document their learning and conversations. Be sure to use TeachersFirst's review of Twitter for great classroom ideas.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Twitter Magnets - twittermagnets.com
Grades
3 to 12In the Classroom
Create a message or "poem" of the day as a class to send from your class Twitter account. Use as a center activity or have student groups create their own messages about what you have learned today in any subject area class. Have ELL students create simple messages to reinforce language skills. If you don't have a Twitter account, just have students create offline messages. Take a quick screen shot, then write, illustrate, and share on your classroom bulletin board! Generate creative messages as a class to use as writing prompts. Have students tell the story (or nonfiction news account) about what caused the message. Looking for more ways to use Twitter in the classroom? Read more about Twitter at TeachersFirst's Twitter for Teachers page. You can also use this site as a tool to teach about digital citizenship and the etiquette of tweets.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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All My Tweets - AirTight Interactive
Grades
9 to 12In the Classroom
Use on an Interactive whiteboard or projector to introduce a class topic or follow current events. This site could be used for students to submit an assignment of their own tweets they did over a period of time. Or use this site during a presentation on how Twitter works, showing the information contained in a succession of tweets. Have students submit a record of tweets that show their learning over time. Follow a Twitter user who often shares resource links for a diary of resources that have been shared. Trace the tweets from the White House, any high profile political figure, or author over a period of time. Follow discussions about current events or new events in science or medicine. See this list of tweeting authors for some possibilities.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Twitter4Teachers - Gina Hartman
Grades
K to 12In the Classroom
Explore the site to discover and follow educators who match your interests and needs. Read the Tweets about what is happening in other classrooms to gain some new/fresh ideas. Want to know more about Twitter? See TeachersFirst's Twitter for Teachers page.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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Tweet Topic Explorer - Neoformix
Grades
8 to 12In the Classroom
This would be fantastic projected on a whiteboard (or projector) for the class to see. Use this resource by entering a Twitter username (such as a politician's) to stay up to date about what they are discussing (or to realize the overuse of certain talking points!) Enter an author's user name to follow current discussions. Use this resource over a period of several weeks to identify the changing trends or changes in stories over time. Follow any Twitter name that can shed light on any academic topic for use in a class. Does your class use twitter? Enter the username(s) to create a word cloud of what your class has done. Use the word cloud and Tweets to reflect on what has been learned in the class. Follow what a famous person or writer is tweeting. See this list of tweeting authors for some possibilities.Add your comments below (available only to members) | Become a Member
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