Twitter for Teachers & Students

Twitter for Professional Development

Twitter is a great way for teachers to share resources, see different perspectives from other teachers and to create a professional network.  Teachers create and post wonderful resources on Twitter so it is a great place to find resources and share resources with other teachers. Log into Twitter to find out what's working in other classrooms and give it a try! With twitter, you can log in and at your fingertips find solutions to problems you've had in the classroom. If you follow a Twitter chat, this gives you an opportunity to connect and ask and answer questions about a topic that you're interested in. This makes a more informed teacher. There are so many different teaching styles and Twitter is a great way to learn from other teachers.

resources: 15 Ways to Use Twitter In Education




How to Use Twitter in the Classroom

Twitter is not only great for professional development but it's a great way to motivate your students! I love the idea of taking notes on Twitter and sharing them on a class twitter page. When students collaborate in this way, they really help each other out. I also like the idea of using Twitter to post homework assignments or syllabus updates. Students have their phones in their hands every chance they get, so this is a good way for the class to be connected and always know what's going on. I teach ESL so I like the idea of posting videos and word games for students to look at over the weekend. I find many of my students leave school and don't speak English at home. Some of my students want to watch movies in English but feel overwhelmed with the language and the length of movies. One way I helped improve my own Spanish language skills was by watching short youtube videos in Spanish about subjects that interested me. Students could post short youtube videos to the class page and create discussion questions based on the video.

I love the idea of using social media in the classroom because it's a simple way to motivate students and foster learning.

50 Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom

Twitter Chat

I'm new to Twitter but until recently I was pretty against social networking in general.  After pushing myself on a few social networking sites, I feel I've discovered an amazing new world for educators. After poking around twitter for a couple days, I discovered that it's a great resource for connecting with other language teachers and I realized how great it is for professional development.

One of Twitter's features is something called a twitter chat. They are basically online meetings for people to share something on a topic they are interested in. I've started to follow several other language teachers. I joined a language chat (#langchat ) where teachers get together every Thursday and Saturday. Here, teachers can share resources, ask questions, and "meet" other language teachers.

I attended a Thursday night language chat and not much was happening. I found that one person shared a resource that was a game I can use in my English language classroom. I think twitter chats will be great for my professional development. I searched through #ELLchat and found that teachers shared teaching tips and resources. I look forward to attending more twitter chats and look forward to learning more from other educators. I know that having a wider PLN will help me greatly.