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| It's a Small Small World: Not My Image |
Fortunately, since we live in 2017 there are many resources at our fingertips. This week I spent time exploring Twitter and how it can help me bridge the gap between home and school; to make connections. To start my exploration I went to one of my favorite educational websites: Edutopia. (if you aren't familiar, you should be, it's like Wikipedia for teachers!) I searched Edutopia for Twitter and found two great articles: Making Connections through Twitter and 100 Twitter Tips for Teachers.
The first article has a video which I found to be very powerful. It shows how Twitter has been used in a real live school with actual teachers. I love seeing the technology I read about in action, it makes it so much more meaningful and authentic! In the video students are engaged and connected with other students from other districts and states. "Beyond just the four walls that are in this classroom and with their teacher or their parents, they can share it with classes in Chicago, or across the world," Thornton says. "And that's really important to them, because truly what they're doing, as we know, matters." These are the kind of connections I want students to make. That their world (home language, culture, values) has a place in the larger world. That their classroom community can be accessed and that they have a place in it. It's all about building connections.
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| Image Not My Own |
The second article is much more practical. It's the hows of using Twitter successfully. It offers advice and etiquette as well as suggestions for using Twitter both professionally and in the classroom. While I found a lot of the suggestions useful it also left me with a lot of questions. In particular, how can I use Twitter effectively at the K-3 level? Many of my students do not have access to Twitter like middle school or high school students would. It's something I could use in the classroom but I wouldn't be able to have students Tweet at me after school or on the weekends. While I could use it to communicate with parents, I wouldn't have the direct student connection. There are still a lot of possibilities, I just need to keep thinking!
Making students feel welcome, comfortable, understood, and less confused is a major challenge, but one of the best ways I know to help students acclimate is to show them that I know who they are and I understand where they are coming from. I know what it's like to show up at a new school in a new country and be forced into this new and strange language. For me I build these connection by connecting their home culture and home language with English and American culture. Twitter is a part of that. Using Twitter can help me make that gap just a little bit smaller. It's a small world after all.
Many of the other websites I found were more basic and fundamentals focused. Since I am not a Twitter novice I thought they were a bit redundant for the purpose of the blog above. It's still good information, it just wasn't what I was looking for. I especially like the lists of hashtags and people to follow. The prezi is great too!
Additional Links:
Educational Hashtags Galore
50 Educators to Follow on Twitter
Prezi on Twitter in the Classroom
What I Hate About Twitter Blog
Getting Started on Twitter for ELT
How to Expand PLN
Introduction to Twitter Chats
Twitter for PD in 140 Characters
I like the idea of using Twitter to connect with your students by building connections with them. As you say, the idea of coming to a new school and learning a new language must be very daunting so using a "cool" technology that they like can help bridge that gap between cultures.
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