Using Twitter for Classroom

Recently, I have read some articles about functions of Twitter in classroom. I have gained some inspiration from them.

       According to A Must Have Guide on Using Twitter in your Classroom  , I have learned some functions of Twitter in classroom which I haven’t known before. For example, teachers can use it as an additional way to let students know if there is some last minute news, like class being cancelled. Thus, students would know the news immediately. Moreover, Twitter is more immediate than e-mail. Most importantly, Twitter can improve engagement of students in classroom. During lecture, students can tweet comments or questions via laptop or cell phone. In addition, students in another project agree that digital communication helps overcome the shyness barrier. One student said that it is just an easy way to answer questions in class without embarrassing yourself and raising your hand in a big lecture hall. Secondly, Twitter provides an opportunity for community learning. Students can exchange their opinions about some issues and even discuss some difficult questions in their homework after class. Finally, teachers can get instant feedback from students and even assign Twitter quiz to students.

       According to  10 Twitter Mitakes You should Avoid , I have learned some mistakes teachers should avoid in using Twitter. For example, over-tweeting. We shouldn’t overload our followers with too many tweets and we should get rid of the trivial tweets. Thus, once we put forward some tweets, students would notice and take them seriously immediately. Secondly, our opinions should be objective rather than insulting somebody because by doing so, we may displease some of our followers. Then, we shouldn’t have too many accounts. If we do so, we may make some mistakes such as posting homework assignment on our private account and messing up our communication.

       After reading these articles, I find that Twitter is a very useful tool for future teaching.