Twittering About Learning: Using Twitter in an Elementary School Classroom

Many years ago, when I first started teaching, a colleague showed me a great technique for communicating with families: At the end of the day, she used a 24- by 16-inch chart tablet to produce daily news in shared writing with her students. She, and then I, chose one student each day to take the tablet home. That student illustrated the news from that day. The student’s family read the news, along with all of the previous news reports. The students took turns, so families saw it about once a month. I just loved the idea because it encompassed so many qualities that are present in good writing instruction: it taught kids to write using authentic, meaningful topics; it was written for a real audience; there was a clear purpose; it was accessible to, and useful for, the entire range of abilities in my classroom. Even the kids who didn’t get to take the tablet home that day were participating in the shared writing, which means they were reviewing that day’s learning and were more likely to have something specific to answer at home when someone asked “What did you do in school today? ” Students loved the writing, illustrating and sharing their work, and they were highly motivated to do well because they knew many people would be viewing their efforts. Over the years, I’ve gotten away from that tablet technique, but I’ve never stopped looking for ways to get kids to write about real things with a real audience in mind. I’ve never stopped thinking of ways to keep families in the loop about what we’re doing in school. I’ve continually tried to make it a regular part of our day to review what we’re doing. I’ve continued to use modeled and shared writing, and integrated and guided writing, as powerful teaching tools. One year I ended each day by writing a blog with my class. We discussed the events of the day, chose one to focus on, and brainstormed details. We wrote and published on the spot. It was a great way to work on writing for a real reason, and the kids loved sharing their work with families. For a couple of years I also tried using our class web site. These approaches had advantages, but both were very time-consuming for me, and neither offered easy ways for families to participate. This year, I decided to try using Twitter, and the more we use it, the more power I have found in it. Our class Twitter site now has more than 350 entries (called tweets), and we manage to add four or five each day. Almost every entry was composed by my first and second grade students. Along with text, there are photos taken by the students and posted on Twitpic, and audio of kids reading which we post on Chirbit. Now that the class has had almost a year of experience using Twitter, they know the routine, and composing is pretty easy for most of them. We began the year with me posting a few tweets just to get started and try it out. I wasn’t sure if it would work, or if if the time spent would be worthwhile, since time devoted to one thing means less time for something else. Next, I modeled posting on Twitter in front of the class throughout the day, usually right before a transition while we met to share and review whatever lesson we were working on at the time. It