Twitter in the Elementary Classroom: A Teacher's Journey

Katie rushed up next to me, iPad in one hand, notebook and pen in the other. With energy overflowing she began, "I can't wait to tell you about what my kiddos are doing!" Setting her notebook down, opened to a page full of scribbled notes about Twitter, she focused on her iPad, quickly tapped the Twitter app icon on the screen, and scrolled through her class Twitter feed, stopping on occasion to explain different tweets. "This is where Zoie tweeted her guess to the math 3D shapes riddle from Ms. Cassidy's class, and look here, Ms. Cassidy's class replied!" She continued to scroll, pausing again to explain other examples of student tweets.I scrolled through the tweets, delighting in Katie's excitement, recalling her struggles and confusion with Twitter not so long ago. It had only been a month since Katie asked me questions in an email about how to get started with integrating Twitter in her classroom. Since then, we had been emailing offand on: in the beginning, she asked questions and shared concerns; I asked questions and shared ideas, resources, and encouraging words. Later, she shared her excitement and news of learning while I continued to support her.The exciting work with Twitter in her secondgrade classroom and my involvement happened serendipitously. I am a professional development provider working with teachers and schools in Katie's region on a variety of topics, including technology. Katie was given my name when searching for guidance. Because I recognized the important work Katie was doing with her exploration of microblogging through Twitter in her classroom, I asked if I could document her journey to share with other teachers. Happily, she agreed.What follows is a glance into Katie's journey, specifically Katie's eight week journey from apprehension and concern about using a technology she was unsure of to excitement and disbelief about the positive impact it had on her second grade students' learning and her teaching. I hope this column will help demystify Twitter for other teachers who, like Katie, realize they need to support their students' development of new literacies, including their experience with social media, but are uncertain about where to begin or what to do once they begin.Twitter, New Literacies, and "Twitteracy"Evidenced by elementary grade classroom Twitter accounts like @MrsWideensClass, @mscassidysclass, or @FourthGraders, and hashtags such as #edchat, #kinderchat,  Twitter is being used at the elementary school level. Study results have suggested that Twitter has value educationally, not just for older students, but for elementary students as well (Kurtz, 2009; Waller, 2010) Additionally, a teacher's effective use of Twitter in the classroom can help students gain the 21st century skills they need (Junco, Elavsky, Heiberger, 2013).After reviewing the research on literacy education, Greenhow and Gleason (2012) argued that Twitter can foster new literacies in students. They defined new literacies as dynamic, situationally specific, multimodal, socially mediated, co constructed, and participatory (Coiro, Knobel,  2008; Lankshear, Knobel, Curran, 2013) New literacy characteristics specific to Twitter include: dynamic: Twitter content is continuously changing over time* situationally specific: e.g. a Twitter stream is specific to the online space and time* multimodal: tweets may include any combination of text, image, video, or links* socially mediated: account holders communicate around specific topics* co constructed: others can retweet, modify tweets, and reply to tweetsThe authors conceptualized "Twitteracy" that is, competent use of Twitter to communicate as a form of new literacies, given the prevalence of social media in today's digital world. Subsequently, the researchers established the importance of educating students about how to communicate effectively via social media, such as microblogging through Twitter.