KENNEYCLASS
More Twitter Reasons in the Classroom
I came across some other great examples of twittering in the classroom. I am excited to try this in my 5th grade class. Although many students may or may not have access to a cell phone with text min. or a computer at home. I was going to assign a "twitter student" a day. This student has free access to one of the computers in the classroom and will routinely tweet what we are doing and learning throughout the day. Maybe we can find other classes throughout the world that are doing the same thing and we can follow them and vice versa? Steve Wheeler's blog shares some good twittering ideas:
1. ‘Twit Board’ Notify students of changes to course content, schedules, venues or other important information.
2. ‘Summing Up’ Ask students to read an article or chapter and then post their brief summary or précis of the key point(s). A limit of 140 characters demands a lot of academic discipline.
3. ‘Twit Links’ Share a hyperlink – a directed task for students – each is required to regularly share one new hyperlink to a useful site they have found.
2. ‘Summing Up’ Ask students to read an article or chapter and then post their brief summary or précis of the key point(s). A limit of 140 characters demands a lot of academic discipline.
3. ‘Twit Links’ Share a hyperlink – a directed task for students – each is required to regularly share one new hyperlink to a useful site they have found.
4. ‘Twitter Stalking’ Follow a famous person and document their progress. Better still if this can be linked to an event (During the recent U.S. Presidential elections, many people followed @BarackObama and kept up to date with his speeches, etc).
5. ‘Time Tweet’ Choose a famous person from the past and create a twitter account for them – choose an image which represents the historical figure and over a period of time write regular tweets in the role of that character, in a style and using the vocabulary you think they would have used (e.g. William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar).
6. ‘Micro Meet’ Hold discussions involving all the subscribing students. As long as everyone is following the whole group, no-one should miss out on the Twitter stream. All students participate because a sequence of contributors is agreed beforehand.
7. ‘Micro Write’ Progressive collaborative writing on Twitter. Students agree to take it in turns to contribute to an account or ‘story’ over a period of time.
8. ‘Lingua Tweeta’ Good for modern language learning. Send tweets in foreign languages and ask students to respond in the same language or to translate the tweet into their native language.
9. ‘Tweming’ Start off a meme – agree on a common hash-tag so that all the created content is automatically captured by Twemes or another aggregator.
10. ‘Twitter Pals’ Encourage students to find a Twitter ‘penpal’ and regularly converse with them over a period of time to find out about their culture, hobbies, friends, family etc. Ideal for learning about people from other cultures.
5. ‘Time Tweet’ Choose a famous person from the past and create a twitter account for them – choose an image which represents the historical figure and over a period of time write regular tweets in the role of that character, in a style and using the vocabulary you think they would have used (e.g. William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar).
6. ‘Micro Meet’ Hold discussions involving all the subscribing students. As long as everyone is following the whole group, no-one should miss out on the Twitter stream. All students participate because a sequence of contributors is agreed beforehand.
7. ‘Micro Write’ Progressive collaborative writing on Twitter. Students agree to take it in turns to contribute to an account or ‘story’ over a period of time.
8. ‘Lingua Tweeta’ Good for modern language learning. Send tweets in foreign languages and ask students to respond in the same language or to translate the tweet into their native language.
9. ‘Tweming’ Start off a meme – agree on a common hash-tag so that all the created content is automatically captured by Twemes or another aggregator.
10. ‘Twitter Pals’ Encourage students to find a Twitter ‘penpal’ and regularly converse with them over a period of time to find out about their culture, hobbies, friends, family etc. Ideal for learning about people from other cultures.
Here is a great video about Teaching with Twitter:
Educational Uses of Second Life
There are so many different focuses of educational uses of Second Life but first I Let's talk about how teachers are using Second Life in RL (real life). I will share some great worlds and share some ideas on how they are being used or how you and I can use these tools in the classroom.
Centre for Water Studies @ Better World Island (click on links to Teleport to world)
This world includes six distinct habitats that simulate real water life. Each habitat includes notecards, animals, plants and environment. Group students into cooperative groups and assign a water habitat such as: Mangrove Swamp, Pacific Northwest Rainforest, Pondlife, Waterfall with pool and stream, Coral Barrier Reef or Ocean beach with undersea marine life. Students will explore their area read information about each distinct habitat. Student then will research and determine dangers to this habitat and report on it to class.
Learn about sustainability in Etopia Island
After students research their water habitat the cooperative groups can research sustainabilities of the environment in Etopia Island. This world showcases renewable energy, organic living in an authentic environment.
- Have students take the sustainability quiz and elicit background knowledge of subject
- Take a bike ride around the world to see what looks interesting or take the train around to get a quick glimpse of the world.
- Learn about Wind, solar and water energy
- Have students learn about cohousing communities and is this something they see themselves using in the future?
Think it is difficult to teach empathy? Try simulating a
"This clinic building is based on the hallucinations of two specific people with schizophrenia. They were interviewed in detail and gave feedback on early designs for the hallucinations. While the hallucinations are not glamorous, they fairly accurately reproduce these patients' experiences. You should get a sense of just how intrusive the voices of schizophrenia really are." At the end of the experience students take
a survey to reflect on the experiment.
History comes alive in Second Life!
Visit Land of Lincoln and your avatar can put on authentic clothing and listen to the Gettysburg Address. Take a carriage ride and visit Linco
ln's birth home or a Antebellum Southern Plantation. Don't just read about a time and place, experience it!
In Lincoln Land students can visit the lending library and read literature from the time period. Open the books just as you would the real books.
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