Tweet Your Class

The Idea

Students need to be reminded about home work or a quiz? Do you ever find a great website or something that is a bit of a tangent? Do you feel like if you students just focused on making one or two sentences correct they could benefit? Try tweeting!

Come On, Just Try

I took some selling for the concept. Now I'm a convert. Try it for a month. Make your students participate. See what they have to say. They are using social media to improve their English, not distract from it.

Tweet Once or Twice a Day

I think it works well to send out one tweet a day about what you did in class or the homework. Put "#Name of your class" at the end so then everyone can see what everyone is saying if they search "#Name of your class"! It's really neat to see the discussion evolve and you are the architect.

Some things to Tweet

• Homework
• Extra credit 
• Questions for discussion
• Topic preview
• Blog posts that may be helpful
• Websites to supplement what we did in class
• Discussion questions
• Vocabulary practice tweets
• Test taking strategies
• Learning strategies
• Student Interest based tweets- music, soccer, University

Example Tweets

http://goo.gl/S9IFU Leadership styles of famous leaders. What kind do you admire? Post your thoughts. #MastersLS

HW: Write a paragraph about General Sherman's transformation as a leader. #mastersls

Extra credit tweet: Whose speech today do you remember the most and why (not your own) #MastersLS

#MastersLS Take this leadership quiz. Tweet your style and why you are that leader. http://goo.gl/eb1I9

Rules

• Don't respond too much. It'll seem like you are controlling the conversation.
• Don't go more than a few days without tweeting or people will think you gave up.
• If students make a mistake, privately send them a message with the correction; I made this mistake and the person never tweeted again.
• Make a policy- Be nice, be helpful, etc.
• Make tweeting mandatory if you are going to do it.
• Use goog.l, bit.ly, or tinyurl to save characters

The Future

How would you use this? Think of the possibilities! Succinct discussion about class, outside of class. Follow me and Tweet your thoughts, or comment on the blog.
Twitter: drnagy86