Twitter in Education

From my experience using Twitter this week and doing some research on how it can be utilized in education, I found that Twitter may be a social media outlet that I could use with my learners. This semester, I am teaching college EFL students English 101 courses: one oral skills course and two writing courses. For my Oral Skills 1 course, one of the objectives is for students to be able to present in front of an audience using proper academic English. The article “The Ultimate Guide to Using Twitter in Education” contains so much information on ways to utilize Twitter in the classroom. From what I read, I thought I could use Twitter’s polling feature to have my Oral Skills 1 course students take class polls on particular topics and issues. After the votes are complete, I could pair students up and have them discuss, interpret, and present the findings on their polls in front of the entire class.

            For my writing course students, Twitter can get their creative thoughts put into writing. In the article “Can Tweeting Help Your Teaching?”, it highlights a middle school teacher’s usage of Twitter with his students. Gary Mayo is an eighth grade teacher from Maryland, and he used Twitter by connecting his class with other students around the world via storytelling. They all collaborated on an ongoing story, which each student contributed to in a form of a tweet. I really love this idea for two main reasons. Firstly, it would allow my students to be creative and add their twists to an ongoing plot. Secondly, it would give my leaners the opportunity to interact with other students globally. Kudos to Gary Mayo and his project!