ICT > Twitter

Tom Barrett is a Year 5 classroom teacher, ICT Subject Leader and Assistant Headteacher in a large primary school in Nottinghamshire. He has been blogging about the implementation of technology in his classroom for over three years at edte.ch and has been using Twitter since 2007.

Twitter has quickly become the social network of choice for thousands of teachers and educators. While Facebook provides a wide variety of ways to create and interact with each other online, Twitter uses a simple 140 character message only.

It is this simplicity that attracts many teachers to the vibrant network, but Twitters simple nature belies the powerful impact it can have. Once connected with teachers and educators from around the world, it has the potential to bring a wide range of benefits to your teaching role.

To get you started here are 15 different ways to make the most of Twitter:

• Connect with other teachers - add other teachers to your network by "following" their updates. Use tools such as Twibes and Mr Tweet to discover teachers to follow

• Follow conferences and events - many teachers using Twitter will post their reactions and thoughts from conferences. To keep track of them they will tag the messages with what is known as a hashtag. The upcoming Scottish Learning Festival tag is #SLF09. Simply use a Twitter search for these tags to see the conversations

• Search for keywords - use a Twitter search for keywords that relate to your subject or current topic (e.g. IWB, phonics, WW2, multiplication)

• Find great links - Many teachers contribute links to top quality web resources, articles, games and ideas. Look out for the links in people's messages, and even contribute your own

• Ask for advice - once your network has been established and you have been using it for a while, you may be able to tap into the expertise within it. Ask for advice and suggestions for resources or lessons - do not rush into this too soon as with a fledgling network, as such a request may not yield the results you may want

• Follow fictional users - Samuel Pepys has a Twitter account and is currently giving his followers an account of the Great Fire of London

• Track current events and breaking news - one of the most notable uses of Twitter in the public domain is how news and information is spread. Again using the hashtags (see no.2) to track topics event information often unfolds in real time. Explore the hashtag #stationfire for current news on the Los Angeles fires

• Geotweets - ask you network for a small piece of information about their location. Challenge your students to find their institution in Google Earth. Reply with some information to confirm you found them. Great way to give children a real-world reason to use Google Earth search. Lesson blog post

• Communicate with experts - follow and communicate with experts in different fields. For example NASA has many Twitter streams and the astronaut Mike Massimino even tweeted from space during his mission to work on the Hubble Telescope last May. His messages would (and still do) give great insight into space missions. (Thanks to @porchdragon)

• Use a Twitter application - Although the Twitter website is where everyone starts, many soon move onto using applications such as Tweetdeck or Twhirl. These allow you to interact with your network, sort your messages, search and much more

• Go mobile - take Twitter with you by using some of the iPhone and iPod Touch applications that are available. Here is a useful blog post about free and paid for applications

• Gather real world data - Put a shout out to your Twitter network for them to tell you (and your students) something. This could be: location (for geography), temperature (for science), an interesting historical fact, or simply their opinion about something. (Thanks to @dajbelshaw)

• Summarise topics/views as tweets - Use Historical Tweets for some great ideas about how famous people might summarise their ideas as tweets. Then invite the students to produce a tweet dialogue between two opposing characters (King Harold and William the Conqueror, for example) about a key issue. (Thanks to @russeltarr)

• Literature character development - After a study of point of view and character development on a novel or short story, students become a character and create a twitter account eg: @janeeyre, @rochester Students could then use their study of that character to create conversations around key events in the plot. (Thanks to @hlvanrip)

• Set the example - Younger and younger children are using sites such as Twitter and Facebook. It is important that we are aware we have the opportunity to show the positive use of these tools and set a great example for children to follow

Twitter is many things to different people, these are just a handful of ideas to help you make the most of your network and get started - I hope you find them useful. Some of the ideas are taken from the resource 25 Interesting Ways to Use Twitter in the Classroom and you can see I have referred to some of the teachers who contributed.

If you need some further help or have any questions why not drop me a message on Twitter @tombarrett