I was extremely hesitant of the social network when it went live for the first time several years ago. However, I distinctly remember hearing a news report in which the Twitter creators were interviewed to talk about the upcoming launch. As the reporter (whose name and network now escape me) introduced them, he said that Twitter would revolutionize the internet and news industry.
I thought that was a load of crap.
However, I was curious and probably getting a little bored of Facebook, so I reluctantly conformed with the bold revelation and signed up for my first Twitter account. Admittedly, it took a while for me to appreciate it; the first users in my circle of friends used it to post status updates similar to those on Facebook. Interaction with others didn't seem very social and the site as a whole just felt kind of dead and useless. Fast-forward several years later and Twitter has, indeed, revolutionized the internet and news industry. Furthermore, it has changed the way humans interact with each other and consume information, making for a more globalized and interdependent society.
That said, a lot of people still abuse the liberties of being able to talk to one another behind the protection of a keyboard. I have struggled with how to use the site in the classroom for this very reason; I simply cannot control all of what students see and say.
But then again, should I?
I believe in free speech as much as the next guy and truly appreciate the power of ideas--especially since I have the privilege of teaching how they have transformed human history. While I certainly think a lot (most?) ideas on the internet are stupid, who am I to censor my students when there are possibilities for learning and for students to engage with classroom material. So, instead, the question becomes whether or not Twitter is a useful platform for students to engage with academic content. Can Twitter's strengths (access to information, organization of ideas, global connectedness, and simplicity of infrastructure) outweigh the danger of students being able to access things we as educators might deem inappropriate?
Considering the biased phrasing above, I hope my answer is transparent.
One idea that I have been wrestling with for how to incorporate Twitter into the classroom involves using it in cooperation with other, more traditionally academic sites to create historical accounts in "real time." In other words, students would create their own primary source materials through their understanding from research.
The idea is still very much a work in progress, but in my head it looks a little something like this:
- The project is ongoing throughout a week-long unit. It does not necessarily need to take up the whole time, or even quite as long. It could be done in a single class period if all of the time was devoted to it.
- Students would begin by gathering information. They could each be assigned a different person from a given historical era (i.e. American Civil Rights) to research.
- The amount of time allotted for research would depend on what the teacher wants to assess. I would create research questions to guide students' searches. The assessment would be students tweeting from the perspective of their designated person to show what that individual might have been thinking and experiencing in "real time." Hence, they would essentially be creating primary sources.
- Students would also interact with one another by tweeting replies, favoriting, and retweeting each other. They could track interactions through the use of hashtags to organize information. This could be made competitive if students had a minimum that they must interact with each other and the person with whom the most people interacted won. I could be persuaded to designate some kind of prize.
#Thanksforreading
