Twitter+Tuesday

media type="custom" key="23603584" align="center" ** Ways to maximize Twitter as a Student ** My former students have been taking advantage of Twitter’s format to keep their plugged in & up-to-date on the classroom content. Here’s just a few ways you can use Twitter Tuesdays in AP Government (or any class for that matter). Just remember to use the hashtag #DrCashAPGov

One of the simplest ways that you can use Twitter is to use a feed dedicated exclusively to due dates, tests or quizzes. Subscribe to different mainstream and independent news feeds with different biases as a way to compare and contrast how different perspectives interpret current events and issues. Keep a daily journal on any trends that crop up along the way. As inane as Justin Bieber’s popularity is, at least an educational opportunity lurks around the corner. Rather than keeping up with an e-mail train, students can use Twitter to collaborate on different projects and keep a quick reference on any changes. Incorporate Twitter in lessons that track hash tags for another interesting lesson in how trends spread and the various ways in which people use social media to communicate ideas. Partner up with local government or charitable organizations and use Twitter to reach a broad audience discussing the latest cultural or educational events in the area and encourage others in the community to attend. Bring a little technology into debates by asking the class which issues they would like to follow. Subscribe to relevant hash tags and accounts from all perspectives and compile an updated resource cobbling together as much research as possible. Many writers and poets have experimented with Twitter’s 140-character format to bring new, serialized works in small chunks to attention-divided audiences. Sick kids may like the idea of following along with class field trips on Twitter, and smart phone-enabled students can keep them engaged with pictures and descriptions of the lessons learned. Keep a running stream of questions going during class. Keep foreign language students informed of current events from relevant nations while simultaneously challenging them to use their translation skills by keeping a specific news feed. Tweet ideas and quotes from your favorite current or historic figures. Classrooms with enough resources can allow students to tweet their own notes during lessons and share with their peers – perhaps even printing them out for home use if they do not have internet access. Wordpress and other free blogging websites sync with Twitter, posting notices of new entries. Older high school students who need to explore their career options before spiriting away to college benefit from real-world discussions with professionals in paths they’re considering. Twitter helps them connect with primary sources and facilitates educational communication. Teachers and students from around the world can collaborate on projects using Twitter as a communication tool that simultaneously educates students in different classroom and cultural protocols. Typing keywords into Twitter’s search engine wields every microblog entry on the subject, providing an excellent way for students to research ideas, opinions and movements as they happen. Parents of students interested in daily classroom activities can follow teacher tweets discussing some of the lessons learned and any progress on projects with one quick and handy trip to a dedicated Twitter feed. As a teacher who is responsible for educating my students in politics or government, I like the idea of encouraging my students to use Twitter as a forum to make society aware of issues that affect them by retweeting relevant events, news stories, blog posts and other media revolving around a chosen theme. Numerous local and national government organizations maintain their own Twitter feeds, and educators working within any of their related subjects may like the idea of compiling them all into 1 convenient space for a quick reference. Any media studies classes – including literature – can use the Twitter format to write microreviews of the different movies, books and music devoured. Save paper by using Twitter to post up sample questions for upcoming exams for students to research and consider without ever having to put down their computers. Retweet articles, news stories, opinions and other interesting tidbits relevant to a specific class as an excellent, convenient supplement to classroom lectures. Take supplementary material postings one step further by posting student succinct responses to the main theses and open up intelligent discussions with one another. High school economics teachers frequently use stock market games as a real-world project involving the fundamentals of investing. Students can use Twitter to follow the businesses, markets and analysts that help them make wise choices with their (fake) money. Using the microblog format, students can record their initial reactions and responses to movies and books as they indulge in them for class. It certainly makes for an excellent lesson in how perceptions change over time as more information and perspectives become available. Benefitting both students and their parents, Twitter can be used to discuss films and documentaries or books to check out at home – preferably as a family. Encourages parental engagement by asking them to voice their opinions on where to go and where to avoid when it comes to planning field trips. While it is impossible to please everyone, moms and dads will appreciate the transparency and ability toconnect more with what their children are doing and learning in school. Students can demonstrate their preferences and artistic ability by designing their own creative backgrounds for friends and family – either digitally or using traditional media scanned into a computer. Because so many religious figures and institutions use Twitter to discuss their beliefs and teachings, it stands as an awesome resource to compare and contrast the various faiths that have shaped humanity since its inception. E-mail inboxes often filter out important messages as junk and students lose papers or miss class for various reasons, meaning that some of them may miss out on important announcements regarding any changes to the syllabus. Twitter keeps a permanent record of any new bits of information so nobody has any excuse for missing out. Students can be polled on what activities to do or their opinions on current events may want to keep a running tab of results they find when working in conjunction with SurveyMonkey or another similar site. Blend Twitter and Google Earth together for human and physical geography lessons where they use the former’s “location” feature to learn all about new places on the globe. Ask a broad question and charting the answers through @ replies. Narrow the old, reliable internet scavenger hunt to cover only Twitter, varying the degree of difficulty depending on the age range of the students. Compile and edit coherent stories based on pre-existing tweets by other people. Send journalism students out into the world of microblogging and assign them to poll fellow students or ask questions of experts for use in assignments on trends, opinions and current events and research. Set up a class Twitter feed that discusses the weather in different areas, charting the findings on Google Maps or Google Earth and making note of the patterns that crop up along the way. Creative writing or English students of all ages can participate in making up a story character of their very own, with each individual contributing a sentence or 2 towards a personality or back story. Then write their own stories based on this collectively created literary figure. Similar to the collaborative character mentioned above, students can also compile their own poetry where everyone contributes one line that flows with the one written before. Students can unscramble anagrams, contribute synonyms or antonyms or give a definition for any vocabulary or spelling words as another way of getting them more involved in their language lessons. Post and discuss daily problem for students to solve and tweet and debate the answer. Use Twiddeo to post in-class skits, walkthroughs of field trips, clips of their travel exploits and anything else relevant to students’ lessons. Curate students own shows based around creators, movements, regions, time periods or thematic elements that they enjoy, using Twitter as a way to show the world what they think belongs in a specific exhibit. TweetStats allows users to input a specific account name and look at a bar graph of the microblog’s activity. Students can search for tweeps in their school or town and gather data on how and when their neighbors use Twitter. Beyond using it for lessons, students who Twitter have at their disposal a vast network of like-minded students with whom they can trade ideas and insights regarding social networking in the classroom and other topics. Because e-mail filtering frequently ships important messages off to the trash can, some students may prefer talking privately with other students via the direct message feature on Twitter instead. One of the best ways to connect with other students and keep up with the latest trends and philosophies regarding education by subscribing to the #edchat hashtag and participating in the community. At the conclusion of each lesson, students should consider whether they could sum it up by typing a 140-character or less summary of what they have learned and perhaps pose any questions to be considered in the next class.
 * 1. Tweet about upcoming due dates or assignments. **
 * 2. Provide the class with a running news feed. **
 * 3. Create a daily journal. **
 * 4. Track memes. **
 * 5. Coordinate assignments **.
 * 6. Track a hash tag. **
 * 7. Connect with the community. **
 * 8. Follow the issues. **
 * 9. Write a story or poem. **
 * 10. Live tweet field trips. **
 * 11. Ask questions. **
 * 12. Set up a foreign language news stream. **
 * 13. Role play. **
 * 14. Take and share notes. **
 * 15. Sync with a blog. **
 * 16. Chat with industry professionals. **
 * 17. Connect classrooms. **
 * 18. Facilitate research. **
 * 19. Engage parents. **
 * 20. Become politically active. **
 * 21. Track the government. **
 * 22. Write reviews. **
 * 23. Post sample questions. **
 * 24. Post supplementary materials. **
 * 25. Facilitate discussions. **
 * 26. Play the stock market game. **
 * 27. Live tweet a book or a movie. **
 * 28. Make recommendations. **
 * 29. Plan field trips. **
 * 30. Design a background. **
 * 31. Compare religions. **
 * 32. Post syllabus changes. **
 * 33. Take a poll. **
 * 34. Hook up with Google Earth. **
 * 35. Teach probability. **
 * 36. Go on a scavenger hunt. **
 * 37. Get a little bit postmodern. **
 * 38. Channel that inner Lois Lane. **
 * 39. Track weather patterns. **
 * 40. Create a character. **
 * 41. Create a progressive poem. **
 * 42. Play word games. **
 * 43. Post math puzzles. **
 * 44. Post videos. **
 * 45. Create an online art gallery. **
 * 46. Play with TweetStats. **
 * 47. Network with other students. **
 * 48. Direct message students. **
 * 49. Join #educhat **
 * 50. Summarize. **