Twitter Tweaked Our Classroom (part 2 in a series)

Part 2 on my series on twitter...How Twitter Tweaked Our Classroom

On July 15th, just a few weeks after joining twitter myself, I created a classroom account. I tweeted out my first tweet from that account, 

"My first graders will be tweeting this year."

At that point I didn't know what that may mean. I had no idea the impact it would have, or even what it would look like in my classroom. What I did know was that I had already found excitement in other teachers who had, and I wanted to be a part of it. 

Before I started this post, I went through the tweets of that account. I browsed the 742 tweets we put out last year and was reminded that it was a good decision I had made, both for me, and for my classroom. I did a happy dance in my heart as I read the posts and looked at the photos. I have captured a year of excitement there within those tweets and made many connections for my class and for myself. I learned things that I will bring forward to next year and am happy I made the decision to take another step into this world of twitter. 

We began our year with me modeling and showing them and we tweeted together. I was teaching them about digital citizenship, both its power and its responsibility. They learned about hashtags and 140 characters. They understood that what went out should have purpose, and it should be kind. 

We celebrated our thinking and learning with photos and tweets that shared our specific thoughts and learning. We also celebrated our bigger moments such as our performances, 100 days and Zero the Hero with photos and tweets about what was happening. 

We collaborated through projects such as Dot Day, Global Read Aloud, Global Play Day, A Day in the Life of a Student, Hour of Code and Dr. Seuss. 

We enriched our learning about other places and geography through weekly questions in a slow chat with other teachers. 

We participated in active learning between classes with weekly slow chats concerning math, weather and books. 

We shared our blog posts and joined a blogging community. 

As I continue to write this series, I would like to share more about some of the specifics of the above projects. The account I used this year will become inactive. It was my first time at bat with a classroom and twitter and I will love to go back and look at it. We were the @firstatbatters . 

This coming year my new account will be @linkedlearners . I was going to wait and allow them ownership on the name, but I began signing up for projects; and I want to let parents know at open house and hope they will connect. Instead, they will have ownership in how we use twitter in our 2nd grade classroom. I am excited to take this learning forward and be a part of new adventures. If you haven't taken the leap, I encourage you to join us!