Top Three Reasons Teachers Love Twitter

1. Twitter is a powerful research tool.

Using the search option on Twitter, students can find the leading experts and organizations relevant to their research topics. Using Twitter’s list function, students can then organize these people and organizations as “members” of a list. Below is an example of list members from a PHS freshman researching women’s rights.

Once students have collected members in a list, they then have an organized way of seeing all the tweets and links from these list members. Below is an example of two pages of tweets associated with the list above. Because the student has created a list, the relevant tweets do not get lost among the overwhelming number of tweets in a typical Twitter feed.

2. Twitter provides teachers with a platform to share student work and celebrate student accomplishments.

Notice Mr. Collins’ tweet in the banner photograph at the top of this page: “S.Dranka got a remarkable 27/27 on our @GetKahoot Unit 6 review!” Below are a few more examples of how teachers can celebrate student accomplishments through Twitter.

As we become more connected with teachers and students from other schools in the district, students can be rewarded with encouragement from people they may not even know. In the example below, Linda Ashida, from Elk Grove, praised a student writer in a Prospect creative writing class.

Of course, teachers can also use Twitter to collect student feedback from afar, or to communicate a last-minute message.

3. Twitter allows teachers to connect with other educators and coaches, not just in District 214, but anywhere in the world.

One way to do this is to create a Twitter list of educators who teach in your field. Follow these teachers’ tweets to see what they are doing in their classrooms. If you’d like, you can use Twitter’s direct message option to contact these teachers with questions or ideas.

Live chats are another option. Below are a few screenshots of a live chat in which PHS teacher Katie Page participated.

Many teachers also use Twitter to follow the topics they care most about. Hashtags like #edtech, #edchat, #passiondriven, #ipadchat, and #mlearning are especially useful for teachers. (For a much more thorough list, check out “The Complete Guide To Twitter Hashtags For Teachers.”

To get started on Twitter, create an account and begin looking for people to follow or place on a Twitter list. Summer offers a great opportunity to explore at your leisure. Below is a list of Prospect Knights using Twitter as of spring, 2015. Take a look!

Link to PHS on Twitter.