I signed up for a Twitter account about 4 months ago and actually started using it about 2 months ago. I, like many people, thought Twitter was just a website to keep track of what Justin Bieber was doing or to read the outlandish viewpoints of professional athletes. I definitely was wrong and now I regularly check my feed to see what’s new. This past week I created a twitter page for my classroom and found that middle school students felt the same way I did before I started.
I knew Facebook was huge with 13 and 14 year olds so I assumed most of them also used Twitter. I was definitely wrong. Only 5 of my 100 students even had a twitter account at the beginning of last week. They told me, “It’s stupid”, “It’s for stalkers”, and “It’s weird to follow people”. I understood where they were coming from because I thought the same things a few months back. I showed them why signing up for an account would be beneficial and I was very pleased with the response.
It has been a week and currently 24 students have chosen to follow my class page. Many of these students are the same ones who were against it at the beginning of the week. Now some of them are following a bunch of people and using it as a way to communicate with me when they have questions about the class. The first night my phone kept notifying me of tweets but I was pretty excited that it was catching on. We had the conversation about only sending me messages or tweets that have value so the “What up Mr. Schultz” Tweets have stopped.
Many of my students are now saying the same thing I said about two months ago, “This Twitter thing ain’t so bad.” Not only is it not so bad but I think every educator should be on it. In two months I have found that Twitter can almost replace professional development and be an excellent way to communicate with my students.
Too many educators do not know about Twitter’s value and many of them get turned off by the idiosyncrasies involved with it. I get a lot of teachers that ask me, “What does RT, MT, or FF mean?” They are frustrated because if you are new Twitter can be a little overwhelming. I found that its okay to start by just following a bunch of educators without even worrying about tweeting. You can learn a bunch of good information and it doesn’t take that much work. For me that worked for a little while but then I felt like I needed to start contributing. I found it is better to be a contributor also but it is not necessary.
I think the educators on Twitter need to make it a point to tell their colleagues about Twitter’s value. If it weren’t for my assistant principal I would have never started. Teacher’s are not usually the type to try something unless it has been sold to them by someone they trust. The more people get on it the more good ideas that will be on there. I also think it has made me a better teacher so it seems simple but if more educators join Twitter the winners are the students.
Math Teachers Can Write Too 