In the previous post we also
spoke about technology in education in terms of the Facebook platform. Today we
going to look at Twitter as a platform for education, but in this case more to
a learner centered approach.
Twitter the platform of tweeting
where one has to be creative and smart with words because you are only given a
hundred and forty characters to type out a tweet. The platform which brought
the “#” hashtag to life as a method for grouping tweets, post, information
together. This is a platform that expanded and became as common as Facebook
amongst the youth as a platform for tweeting their opinions and many more.
To use Twitter for the learners
to interact I think could be very useful and exciting, especially outside the
class room to help with homework and many more. The big question is how we would
go about using twitter in a learner centered context.
Firstly the teacher would create
an account for the specific use of a class such as grade10BLHS. Which would
mean, grade 10 B of Lentegeur High School. This would not be the teacher’s
private account, but a school account used specifically for grade 10 B. all the
learners in grade 10 B would be told to follow this account on twitter. They
would be told what it would be used for:
- For the learners to interact about the school work outside the classroom
- To pose one another questions regarding work done in the class, assignments etc
- Use to aid others with homework questions, and as a group by tweeting possible solutions
- Teacher could use it as a reminder platform eg: remember your #HOMEWORK J
That’s just to mention a few ways
in which twitter could be utilized outside the classroom, with the emphasis
being: The learners are the most active users, as this is a platform for them
to help one another. As mentioned above the main key would be the grouping of
information, if a learner posed a question about a mathematics problem, he
would group it with #mathshomework for example, and another learner would post
a solution using the exact same hashtag to group the question and solution
together so that the rest of the learners can see both together. In this manner
the learners can use twitter as an educational benefit, hopefully while having
fun as well.
