Emerging Technology 3- Using Twitter in the Classroom

Yay for this being our last assignment!

For my third emerging technology I decided to talk about being able to use Twitter in the classroom. Twitter is a form of social networking, but also micro blogging. I think that it would be a very good tool in the classroom for posting assignments online or sending out quick messages to parents/students. The maximum characters a Tweet (that's what a Twitter posting is called) can have is 140. This is less then the basic text message character maximum.I just really think that it would be a great tool in the classroom. Every day a teacher could post that night's homework assignments quickly and parents or students could check it to see what was due. Teachers could also post quick reminders or announcements for the students and parents.

Signing up and getting started on Twitter is easy. I went onto the website and did some screen captures for a step by step instruction on getting started.

First, go to the Twitter site and click "Join Today", if you don't already have an account. I already have one (Follow me! twitter.com/haleyd197) so I signed in using mine, but took some screen captures to help you out if you don't have an account.

Once you click "Join Today", you'll see this screen.

After you've signed up and set up your profile, you need to search people to follow. In a classroom setting, the teacher would set up their own classroom account and use it for only classroom postings. Once the account was set up, the teacher would let students/parents know what they're username was so that they could be searched and followed. This is what the "Find People" page looks like.

Once you have found who you're looking for, click Follow! (I used my best friend for an example. Thanks, Kim!)

Now you're officially a Tweeter! It's time to post your own Tweet. This is what the screen will look like. (I've used my own page)

Now just post your Tweet! :) It's that simple!

Another cool thing about Twitter, and something that I use a lot, is following your friends through mobile updates. This is another reason using Twitter in the classroom could be a great tool. If all the parents/students followed the teacher through mobile updates, they would quickly receive a text message with the teacher's update. This way they could see what the night's assignments, or what the reminder was right on their phone. To follow someone with mobile updates, go to "Following" in the top right hand corner of your home page. Find your friend, and click the Mobile button. It will look like this.

Click the Mobile Update button, and once it turns green, you're following the person through mobile updates! It's that simple!


Twitter really is a handy, simple tool for getting quick messages and updates to a large amount of people. Once I have my own classroom, it is something that I will really consider using. It will save paper for sending home announcements, and it can just be a quick little update for everyone to easily see.

I hope everyone has a great summer!!

Haley