Recently, Skip Crosby (@SkipCrosby), a colleague of mine who teaches in a nearby high school, posted the question about using twitter in class as a means of providing more input.  I use twitter in class with my students and I use twitter a lot professionally.  It is an awesome PLN!!  Here is what I do with twitter with my students:

Twitter is a big way to add novelty to my classroom.  An average activity becomes more engaging and interactive with twitter.   The students love using their phones and go on twitter often so why not use it effectively in the classroom!

Activity #1:  After we have read a chapter in a novel or watched a movie, we have a conversation using twitter and a hashtag.  I use the website www.tweetchat.com to project the tweets.  I just found this site that I will try this year: http://www.tweetbeam.com/  Not all of my students have twitter, so I only do this seldomly but they like it.  The ones who don’t have twitter can watch the screen.

Activity #2: Using www.polleverywhere.com, students can submit responses using twitter.

Activity #3: Zachary Jones has many great activities for input using twitter.  He calls them Twiccionario.  Here is the link: http://zachary-jones.com/zambombazo/tag/twiccionario/     We read them in class, discuss them, and sometimes I have them write their own tweets.  For example, we read and discussed tweets about New Year’s resolutions.  They wrote a tweet using #propositos2013 and I posted them on my bulletin board.

Activity #4: Fake twitter.  This is good for everyone because you do not need twitter to do this. http://www.classtools.net/twister/     I either create my own tweet or students create a fake tweet from a character in a novel.

Skip Crosby had a great idea: have the students follow a Spanish speaking twitter feed based on their interests.  I am going to challenge my upper level Spanish classes to find someone to follow in Spanish, such as a newspaper, athlete, singer, etc.  I will brainstorm a list.

I never use technology just to use technology.  These twitter activities are successful, add input and some output, and are novel.  What other things do you do with twitter?