CORE Academy

I'm very excited to be a part of JSU's CORE Academy for the next few days. I'll be presenting two sessions with my friend, Cara (Teaching...My Calling), over the next two days dealing with integrating technology and using social media.

Here's a sneak peak of our LiveBinder of resources we plan to share:

Hope to see you there!

Twitter in Elementary Classrooms? You Bet!

Elementary students tweeting? In many classrooms around the country and the world the answer is a resounding "Yes!" I've been using twitter as a professional learning tool for several years now, and even as an outreach to parents through my classroom twitter, but I just (today) started actually letting my 4th graders tweet.

Why? Well, for one thing it's a great way to share what we're learning in our classroom with not only parents and community members, but a world-wide audience. Having an authentic audience is HUGE motivator for kids. The fact that they're able to share their learning with others around the globe is really exciting.

Its also a great way to teach digital citizenship. We've already had conversations about what types of tweets readers expect to read, using correct grammar and capitalization, and reasons WHY we might tweet something. I'm sure there'll be many more learning experiences to come.

Finally, tweeting is a great way to connect with other classrooms. Since we've really just started tweeting, we're only connected with one other class of 4th graders, but I know that it will only be a short time until we start tweeting and conversing with classrooms around the globe. I'm really excited to share what the other classroom tweeted back to us with my kiddos tomorrow.

Does your classroom tweet? We'd love to get connected! Our classroom twitter is @kilgosnews.

I'd also love to hear ways that you're using twitter with your students. Please comment with any advice, ideas, or successes!