Problem
Parents are still pretty much in the dark about what goes on in class on a day to day basis. They must wait for parent teacher meetings and portfolio showcases to get a solid grasp of what is going on. Students need and should give be given a wider audience to share their learning, their reflections and their thinking. Students and classes have no outlet to the outside world for immediate feedback and commentary.
Solution
In an age where Twitter is becoming the go-to medium for by-the-minute information sharing and news gathering we need to utilize Twitter in the classroom to bring this sort of modern day communication between our students and their families and the world outside of their classroom walls. My solution would be for a class to have their own Twitter account to try and utilize a very modern solution for a very old problem.
Breaking It Down
Due to my experiences in trying to implement this Twitter project near the end of a school term and in the middle of numerous other classroom activities my amended project (taken into account after feedback from Part D of the WPP assignment) will deem to lay out a plan of action to implement successfully a Twitter account for a class.
Timing
This is a major factor to take into account when planning this type of Twitter project. I would strongly advise that it is laid out and introduced to faculty in the one or two weeks before a new school year starts. I don't know how many weeks schools in America have for preparation without students but in the schools I have worked in there are one or two weeks of meetings and planning that would is an appropriate time to plan this Twitter project. Below is a timeline I have created, based on two weeks of planning time before students return to school.
Stakeholders
The stakeholders involved in this Twitter project are the administration, parents, teachers and students. They all need separate communications from the technology facilitator about the project.
Administrators:
They will need to be pre-instructed about the Twitter project a good deal in advance (a number of weeks or even months before teachers are introduced) so that any political or policy obstacles have to be overcome. The most obvious concern will be safety and if the school does not have cyber safety protocols in place then the publishing of work, pictures of students will have to be addressed, amended or the policy will have to changed in order for the school to place itself in a modern era of communications. Every school will be different so this part is vital to address as soon as possible.
Teachers:
Teachers (as described in the timeline) have to fully aware of and know all about Twitter before they will consider taking on this project. Examples of the advantages of Twitter will be included in the initial 1.1 meeting and all care will be taken to ensure that all teachers are comfortable with the use of Twitter in the classroom or at least be knowledgeable of Twitter and make an informed decision on whether they want to take it on.
Students:
Teachers along with the technology facilitator will introduce Twitter to the students in the first week of school. Instructions and objectives are discussed with students. Examples of quality tweets and what a Tweet should inform a viewer about is discussed.
Cyber safety will be revised and/or a number of lessons on cyber safety and digital citizenship from the Cybersmart Curriculum are implemented. Rules will be made by both students and teachers together on acceptable behavior online.
A number of informative posters are shown and put up around the classroom to instill a knowledge of how Twitter differs from other types of communication.
Parents:
Parents are emailed within the first week of school to inform them on the Twitter project. It is obviously important to have the parents hop on board for the project to work successfully.A template of an email to be sent to parents is given to teachers who can edit as they see fit.
Execution
Teachers and students are encouraged to start Tweeting once the email to parents has been sent out and everyone is aware of the project. Routines are established within the classrooms and Tweeting duties may take different variations in each class. Some classes may assign Daily Twitterers or take on a more fluid approach and have a computer, laptop or smartphone accessible at any time for the students to tweet from.
After the first week or so teachers and facilitator should meet and discuss the initial few weeks and talk about any adjustments that may need to be made, what has worked well and what hasn't.
TP knowledge for the solution
The core technology that will be utilized will obviously be Twitter. The technological knowledge that our teachers have of Twitter will vary but introducing it to them will not be a hard task.
The main, underlying concept of this project is for the students to be able to share their learning and reflections to family (and the world) as it happens. Twitter helps this teaching and learning moment in a unique and obvious way due to the immediacy of Tweets, the audience a Tweet can reach and the ability for our followers to filter all our Tweets in one area using a Twitter desktop client.
The main, underlying concept of this project is for the students to be able to share their learning and reflections to family (and the world) as it happens. Twitter helps this teaching and learning moment in a unique and obvious way due to the immediacy of Tweets, the audience a Tweet can reach and the ability for our followers to filter all our Tweets in one area using a Twitter desktop client.
TC knowledge for the solution
As the learning and teaching content will be fluid, varied and can be represented in many different ways, Twitter is a perfect tool to represent all of the different facets of learning. Students will take photos, embed links to videos or any sort of media that the students wants to share. Students will also Tweet written reflections on their learning. Twitter will hone their reflecting techniques due to Twitter's 140 character input limit so it will add more of a challenge to the reflection process. Students will have to investigate their word choice and pinpoint the most important parts of their learning they want to Tweet.
PC knowledge for the solution
This project is, in essence, a solution to the problem of how students can share their learning and their reflections to their families and a wider audience for more authentic feedback and continued discussion. As it will be used in a wide variety of classes throughout the day and subjects the pedagogical approach to students learning the content will vary greatly. The most important part of our students' learning, though, is their reflections on what that have learned. So we will not, necessarily, change our pedagogical approach to teach the content but we will make sure the students are encouraged at any time to reflect using Twitter.
Student Experience
It is a small enough task for students not to get put off by it. It is a meaningful activity as it promotes students as authors to the world. The anticipation of getting more followers and to have conversations about their learning with a wider audience will provide engagement and motivation.
The students will have not experienced anything like this before and it's hoped that this innovative way of communicating with family and people outside of the classroom walls will become common place in the future of our students' learning.
Implementation
Implementation would be as described as above under the "Breaking It Down" sub-section. Taking into account teacher feedback my revised implementation would not happen in the middle of a school year. Stakeholders, timing and execution are described as above and are a revision of my initial way I implemented the Twitter project with one Grade 5 class which is described below:
Surprises
As the planning for this was altered drastically from my initial plan to Tweet our field trip to Taiwan I've had to rush out an email to the parents of one class last week (it didn't help I was away at a conference for five days!). The plan is to trial run with it in one class to see what the experience is for students.
The surprises are and were that the number of replies have been sparse to say the least which leads me to.....
Unexpected bumps in the road (What you would revise)
Parents were not very responsive, only two responded to me. One to ask a question about the sign-up and one that was concerned about safety. I was actually expecting more queries about safety but as we had guidelines about safety in respect to our Grade 5 student blogs and would follow the same guidelines I guess it wasn't too much of an issue. At the minute we only have two parents following us so far. As the parents of our Grade 5 students have not been the most active responding to our students' blogs I guess this shouldn't be too much of a shock With moving to a new school next year I think any initiatives like this should be laid out at the start of the year, if a school's environment is not conducive or responsive to these types of initiatives (or not prepared) then the uptake will be poor.
Delights (What went well)
The students were enthusiastic at first. Initial impressions from the classroom teacher were that the students were thinking more on things they can reflect on and Tweet about. They could tell the difference between the more planned blogging to the more immediate and spur-of-the-moment Tweeting.
However, after a couple of days there hasn't been much tweeting. I will be looking into this and the reasons why in my final presentation.
However, after a couple of days there hasn't been much tweeting. I will be looking into this and the reasons why in my final presentation.
Pictures and/or vignettes
Evaluation
Formative: Did the project get implemented as planned?
The project did not go as planned right from the get go! The timing was terrible to put it bluntly. We had portfolio day coming up and we are now on Easter break so mindsets were not switched on to implementing anything new in the classroom.
Summative: Evidence of success in addressing the problem of practice
I still firmly believe that Twitter can be used very effectively as a communications tool in the Elementary classroom. It is immediate and opens up very effective and efficient communications between the students and parents and the outside world.
Even with the mere three Tweets that were sent out http://twitter.com/#!/g5isf I could get a sense of the way Twitter could work as a "as it happens" journal of what students are learning in class.
The initial plan of Tweeting on a school trip is a very sound idea and one that I will implement in the future. School trips (especially overnight ones) are a time of worry and stress for parents wondering what is going on and what their children are doing and I think Twitter is an awesome idea to bridge the gap between school trip and home. It can fulfill both academic and emotional objectives nicely!
How would you approach another project of this type differently given what you’ve learned here?
I will be doing this project again and I will plan it accordingly. But teachers, students and parents need to be given heads up a long time in advance about it. Moving to a new school next year I need to instill an environment that projects like this will happen and are valuable activities to partake in. If the mood is set at the start of the school year that technology will be an increasingly used tool then projects like these will be implemented and used easier.
What are the lessons learned that others might benefit from knowing about?
Don't plan a technology integrated project without substantial thought and planning first. This Twitter activity was and is something that can become a major part of the daily classroom life so preparation, discussion and lessons regarding social media, digital citizenship/safety and teacher meetings are essential. The project will fail if not enough planning is done.
In what ways will you endeavor to do the same project again, and what will you change or not do?
This is my job and this is what I do. I will be doing projects like this very regularly in the course of my work in schools. I will implement a Twitter classroom next school year, that is a goal. I'm thinking I can try it out on an Early Years classroom as parents are a lot more interested in what their children are up to in those Grades! But I also want classrooms to be blogging too so I need to think about it over the Summer, I need to meet with teachers and administration to scope out the atmosphere and thinking about technology at my new school. Then, and only then, will I make final decisions on what best suits the environment of the school.
Appropriate for your chosen audience
Using Twitter in the classroom facilitated by teachers in any Grade level is appropriate and relevant to the times we live in. Students can take more control or less control of the Twitter account as the teacher sees fit. I believe using Twitter for communicating classroom learning could play a big part in the coming years in schools due to the no-cost, shallow learning curve and fast and effective proof of the value of using it.
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