Classroom Tools: Twitter

In my class on using technology in the classroom, the idea of Twitter being used came up. I have never been on Twitter myself and have only seen it twice, one time being for this class. A story was shared about a man who used Twitter to come up with a lesson. He "tweeted" that he needed a lesson about farms because his students were going to visit a farm for their field trip. Through a friend's friend, or something similar, a video was set up by two teachers about their farms. The students then had a virtual tour of a farm in place of the outing.

In that instance Twitter can be useful, but it was used outside of the classroom by a teacher that wasn't distracted by the initial purpose of Twitter. An other story shared gives a better idea. One class had found an animal skeleton on the school property and wanted to find out what animal it was. One student used Twitter to get responses, one student used email to a museum or something of the like, and one student actually did the research. Of course, the student using Twitter found out it was a raccoon first. The problem I have with this use of Twitter is the fact that the student let everyone else answer his or her question for him or her; there was no work involved on the students part. This teaches students that there is always someone else that can do things for them. So in this case, though it is faster, I do not think that Twitter should be used.

On top of why it is use (ie. lesson plan help or student question) a bigger reason for Twitter to stay out of classrooms is the distraction factor. If a teacher tells the students they can use Twitter for class, they will want to look at their popular tweets or what have you and forget about the assignment. For the teachers to use it as a quick means to communicate and ask for help, yes it is a fine tool, but the distraction for students to try to use it in the classroom makes me think that it should not be implemented.