Twitter

= Communication Tool: Twitter = Group Members: Jessica, Kelsey, and Kristin



//**Brief introduction of the tool**// Twitter is an online network that gives people all over the world access to news, friends, and an outlet to voice themselves. People using Twitter have complete control of how they use the site. From creating businesses to following friends to posting thoughts, there are many benefits from using Twitter.


 * //Advantages of the tool//**

Twitter engages students in learning, thereby enchancing what they might get out of a group project. It makes it easy and efficient to collaborate during class or from home. It's also really great for students who have trouble speaking up in class; they can use Twitter to ask questions, respond to questions, or give opinions on class methods. This is a really efficient way to get student responses.


 * //Disadvantages (limitations) of the tool//**

This does allow students to see what others are doing all over the world. Twitter could be distracting from an assignment. It would be very time consuming to grade students on the tool because students could do as many as 200 tweets per assignment. The tool does give the students capability to post inappropriate information.

Twitter can be used like email or Oncourse to update students on assignments or tests. It's easy for students to access because they can get on to Twitter through a phone or from a comuter. It also allows teachers to let students know what they need to accomplish for the next class or the steps to take to complete an assignment through a to-do list. For a lesson plan, Twitter can be used as a type of blog; students may be asked to write their opinions about a book they've been reading. They can also ask each other questions about a book without having to exchange personal information or becoming friends on Facebook. A teacher can also use Twitter to poll the students about a particular method in class; in this same manner, it could be used as a review tool in that students can answer questions anonymously to prepare for a test.Also, Twitter is a great collaboration tool. If an English teacher or Foreign Language teacher assigns a collaborative project such as brainstorming or answering a prompt, students can work together on Twitter. In this way students can discuss their ideas and share websites or information easily and quickly. They may also be really familiar with Twitter already, so they can easily collaborate.
 * //Application of the tool in your subject area//**

//**Find a tutorial on YouTube:**// media type="youtube" key="ddO9idmax0o" height="328" width="404" align="left"media type="youtube" key="xZl5GQfY6kk" height="334" width="405" align="right"

Here are some things that I learned from watching these tutorials. Updates are short and quick, only 140 characters long. People can learn all kinds of things about each other. Twitter is free and easy to sign up for. You can get your whole class involved with one twitter account, or have each student make his/her own account and follow you/each other. You can follow very diverse people/groups, such as athletes, authors, and 'normal' people. People like it because you can tweet from a computer or in a text from your cell phone.
 * //List of key features showed in the YouTube video://**

The following site offers fifty uses of Twitter in the classroom:[] This is a link to what Twitter has to say about itself:[] This wikipedia article goes into more detail about Twitter and it's uses in education and other arenas:[] If you search "twitter in the classroom" on [], it will come up with several videos about the topic, which are very helpful.
 * //Useful Resources://**