Final Project

Multimedia in education

•Using Twitter with elementary students in the

classroom
•Grade: 8th grader
•Environment: classroom
•Patience Fitzhenry
•EDLT 525

•Dr. Samantha Mercanti-Anthony

Social Media in the classroom

 There is an increasing number of reasons why technology

plays a significant role in our schools. No matter how
others may feel about the need or the use of technology in
our schools or classrooms, technology is everywhere; our
every waking move is based on technology. For our
students to be able to survive in today’s world, including
post-secondary education and the working world, they
must know how to make efficient use of it.
How can you use Twitter to Promote Learning?

There are lots of educational

benefits to Twitter, as it can
connect students across a district
or the world to share learning.
Social media shows students that
learning isn’t just in the
classroom, but also outside of it.
Through social media platforms,
students can share ideas and
connect with other students
around the globe.  
Using Twitter with Elementary Students

How to use Twitter with your 8th graders

students: You start by sharing with the
students the benefits of using the
platform. Talk about safety issues, giving
them guidelines to follow while exploring
the platform. Once you are done, send
home permission slips to families for their
child’s face and work to be shared on
Twitter. Let the parents know that you
will be using twitter in your classroom as
part of the learning environment.
 Let’s Explore Twitter
 We will explore Twitter
and find out why this
particular social media
platform might be useful
in the academic
environment, as well as
specifics on it for
teaching
What is Twitter?
What is  Twitter is a social media
Twitter? platform that allows its users
to exchange messages of 140
characters or less, which are
known as tweets.
 Peer Connections on Twitter
 Tweets can be text-based or they can
contain multimedia such as video or images
that can be linked to anything on the web.
 When a person tweets, their tweets are
shared with other twitter users who follow
them. Unless the account is private, all
other twitter users can potentially see and
respond as well.
 A person can build up a network of peers
with shared interests.
 There are half billion twitters user
worldwide.
Key Concepts that define Twitter.
 Tweet: Your tweet is your message, only 140
characters seen by your followers who happen to be
online.
 Anyone who happens to look at your profile will see
your tweets.
 Retweet: If a person retweets someone else’s tweet,
it will appear in their timeline and that person’s
follower will see it.
 When you want to message someone or reply back to
them, you use the @ character along with their user
name into your tweet. That tweet will be seen by
your followers and anyone who follows that person.
 Hashtag: A #hashtag is a way to bring disparate users
together on the same topic even if they don’t know
each other.
 Direct Message: A DM is a private message within this
social media platform which only you and the
recipient see.
Ways to use Twitter for teaching with
elementary students.
 Tweet homework and assignments
Both teachers and students can easily and
quickly tweet details of homework and
assignments using Twitter in education.
Teachers can also include links to
important online sources/pages, and due
dates of assignments. By doing it this way,
all students with an account will receive a
notification, and they can share, forward
or respond to the tweet.
Ways to use Twitter for teaching ( Continued)
After a lesson, students can tweet their exit
slips at the end of class. Teacher’s can ask their
students to write down their big takeaway from
the day’s lesson in 140 characters or less.  
Teacher can ask students to write a synopsis of
a book or identify a key argument in a text using
only 140 characters.  
Teacher’s can incorporate Twitter into their
English Language Arts and Social Studies
lessons. This can be done by asking students to
create a Twitter profile for a character of a book
or figure from history.
Teacher’s can write a summary of the day’s
lesson and tweet it with questions for the next
lesson. This type of activity that allows the
teacher and students to collaborate.
Get important Teachers can use
Twitter to get instant
Educational access to hundreds of
resources important links, get
insightful ideas from
other teachers around
the world, follow the
good examples or share
their own efficient
teaching methods.
 Twitter and student collaboration

Teachers can motivate students to use Twitter

in order to work on collaborative assignments.
This way, teachers can also intervene at any
point during the assignments by giving advice,
sharing an interesting link with their students,
or helping them with important resources for
research.
  Teachers can discuss with their students in the
classroom what issues they would like to follow
on Twitter. The teacher can start this talk on
relevant issues and then they can all decide
together what hashtags they should follow as a
All about group. Using Twitter in education provides a
hashtags great way of socialization and encourages
students to speak up for the issues they believe
in, and become opinionated.
 Teacher can also create a classroom hashtag.
For example, #mrsJohnclass, #MrHamclass, or
#C13math. Students and parents can follow this
hashtag to keep up-to-date on what’s going on
in the classroom. It’s also a great way to find
and join groups.
 Twitter Scavenger Hunts

To improve the research skills of elementary

students, teachers can assign them an Internet
scavenger hunt, only allowing the students to
use Twitter to find their sources. This is not
only fun and challenging, but also engaging,
and a great way to research ideas and
movements through Twitter searches.
  Students love
surprises. For that
Using Twitter reason, teachers can
to announce write a creative 140
field trips. characters long
description of the
great field trip they
will all be taking
together. By
advertising field trip
through Twitter,
everyone will get a
real time notification
for this trip.
Students and the evaluation of
sources found on Twitter

Using Twitter, the 8th grader

students can tweet sources and ask
their teacher, fellow classmates, and
others that they engage with on
Twitter whether it seems to be a
credible source or not. This is a
great way to teach about the use of
online resources and learning about
which sources are reliable, and
which should not be trusted. 
 Student Survey
 To engage elementary students more on twitter,
teachers can create a poll. The teacher can inform
her 8th graders students about the new survey
through Twitter. This is a great way for the teacher
to find out what her students like/dislike about her
class, and what changes the students would want to
make, such as books they prefer to read, or what
recreational activities they would prefer more. This
is an insightful tool for teachers to learn about their
students, and how to best cater to their learning
preferences.
 Keeping parents up to date
Today’s parents can be very busy,
and thus, difficult to get in touch
with. To help keep parents updated
about their child’s education, the we
can use social media in order to
contact them. You can do this by
asking parents to activate “message
alerts,” on their phones, and then
you can even privately message
them in real-time and speak with
them immediately via social media. 
 Twitter can successfully be used in an elementary
classroom if it is used and promoted the right way. Twitter
use with 8th students and any elementary students can play
an important role in academia as it helps students to engage
in eLearning while having fun at the same time. Students,
teachers and parents can all benefit from being active on
Conclusion Twitter. The use of Twitter in the classroom helps form
relationships with other students around the world, and it
helps increase the productivity and responsiveness of
students. It is also a great way to collaborate with peers, or
find informational resources from around the world with
great ease. It overall use as a communication tool is ever
expanding.
 
 References
 Poth, R. (2019, October 30). Using Twitter with Primary or Elementary Students. Retrieved August 30, 2020, from
https://www.attechedu.com/post/2017/01/30/using-twitter-with-primary-or-elementary-students
 Fransen, C. (2017, February 22). How This Teacher Uses Twitter with Elementary Students. Retrieved August 30, 2020, from
https://www.simplek12.com/social-media/twitter-with-elementary-students/
 Minero, E. (2015, August 07). Using Twitter to Promote Learning. Retrieved August 30, 2020, from https://www.edutopia.org/practice/social-media-
making-connections-through-twitter
 Norman, S. (2018, March 12). 15 Ways To Use Twitter In Education (For Students And Teachers Alike). Retrieved August 30, 2020, from
https://elearningindustry.com/15-ways-twitter-in-education-students-teachers
 

 Teaching and Learning with Twitter. (n.d.). Retrieved August 30, 2020, from https://about.twitter.com/content/dam/about-twitter/company/twitter-for-
good/en/teaching-learning-with-twitter-unesco.pdf
   Norman, S. (2018, March 12). 15 Ways To Use Twitter In Education (For Students And Teachers Alike). Retrieved August 30, 2020, from
https://elearningindustry.com/15-ways-twitter-in-education-students-teachers
 Heick, T., & Staff, T. (2017, December 05). 10 Reasons Twitter Works In Education. Retrieved August 30, 2020, from
https://www.teachthought.com/technology/10-reasons-twitter-works-in-education/
 

 Saleem. Alhabash, M., A. Andrade, C., B. Anthony, J., R. Becker, P., Bista, K., TS. Bledsoe, D., . . . KJ. Wright, T. (1970, January 01). Use of Twitter
across educational settings: A review of the literature. Retrieved August 30, 2020, from
https://educationaltechnologyjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41239-019-0166-x
 

 Norman, S. (2018, March 12). 15 Ways To Use Twitter In Education (For Students And Teachers Alike). Retrieved August 30, 2020, from
https://elearningindustry.com/15-ways-twitter-in-education-students-teachers
 Marich, H. (2016, September 1). Twitter in the Elementary Classroom: A Teacher’s Journey. Retrieved August 30, 2020, from
https://secure.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/LA/0941-sept2016/LA0941POP.pdf