NYC's 140 Character Conference Explores Twitter in the Classroom
RSSBy Rocco Staino -- School Library Journal, 04/29/2010
More than 700 Twitter users, including a group of eighth graders who tweet as part of the curriculum, showed up at last week’s 140 Character Conference in New York City to explore the effects of the popular microblogging site on music, education, the media, advertising, and politics.
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Technology teacher George Haines and his students use Twitter in the classroom. |
“The project is a wonderful way to bring the book to life and enables the student’s to share their feelings and knowledge with others,” says Gallagher, adding that Twitter is still a relatively new tool in the classroom. Haines adds that kids need to be digitally literate. "The project is a purposeful modeling of technology use and helps kids see technology as a productive tool.”
Early in the conference, the audience of mainly business, social media, publishing, and marketing professionals, watched a presentation on social media in education by Chris Lehmann (@chrislehmann), the principal of the Philadelphia Science Leadership Academy. Lehmann, who is opposed to high stake testing because it trains rather than educates kids, challenged the audience to recreate schools in which children learn how to think and are taught wisdom. “Creating communities where people come to learn is an amazing thing,” says Lehmann.
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Chris Lehmann, the principal of the Philadelphia Science Leadership Academy. |
The four panelists said many educators use Twitter to follow developments in the field of education, which has turned out to be an excellent opportunity for professional development. They also stressed the importance of teachers and students knowing the content of their digital footprint, or a person’s traceable online activity, because oftentimes a potential university or employer can discover unflattering activities or photos of a prospective student or employee.
In another session, New Jersey principal Eric Sheninger (@NMHS_Principal) explained how he uses Twitter to get the word out about the great activities taking place at New Milford High School. Since he started tweeting in February, 2009, some 14 news stories have been written about his school use of the Twitter as an educational tool by both students and teachers.
Meanwhile, Steven W. Anderson (@web20classroom), an instructional technologist at Clemmons Middle School in North Carolina’s Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools, was voted by the general public as the Most Influential Tweeter of 2009 during the Annual Edublog awards. He was also co-recipient of the Most Influential Series of Tweets for helping to create #edchat, a weekly education discussion on Twitter that boasts more than 500 weekly participants. Anderson also brings virtual authors to his school by contacting them via Twitter and arranging for an exchange between students and an author through tweets.
In addition to the conference’s 700 participants, an additional 76,332 people viewed the two-day event on UStream. The video is now available online. The next 140 Character Conferences are scheduled for June 17 in Washington, DC, and July 6 in Tel Aviv, Israel.
