#6 Using Twitter, Blogs, and Websites in the Classroom

Two things that will work as a classroom teacher:

1.      I believe even in a kindergarten classroom, I could tweet about upcoming dates.  I could remind          parents of school parties, field trip, or if a child needs school supplies.
2.       Live tweeting field trips would be a great idea for parents who can’t make the field trips. This would    allow them to keep up with what is happening during the field trip.  You could also let the parents        know a better time frame of when the children will be back to school.

Two things that will not work as a classroom teacher:

•        Some of the ideas in this article,50 ways to use Twitter in the classroom are a little difficult for a           kindergartner.  For example, a kindergartner could not create a career list with Twitter.  Most             students are fine tuning their writing skill, and to create a list like that would be difficult.
•         Kindergartners also could not take or tweet notes on twitter.  They need to be able to write with a       pencil first and master that motor skill first.

I do believe that using Twitter will help children even kindergartners learn easier.  Technologies are changing every day, and why not incorporate our kindergartner in some new technology now.  Technology is just like foreign language, you learn easier the younger you are.

Two ways I could use a Blog in my classroom:

1.     I love meet the author idea.  That would work great in my kindergarten classroom.  I could invite         the author to talk to our students about the book or writing the book and then as a class we could       write back questions we had for them.  This could be done all year.
2.      I also like Blog pals.  I think this would be a great way for students to talk to other students in             different schools about what they are learning and how it differs.  I know as a student we wrote to        pen pals, and I really enjoyed getting my letter back.

I am so glad that I have learned how to create a class website.  I plan to use a website when I get my own classroom.  I think a class website can be helpful in so many ways.  You can keep your parents up-to-date on the happenings of your classroom while also getting to know your parents better.  I plan to make my class website more student or parent friendly by making sure my website is clear and easy to read.  I also want to make sure I am consistent, but yet capture the attention of my audience.  I think for me, I would want to test it on my family first, and see if they could navigate easily.