Tweets, Tweeting via Twitter @vermontkkids123

My students are amazing and brilliant!  We continue to explore twitter daily to connect, enrich and collaborate with our friends.  My students are benefiting from our daily conversations that we have with a variety of people.

How?  Together we are modeling “how to” have an online conversation in a safe, kind and responsible way.  We are also experiencing what it means to be a mentor and also how we are developing a learning community.  Our learning community is fluid and changes depending on what is tweeted and if we connect.  What I enjoy about this experience with my students is the dialogue and how we begin to “look” at twitter throughout the day.  I simply say:” Let’s see what others in the world are doing today!”  Through this simple dialogue and comment we begin to connect and share with others.

Exploring social media with my students has opened up a new perspective and given us opportunities to “see” the world globally.  While posting on our kidblogs my students made a connection with the map of the world.  They were so interested in where people were in the world and that they were sharing our learning.  Then we made a connection with another map of the world that appears inside our classroom and also on our class blog.  What do all these virtual and real face to face maps have in common?  They represent where we are connecting, how we are connecting and how we are not only sharing our learning, but modeling how to be safe, kind and responsible digital citizens.

Later during a reader’s workshop time one of my students makes a text to world connection.  She sees a map in a book and recognizes it.  I then have an opportunity to have a conversation about not only her connection, but why the map may be in the text and what it’s purpose is.

One of our classroom connections on twitter is @vtfirsties.  Through our conversations we have been able to inspire, be mentors and learn from each other.  Our latest tweet from them.

Now my students begin to experience how their ideas inspire others.  Through this experience we begin to connect and collaborate.

This past week I asked my students how we share our learning with the world.  These are some of the responses.

1. Take a picture and post it to Twitter
2. Take a screen shot, post it to Twitter and Tweet it
3. Just describing on Twitter what you wrote about
4. Post it on our Kidblogs
5. Take picture and put it on our classroom blog to share
6. Skype and share our story

We connected with @kindertweeten, in Chicago and we discovered that we were both creating “How To” stories.  Now we have an opportunity to share our work!  Through this modeling we celebrate our writing as well as share with a larger audience.  The positive commenting inspires us to not only write more, but share!  The impact is so positive in regards to writing.  It helps us feel successful and willing to take risks.

As a teacher this gives me an authentic picture of my students understanding about not only that they share outside of our classroom, but the specific tools that we use.  We are beginning to explore the world in regards to our learning and how we connect and what we have in common as well as other perspectives.  My students really enjoy the positive feedback that we experience.  Through this positive conversation via twitter we become connected and engaged with our learning.  We are learning side by side with other students and their amazing teachers about “how to” use social media to connect, collaborate, get inspired and have conversations about our discoveries.