Tweeting Away In Kindergarten!

Follow me: @kkidsinvt 

                                   Follow our class: @vermontkkids123

You do not need to join Twitter to follow our tweets!  Just go to: https://twitter.com/vermontkkids123

Tweeting in Kindergarten has helped my students become aware of a larger audience outside of our classroom walls.  An audience that is waiting to make connections, share and collaborate about what they are experiencing and discovering when it comes to learning. My students understand that by tweeting they are “talking” to others about something important to them.  We share our understandings and ideas by “tweeting them”.  Through this experience we are making connections with others in our school who are using twitter to connect as well as other Kindergarten classes all over the world who are sharing what they are learning about. 

Some important things for me to think about as I continue to tweet and learn about twitter…..

1.  I model safe, responsible and positive discoveries that I wish to share with others in regards to learning.

2.  I follow people who are sharing professional work and discoveries about their experiences that enhance and interact with learning.

3.  I have permission from my parents of the children I work with to use photographs and video.

4.  When I tweet photographs and video I do not use names or any identifying information about my students.  The students in my class know and understand that when we use video we do not use names.  I thought this would be a hard idea, but the children understood this right away.  A nice introduction about the importance of being a safe and responsible digital citizen/learner.

5.  On my class twitter account I follow only Kindergarten classrooms that are using twitter with their students. Here is where I am able to tweet with other classrooms about our daily discoveries and what we find interesting.

6.  I model correct spelling, no text typing here.  I was reminded recently that we, as educators need to model correct use of our language for our students.  Very important…

7.  I encourage parents of my students to join twitter to follow us too!  I recently learned that parents can follow tweets without joining twitter.

In conclusion, twitter has and continues to provide endless opportunities for me to connect with others.  I am able to explore ideas around digital citizenship, critical thinking, social networking, collaboration and the importance of having a professional learning network.  As an educator I value innovation and creativity as well as sharing.  I want to be able to provide meaningful and rich learning experiences for all learners.  Twitter plays an important role here, for me.

Please read my wordpress blog called: kindergartenlife where I have written many posts about my professional experiences using twitter with Kindergarten.