Twitter in the Classroom

For today's blog I am writing about how Twitter is being used in the classroom.  It took me a while to find an article that I liked but then I found this one.  Twitter Finds a Place in the Classroom.  This article is about Enrique Legaspi, a teacher in East Los Angeles that began incorporating Twitter into his middle school history class.  If the students do not have a device to tweet from he allows them to use the class computers.  

What he saw was that Twitter gave a voice to his normally shy students and allowed them to become part of the discussion.  From their tweets he could see how the students comprehended the discussion and their opinions on it. 

I think that Mr. Legaspi is on to something.  Twitter and social media are part of our world now.  Most classrooms now have smart boards and the students are always on their phone anyways.  Why not use that to your advantage.  This article shows that the students are engaged and shyer students have an outlet to participate in the discussion.  One of the students said that it even changed how his peers viewed him.   He said "They see me as somebody now -- as an equal."  In middle school that is huge. 

I’m not sure if this would have the same impact in every school but I think that it is time to find out.