Last week, I mentioned that I was going to be teaching a Grade 3 summer school class with the Toronto District School Board. I've only had three days with my students so far, but I am having an amazing time! I absolutely adore the fifteen (yes, only 15!) young people who enter Room 206 each day. It's a great opportunity to experiment with teaching tools and practices and the kids are a joy to be with. One of the techniques that I am trying out involves more student-led action on Twitter. About half of the class have heard of the micro-blogging platform before. I provided a brief overview and then together we co-created a couple of tweets to share with my followers and any of their parents who look up #lmmss3. For those families who do not have computers at home, I'll print out a copy of the tweets every week or so to share. The day after our first class exposure to Twitter, the students could choose whether or not to attempt to write their own tweets. Several took a shot and I shared the results. (There will also be a private wiki where the tweets can be archived.) We have a tweeting schedule so everyone gets the chance to write for a wider audience. We have a very simple checklist for evaluating our tweets:
- the tweet is 140 characters or less (math-related expectation)
- the tweet contains the hashtag #lmmss3 (for curating purposes)
- the tweet is interesting to read and informs (language-related expectation)
All my blog posts for July will probably relate to my experiences at summer school. Be prepared for lots of gushing if my first three days are any indication of what the rest of the month will be like!
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