Twitter and other stuff

I joined Skype and Twitter. I am looking forward to using both in the classroom. I have seen Skype used to have author visits. This is a great way to link students to the authors of the books they read. This gives the students an opportunity that they might not otherwise have outside the classroom. I am planning to use Twitter to show students real time Science concepts. I am following several science communities and plan on finding other social studies and educational communities to follow. Students can read their tweets and respond through drawing or writing their responses in their journals. I also joined Voxopop. I like the idea of starting a discussion and having children respond in real time. I think all of these tools will encourage every child to participate. Students can work together or individually to respond to threads. They can also be used in every content area. One of the greatest struggles that I saw as a Math SIS was having students respond about their math thinking. These sites would help students to respond in something other than a journal and would encourage students to really explain their thinking. Many students are reluctant to write because they do not know how to spell words or find it difficult to physically write. This would help those students to respond risk free.