8th Grade Science and Twitter

I am back in middle school now and back to teaching 8th science this year. I started my career here and have missed 8th grade science for the past 5 years. It wasn't until today that I realized how much I really missed it. Today in class we started our Twitter documentation of our learning. My students love Twitter and spend a lot of time on the site. I decided why not cash in on that motivation and excitement. To start, we discussed why have a class hashtag. The class hashtag was a way for our students to document their learning to share with absent students or to refer back to when studying or doing work. We then created a hashtag together. They loved it! Each week, a student will be the "tweeter of the week". They are in charge of tweeting out using our class iPad at least three times a week. Then other students are free to tweet in class using the hashtag. We had a great digital literacy discussion today about asking permission to share other students work and pictures. It still amazes me how digital savvy our students are and how little they understand how appropriate digital etiquette. We finished the class with a lab and I have never seen my 8th graders so engaged. They were taking pictures, documenting their thinking, and helping each other on Twitter. I can't wait to see where this goes!