Slice of Life: Slow as a Snail

Yesterday in class, I introduced our class twitter account @228bes.  I purposely chose to hold back on our class account this year until the time was right. Last year, we sent a few tweets randomly and I wasn't sure of the purpose.  I knew the purpose, but I didn't feel like I did a good job for defining why we had a class twitter account.  I spent this summer learning and hearing over and over: break down the walls and allow students to expand their audiences.  I know this, but I didn't succeed last year.

This year, I chose to start as slow as a snail with technology.  A shift from the past but one that I wanted to try.  I was surprised as I introduced our twitter account to my class. Only two students knew what twitter was and a handful thought it was all about the #hashtags. Interesting....and we discussed digital literacy and the importance of knowing their tweets are alive and represent our class.  We sent our first tweet @katemessner to share that we started our new read aloud. I "promised" that she would reply to our tweet and luckily for me she did.  We are going to send tweets about our read aloud:  Hide and Seek.  The students are going to compose them, send them and then as a class we will share them.  I started as slow as a snail but this time around the students will have purpose along with ownership.  Already it feels better than last year.  I like slow as a snail.  Thank you to the Slice of Life Community of writers. You can check out other slices here at Slice of Life.