Inspiring Learning Outcomes with Twitter in the Kindergarten Classroom

This teacher's work with Twitter is building connections across the globe, and inspiring learning here at home.

I first learned about Amy Night's use of Twitter in her kindergarten classroom when she submitted the following comment in response to the post, “Do you use Facebook or Twitter in the classroom (or know someone who does)?” back in February:

“I am a kindergarten teacher, using Twitter in my classroom as a tool to connect my students to a larger, international community, of kindergarteners. I blogged about it here: http://missnightmutters.blogspot.com/. Just recently the entire kindergarten team (4 teachers) at my school created twitter accounts for their classes, and we are using them as part of a “Kindergarten Around the World” virtual exchange project.”

Naturally I stopped by her blog and started reading. I loved her story, and decided right then and there I wanted to write about it here. When I recently sat down and started reviewing her work to try and put together an article, I found her March post, “I heard them say, love is the way”, and it occurred to me that I really couldn't add anything to this, and that I really wanted to share it here. I asked Miss Night if I could republish her story here, and she kindly granted me permission. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

  

 

I HEARD THEM SAY, LOVE IS THE WAY 
(originally published on http://missnightmutters.blogspot.com/)

A few weeks ago, we started a new project in my classroom: Kindergarten Around the World. I will spare you the minute details (hit me in the comments if you want to know more), but it is, basically, a virtual exchange between our class, and a partner class overseas. For my 20 Canadian munchkins, we found a partner group in East Borneo, Indonesia. Both classes have created an imaginary friend, who attends our partner school. (For the curious, our imaginary friend is a little girl named Ella. She is 6 years old, she has blond hair, brown eyes, and brown skin. Her gender and name were decided by vote. Her age and appearance were drawn at random.) We use Twitter to ask research questions of our partners, and the answers allow us to write stories documenting our imaginary friend's experience in another country. Each child has a journal for the project, where they record things they have learned. It being kindergarten, the recording mostly takes the form of drawings. The children dictate text to go with their drawings, and then copy that text onto their pages. We are working on a Prezi presentation to share our learning with parents and other classes. We have made a video to teach our “Indonesia friends” about snow and how to get dressed for recess when it is very cold.

When my team conceived of this project, I knew it was going to be cool. As mentioned in my previous post about Twitter in kindergarten, I love love LOVE that my students are building real connections with other children their own age. This project brought it to another level, by pushing them to imagine themselves in a completely different setting. (As we graph the often FIFTY degree difference in our daily temperatures, I often imagine MYSELF in a completely different setting, too!) I knew that this project was going to take us in unexpected directions, and there is no doubt that it has. In the 3 weeks since it started, we have learned:

Every single time we log in, we learn.