140 characters… and yet!

(Previous page)

If students like the writing challenge offered by Twitter, are they really learning? In elementary and secondary school, it seems so.

In first year, Brigitte Léonard is delighted that Twitter offers a way to make authentic communication situations with quick feedback and a real audience. She observes that her students write better. They write longer and better sentences. Their syntax would also have improved a lot. "I notice the motivation of students in difficulty," she notes. I am very impressed that they have such a keen interest in writing. I also get comments from moms of boys. I've been told more than once that they can't wait to go to school. "

“It's the shame to make mistakes in public,” reports Annie Côté, a secondary fifth teacher. They saw how well read they were. The number of faults has dropped significantly ”. She also notices that, due to the research they had to do, some students had improved in their vocabulary acquisition. “It is a project which is excessively profitable and which requires little investment of time on the part of the teacher. It allows you to see results fairly quickly, both in French and in terms of motivation. This is important. We have to look for all possible means to get them interested in our subject and this is one that works very well ”.

Are teachers learning just as much? Do they benefit from using Twitter in their professional life?

"If it is taken away from me, I cry," exclaims Sylvain Bérubé, a junior high school teacher. Everything goes through there. To keep his technopedagogical watch, he had recourse to the RSS feeds which he had abandoned. From now on, he prefers to trust human beings who, through Twitter, keep watch with him.

Although she uses a Facebook page for parents, a class blog and one blog that gives voice to its students, Brigitte Léonard would not go back either. She likes Twitter to bond more quickly with others Twittclasses. “I have developed affinities with teachers from other classes in Europe and Quebec. I talk about it a lot, because I would like there to be more Quebec classes ”.

What fascinates Annie Côté is the sharing that is now taking place between teachers at all levels. “Normally, a secondary school teacher does not sit down with an elementary, CEGEP or university teacher. Suddenly, everyone comes together and exchanges ideas, says the one who thinks she has learned even more than her students since last year. I had the intuition that this would be an interesting project for my students. I didn't know how much it was going to motivate me ”.

To read more