I came across this post last night over on ICT in my Classroom by Tom Barrett. It utilizes two great internet tools to help his class interact with the world.
If you are not already familiar with Twitter, it is a micro-blogging service that allows you send quick updates or tweets to your friends or “Followers.” Its a free social networking service that is designed to let you keep track of what your friends are doing at any given time. You send a short (140 character max) message or “tweet” to your twitter account and anyone that is setup to follow you automatically gets notification. You can choose to send or receive your tweets just on Twitter.com, desktop app like Twitteriffic, or even via cell phone text message.(Click here to follow me on Twitter)
He utilized his Twitter network of friends all over the world and set his class of 9 & 10 year olds loose on trying to locate them in Google Earth. Google Earth of course is not a new tool in the world of Education Technology, but I think this could serve as a great introduction to Google Earth and really give your class the ability to interact with the world outside the classroom.
Of course, other tools could be utilized to gather the locational information such as iChat, or AIM services but that would require your friends to be actively available in chat as opposed to the Twitter network which can contact you via Cell Phone as well as computer.
Technorati Tags: Twitter, Eductech, Google Earth
