I’m new to the whole “tweeting” thing this year, and I have to admit, I wasn’t eager to adopt this new form of social media for my classroom.  One, I’m a terribly verbose person.  Writing in 140 characters max?  That’s an entirely new skill set.  My progress reports are books, and my emails to parents are long and detailed.  And it isn’t because I’m trying to be an over-achiever.  I’ve just always found it much easier to write everything that comes to my mind, and a lot comes to my mind.  My second issue with Twitter was similar to my issue with photography.  I don’t really like to stop what I’m doing to tell everyone or capture what I’m doing.  I’ve never posted a Facebook status and despite having Instagram, don’t ever post pictures.  I love following other people, but I don’t leave much of a trail myself.  Would I just stop teaching every now and then to tweet?  I wasn’t sure what it would look like for me.  However, the rest of my team decided to have classroom twitter pages, so I decided to get on board and give it a shot.  Ironically, it has it turned into one of the best parts of my classroom this year, not just for me, but more importantly for my students.

As soon as I showed my students our class Twitter feed (@johnston5th), they were all in.  I get questions daily about how many followers we have, how “famous” they are as their pictures go up, and of course, how many followers Jill Gough (@jgough) has now since she retweets many of our posts.  As a result of their interest and enthusiasm, I allowed my students to create their own twitter handles and “whiteboards” for their lockers where they could “tweet” to the class.  As I posted some of these “tweets” on Twitter, Jill Gough connected me with another teacher, Philip Cummings (@philip_cummings), who introduced me to the idea of a Chief Tweeting Officer (http://goo.gl/l0h2lx) in the classroom.  Because of positive feedback and the connections made through Twitter, the students are well on their way to crafting their own tweets for our real classroom account.

When we started the process, the students were excited about writing tweets but wondered why anyone on Twitter would care what they said or thought.  In their mind, my tweets were “grown-up” and interesting to all of our followers, but their tweets wouldn’t be.  What would they say? Why would their voice matter?  While I’ve come to love the professional learning community on Twitter, I would argue that the students’ voices are equally, if not more important in some ways, than ours.  The students are the heart of education.  They are the “client” and the voice that ultimately reflects our education system.  Why should I be the only one reflecting our learning? Why should I be the only one that hears what they’re excited about and latching onto in the classroom? What can other teachers and students learn from hearing children who aren’t in their classroom?

To prepare for a Chief Tweeting Officer, we’ve been practicing different types of tweets on paper to get used to what a tweet looks and sounds like. Despite thinking they had nothing to say, they immediately started coming up with more meaningful tweets than I ever expected.  In fact, I’ve learned volumes about what they take away from our classes just by reading their tweets.  Here is just a sample of some of their tweets from the first two days of practice:

Working on fairytales and connections with Sisters Grimm.  Which ones are your favorites? #trinitylearns ES

Wordly Wise reminds us how many words are out there that we haven’t even heard of. #trinitylearns ES

Today we are doing the 12 minute run. I am ready to push myself! #trinitylearns HH

River Kids reminds me of a water sample class at my camp in Maine. #trinitylearns AM

Measuring our step length in math. I wonder how many steps per mile? #trinitylearns AG

I had so much fun in the creek today at science. I saw 4 newts and a leopard frog! #trinitylearns PR

Preparations for Camp Will-a-Way starts today! Can’t wait to go! #trinitylearns SS

In math we measured our steps. Surprisingly I have the small steps! #trinitylearns LN

I wonder what’s in the science shed. #trinitylearns CK

Doing River Kids boot camp was so fun! It reminds me of when we went exploring in 3rd grade. #trinitylearns MS

I’m so proud of my math test score. #trinitylearns BL

What a window into our students’ minds! Do I still struggle to write in 140 characters or less? Yes.  Am I still verbose?  Yes, just look at this post! Do I sometimes miss or ignore “tweetable” moments?  Yes.  But those struggles are outweighed by the incredible learning that is happening on Twitter for both my students and me.  If our purpose is to share and learn from each other, then our students should be a part of that community too.  Keep an eye out for our students tweeting and sharing their learning beyond the walls of our classroom!

Learner, Thinker, Writer:  Ashley Johnston teaches Fifth Grade language arts and social studies at Trinity School. @johnston5th

As I thought about what I wanted to write today, it wasn’t a lack of ideas that was the problem.  I had a list of several possibilities, but none stood out to me as especially interesting, meaningful, or powerful.  So when my students walked into my classroom, I casually asked, “If someone told you to write about something today – anything at all – what would you write about?”  I expected to hear groans or see fear on their faces at the thought of a writing assignment.  Instead, I heard a sudden chorus of excited voices advising me to write about what I love as they eagerly threw out their own ideas.  Lacrosse! Unicorns! Twilight- team Edward! Minecraft! Acting silly and crazy! I started to wonder why we, as adults, rarely sit down just to write about the things we love.

As we get older, we learn that what we write must have some purpose, some valid argument, or some deep connection to our lives.  We’re rewarded and praised as students for writing something meaningful, thoughtful, and well-written.  Of course there’s a time and place for that type of writing.  But do we also learn that writing simply to tell the world about what we love, with no profound conclusion or objective, is child’s play or no longer relevant?  What happened to writing simply to share our joy and understanding of something as simple and unprofound as being on Team Edward?

What would I write if I decided to just write about something I love? I realized that’s a harder task than I anticipated.  I’m used to making sure everything I do has some purpose or achieves some goal.  How much of what I do in life is purely for pleasure and no gain or reward?   Where do I still find joy with no promise of any long-term benefit?  I realized I love peanut butter, dogs, college football, maxi dresses and skirts in the summer, eating afternoon snacks when I get home from school, spending time in the sun, and reading celebrity gossip in the checkout line at the grocery store, all despite the fact that none of these things have direct relevance to my success or will necessarily earn praise from others.

Similarly, I doubt unicorns have any real relevance to my students’ lives, but they find joy in writing songs about them.  I recently learned from one of my students that unicorns don’t exist anymore because they were lounging in a pool when Noah’s Ark sailed by, and therefore, missed the boat and drowned in the flood.  When another student asked why they didn’t just fly away from the water, the first student informed everyone that unicorns can’t fly, they can only run on rainbows.  That story brought a smile to my face for the rest of the day.  I sincerely hope my students continue telling stories like that one, if only for the joy of explaining and sharing something they love.

Learner, Thinker, Writer: Ashley Johnston teaches Fifth Grade social studies and language arts at Trinity School.

http://www.google.com/zeitgeist/2012/#the-world

Recently, while perusing Google, I came across a mother’s 18-point rulebook for the iPhone she gave her teenage son.  Her rules emphasize continuing to live in the present despite having an iPhone, and while I largely agree with her, the end of rule 17 caught my eye.  She advises her son to “Wonder without googling.” While I understand her point, I can’t imagine my life without googling my wonderings.  Am I wondering the wrong way?  Am I a slave to the instant knowledge I can find on my iPhone?

I happen to think that we should wonder AND google.  There’s something incredibly fulfilling about exploring our own curiosity for no other reason than to explore.  I read an article last night about Beyonce singing the National Anthem at the Presidential Inauguration. When I googled “Beyonce National Anthem” so I could watch her performance, I also got results for Whitney Houston singing the National Anthem at the 1991 Superbowl. By the time I got through with my simple search on Beyonce, I knew how many people watched the 1991 Superbowl, read Whitney Houston’s entire Wikipedia page, and read a commentary on the start of the Gulf War.  Was this hard-hitting research?  No.  Was it important research? Not really.  None of it relates directly to my livelihood or will earn me more money.  I learned for no other reason than I wanted to.

Google may not be the best place to do in-depth, original research.  It’s certainly not the only place to find answers.  Not everything we find on Google is true, and not everything can be found on Google.  But for the random questions and curious thoughts that cross my mind in my daily life, Google has provided the opportunity to explore, learn, question, and discover on a whim, sometimes on topics I never even set out to discover.  I, for one, will continue to google what I wonder.

Google put together a website and video about the top searches of 2012.  Watch the video. It’s amazing what we can learn about ourselves and the world just by looking at what we searched for, both trivial and serious.  It tells us what interests us, inspires us, and what’s important to us.  I wish I could see a video that showed us what our students search for everyday.  I imagine it would amaze us.

Learner, Thinker, Writer: Ashley Johnston teaches Fifth Grade social studies and language arts at Trinity School.