Social media

@coolcatteacher asks the question Should we teach letter-writing in the classroom?

Should we teach letter writing in the classroom? Yes we should. Letter writing is a wonderful art. I’ve always admired the writers of beautiful master pieces of penmanship and impeccable language skills. The skills learned from letter writing would benefit the child when it comes to essay writing.

1. Tweet or post status updates as a class. Teacher Karen Lirenmanlets students propose nuggets of learning that are posted for parents to read.
2. Write blog posts about what students are learning. Teacher Kevin Jarrett blogs reflections about his Elementary STEM lab for parents to read each week.
3. Let your students write for the world. Linda Yollis' students reflect about learning and classroom happenings.
4. Connect to other classrooms through social media. Joli Barker is fearlessly connecting her classroom through a variety of media.
5. Use Facebook to get feedback for your students' online science fair projects. Teacher Jamie Ewing is doing this now, as he shared recently.
6. Use YouTube for your students to host a show or a podcast. Don Wettrick's students hosted the Focus Show online and now share their work on a podcast.
7. Create Twitter accounts for a special interest projects. My studentMorgan spent two years testing and researching the best apps for kids with autism (with the help of three "recruits"), and her work just won her an NCWIT Award for the State of Georgia.
8. Ask questions to engage your students in authentic learning. Tom Barrett did this when his class studied probability by asking about the weather in various locations.
9. Communicate with other classrooms. The Global Read Aloud, Global Classroom Project and Physics of the Future are three examples of how teachers use social media to connect their students as they collaborate and communicate.
10. Create projects with other teachers. (Full disclosure: I co-created Physics of the Future with Aaron Maurer, a fellow educator I first met on Twitter.)
11. Share your learning with the world. My students are creating anEncyclopedia of Learning Games with Dr. Lee Graham's grad students at the University of Alaska Southeast. The educators are testing the games, and the students are testing them, too.
12. Further a cause that you care about. Mrs. Stadler's classes are working to save the rhinos in South Africa, and Angela Maiers has thousands of kids choosing to matter.

She also mentions 12 ways teachers are using social media in the classroom and the brave teachers using them. I say these teachers are brave because the social media landscape is fun and dangerous. Something that seems fun today could lose you your job tomorrow or haunt you for the rest of your life. When it comes to the internet, once its out there its really out there.