Using Social Media to Conduct Classes After Hours

Several brick and mortar teachers are joining with my online US government students to conduct a class with Twitter during the State of the Union. For English teachers who find that reading is best done in class, Twitter could be used conduct a classroom discussion as the "homework" part of the class. Below are the steps explaining how to do it.

We pick a hashtag which our students include in every post. It can be as simple as #schoolnamegovclass. Here is what we used last year.
We require the students to make three comments during the debate and tell them that school rules apply (ie language, etc.). Our kids like to see that we are trending so they do far more comments (20-30) and stick around the entire debate.
The teachers teach! This means you might say that some candidates are already running very low on funds or that the polls are great, but the goal is to win delegates. Having more than one teacher in on the debate makes for a richer discussion.
I use TweetChat (which can be synced to your Twitter account) so I can see the comments from the other students and easily enter in my own. Assume the kids can see all of the comments and know how to follow the discussion. I also usually watch the debate/State of the Union on my laptop as well and split my screen as you can see from the video above.
What about the kids who don't have Twitter! I use TodaysMeet which lets you set up a Twitter like screen that does not require a login/password. It really feels like Twitter and is a great alternative for younger students.

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Homework Reminders

When I want to quickly contact my online students, I use Remind.com . It allows you to send a text without knowing their phone numbers. Additionally you can set a time for it to be sent. You can add a link and/or upload a document. If you choose, you can also text individual students. All of the texts are recorded and kept as long as you keep the class. Above is a video giving you a great overview and here are several videos explaining how to use different parts of it. If you use Blackboard, the video below shows you how to embed Remind texts into a Blackboard page.

How to Make Your Own Flip & Tutorial Videos

Over the years I have made lots of video tutorial for my blog followers and flip videos for my students . Every single one of them have been made using Screencastomatic . You can purchase your own yearly subscription, but I have not only never paid, but also never even set up a free account. You don't need to since you can make the video and then just upload it onto YouTube. Watch the video above and you will be able to see how to record, add you talking (or not) to the recording and to upload it - all in less than two minutes. Go forth and make your own tutorials and teach lots of others. In a later post I'll show you how to organize your YouTube video library.

Snow Days Online

So we have a potentially major snow storm coming to DC this week. I am thankful that we have the technology to make up for not having school, esp. in classes like AP or IB ones where time can't really be missed and your students are more likely to do the work at home. Of course my online students get to work no matter the weather. So how can you get your brick and mortar students to work on a snow day. For my online kids I use Blackboard Collaborate so I would create a shell for the brick and mortar students as well and set an agreed upon time to meet which I reminded them about a few days before a snow storm. If you don't have something like Blackboard Collaborate you could you a Google Plus Hangout live stream where you could send a link to your students and they could watch a live lecture ( here's how ). You could then use Today's Meet to send a link to students and you could see their live questions. You would be able to do this b...

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