When it comes to learning how to read and write, the traditional tools often involve a book, some paper, all the relevant stationery, with a teacher on hand to guide the student. Well, time changes things – and so does technology, which is why we have learned of pupils in a French primary school class making use of Twitter in order to learn both reading and writing. Hopefully as the kids from that class grow up and their vocabulary expands, it won’t be filled with short forms as well as limiting themselves to just 140 character conversations in real life.
It is interesting to note that Twitter in classes are still quite rare, but they have been spreading their influence rather rapidly – as of September 1st, there are already 81 French-speaking twittclasses, where around 50 of those are located in France itself.
How does this class work? Well, each morning, at least one pupil will post the first tweet of the day, but prior to posting, he/she will have to perform some editorial work by writing the sentence in an exercise book, making sure it is correct, before typing it out on a shared digital document and copy and paste it in the software managing Twitter. This message will appear on the smartboard on the classroom wall, followed by messages from followers of the class.
Hopefully this class will also teach the kids of the do’s and don’ts of the social networking world, so that they won’t fall into potential pitfalls by sweet talking adults who have an ulterior motive.