Is it worth it?

That was the question I was asking myself yesterday. 

On Monday I started something new. After seeing a few colleagues and educators on Twitter tweeting from their homerooms, I decided that it might be something that I could do. So, armed with my iPhone, its camera and my 3G plan I started snapping kids at work in my classroom. I started tweeting pictures of the students at work (none that can actually identify any of them) using the hashtag #cdnishkpa – an extended version of our school’s hashtag. I informed the parents of students in my classes and set up a hashtag feed on my school blog.

As a specialist teacher I only have forty minutes with each class. And that is when they turn up on time and don’t leave early. It took me less than a minute to tweet a quick brief message about what each class was doing, and I made sure it was when the students were busy working together in groups (and so didn’t need me). But I did wonder what the classroom assistants that accompanied the classes might be thinking. ‘I wonder who she is texting’, maybe. I never usually have my phone out during a lesson – it is actually a pet hate of mine. So this was pretty much going against my own standards! 

I managed to tweet from almost every class on Monday and Tuesday. I also tweeted from two musical lunchtime activities I run. And then I thought, is it worth it? I mean, is there any learning value to me doing this? Right now I’m not so sure. So far the students are not aware of what I am doing. So far they haven’t been involved in deciding what I should tweet. Mainly due to the fact that I see three hundred and fifty five students every week. All aged between three and six. The thought of trying to get them ALL involved with my tweeting is just too much. As a homeroom teacher this would be much easier.

Today, day three, I didn’t tweet at all. I was working with the Pre Reception and Reception classes in their own homerooms. I’m there for half an hour and with three and four year olds I have to be present all the time. There is definitely not a minute to spare for me to tweet!

My thoughts kept coming back to the learning. I could not think of how this was benefiting the students in any way. So, if that was the case, was it worth it? I was on the verge of saying ‘no’ and forgetting the whole thing, when I received a ‘thank you’ Twitter message from a parent. Thanking me for posting a picture of his daughter at work. I was taken by surprise. Maybe parents DO look at my blog and read it. Maybe there are more of them out there watching my #cdnishkpa feed. And if there are, maybe I should continue.

I guess that if there is anything I can learn from this, it is that I shouldn’t just jump in and start doing something because it sounds like a good idea and because someone else is doing it. I need to think more carefully and make sure that if I am going to start a new initiative then I should make the learning intentions clear in my mind first.

What do you think? Is it worth it? Should I continue? Or could I be doing something better that would improve student learning? Comments and suggestions, please!

#Learning #Reflecting #Twitter