Digital Presence and Learning

Today the CollabLab welcomes guest blogger Kirsten Fletcher, a French teacher at Elk Grove.  She can be reached @MmeFletch

After hearing Paul Kelly and Linda Ashida talk about googling themselves and establishing a positive digital presence, I invited Linda into my classroom to help my students use Twitter in a way that would enhance their digital presence. First, I’d like to say that I wish I had asked her to stay longer. Although I was mostly interested in Twitter, she talked about other forms of social media and answered students’ questions about the advantages and pitfalls of social media.

After students set up their Twitter accounts, we established our class hashtag #frapeg (French AP EG). Our unit’s theme was Personal and Public Identities, so I asked students to tweet out a favorite song dealing with identity. Some of them came up with some great things. One student, Arely M., even tweeted out an article (in English) that explained where her song came from and the political background behind it. To model the potential of learning beyond the classroom, Linda re-tweeted Arely’s tweet and soon it was viewed by a French Teacher who tweeted Arely and Linda with learning activities to go along with the song.

After visiting our class, Linda has continued to follow our class hashtag to encourage student participation. We would love it if you would follow our hashtag as well, and respond to student tweets, or retweet them, to encourage our collaborative learning beyond our room.