There has been a lot of discussion on Twitter lately about Twiducate, and after our successful Twiducate activity the other day, I decided to try using this tool again with my students today. This time though, I wrote two questions for them to answer — one about what they liked best about Grade 1 and why and one about their words of advice for the SK students entering Grade 1 next year — and then I told them that they could write about anything they wanted. I encouraged the students to have a conversation online. I even showed them what @kathycassidy did with her students on Twiducate to inspire them during their discussion. Students shared with me what they should remember when talking online (only saying nice things about each other, not sharing too much information, and as one student said, not using swear words), and with that, they were off to read, write, and have fun. It was amazing! In about 40 minutes, the students posted 196 comments, and they generated tons of good ideas, while improving their reading and writing skills too. Below are some screenshots that I took to show the work of two students that spent much of their time conversing with each other (click on the images to enlarge them). I love when they start to respond to each other’s posts and ask questions to move their conversation along. I was watching these two students working, and one said to the other one, “Let’s not talk. Let’s just type.” This is exactly what they did, and the results are incredible!

I hope that you will share your Twiducate success stories here along with some different ways that you use this tool. Hopefully we can generate some new ways to engage our students and continue to improve their academic skills too!