I have to admit, I am not a frequent Twitter user. While I have set up a Twitter as part of another class, I followed people of interest as part of my PLN. I find Twitter overwhelming. Every once and a while I will pop over for some ideas, but as a whole, I find Twitter overwhelming.
This week I decided to explore the poll feature in Twitter. While a tweet is for all to see, I tagged the people in the class who had provided a twitter handle prior to my tweet.
I liked how easy it was to create a poll, but I don’t like that I can’t see who voted. It is completely anonymous and anyone can (or not) vote. In this case, because I tagged certain people, I assume, they are the ones that responded. I also liked how you can set a time limit for the poll. As a specials teacher, if I wanted to get a feel for what a whole grade was thinking, this poll would allow them all to take the same poll throughout the week.
So, as a teaching tool, I can use this to see if my overall message was received, but I can’t get information on which individual students need help. Therefore, it would make a fun exit ticket; however, students would need a twitter account. At the elementary level, I am not comfortable with having this as a requirement. I can see how this would be an engaging tool for the upper grades.
I decided to create a second tweet for all of my followers to see who would answer. I figured if I am using it as a PLN tool, then I would like to see how many of my network friends would respond. Interestingly, the only people who responded were classmates.
On the flip side, as the one to reply to the tweets of my classmates, I realized the importance of the hashtag. It really helps to narrow down what you see. One of my challenges with Twitter is that I find it overwhelming. Using a hashtag to narrow down what I see makes it more manageable.
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