Institute of Education Tweeting Techniques Mark Peter Coombs Institute of Education don’t overegg the technology, in this case twitter. It is useful only in so far as it enables understanding of geographical concepts and trends. It is not causative in and of itself. I am sure you know this already, but in your presentation make sure it doesn’t come across as the teacher trying to be trendy and get with the latest media. In the end, we are better at geography and the kids are better at social media! This session will consider how to harness twitter during fieldwork and in the classroom, especially in a world where students and technology are intertwined.

Potential Misjudged Level Negotiated Distracting Situated Openness Digital Literacies Social Media Mobile Technology Active Learning Belonging Seeing outside the bubble Big Data Negotiated Sharing Profile Collaboration Potential Collaboration Ownership Contribution Student Centred Distracting – (student centred or student distracting) potential to go wrong, social media, fieldwork or classroom overcome by  Negotiated – Behaviour Management, clear expectations of use of technology  Misjudged Level – of digital literacy (Littlejohn et al 2012), use of internet capable, and therefore accessible task when combined with Mobile Tech, the use of this after, whatever is collected needs to carefully managed and structured, otherwise it will be come a task for the sake of a task Situated – Geographical powerful, immediate digital cartography potential. Twitter as a medium for this. Active Learning - “ The Collective analysis of what it takes to learn, combined from all these educators, identifies learning, in the context of formal education, as involving ‘cognitive motivation’, ‘ meta-cognition’, ‘ problem-oriented’, ‘inquiry-oriented’, ‘goal-oriented action’, ‘repeated practice’, feedback’, reflection’, and social communication’- i.e. it sees learning not as something that happens to the learner, but as an activity they do” (Laurillard,2008) Garside et al (2015) – can be discriminate to non users – idea of inclusion and overcoming barriers Curated Ownership Control Distracting Co-Created Powerful Tech Authentic Situated Contextual and Individual

Tweeted Plenaries Topic – Why do people live in tectonically active areas? LEDCs vs MEDCs Fatalistic, acceptance and adaptation (15 minute carousel) Pupils tweeted their distilled version of the information on their tables, using a laptop. This was displayed on the projector before the end of the lesson, and used as part of a questioning segment as part of AfL and to deepen understanding. Looked at the physical elements – geothermal energy etc. acceptance, fatalistic and adaptation

Tweeting Work in lesson – Escaping Vesuvius Pupils used ArcGIS Online to work through the Scenario that: Mount Vesuvius is erupting and they are emergency planners Once pupils had completed the GIS task, they tweeted their maps using the hashtag #7Riverside. Twitter in the classroom, school twitter account, if students have their own they can tweet, it will not log them in on arcgis online, but pupils will have to click the public sharing button, for access without arcgis log in. Mount Vesuvius is erupting: find out how many people live within 30km How long would it take to evacuate everybody? What are the disadvantages of using this software in emergency planning? Why would this be an important tool for emergency planning?

Using Twitter for Fieldwork - EQS Aim – For pupils to have a bank of information and/or images to refer back to During local fieldwork, pupils tweeted images of each site we visited, while filling out EQS’. When back at school students added up their total scores before creating a map using ArcGIS Online. They then: Identified the sites Created a map note with them Added in the twitter links from their mini-fieldwork Added in the EQS Score at each site Shared their maps. Highlight issues that some didn’t have twitter so completed a whole class one, also mobile phone policy etc.

Using Twitter for EQS continued Once shared …. The pupils have an interactive map they can continually access and use. (If pupils do not have twitter the links can be shared via email/sharepoint/fronter etc) This means twitter can become a medium for: Home learning Data presentation GIS and spatial anaylsis Technological engagement in the field and in the classroom. Make Public tick box / Click on the image directs to the site

Some other ideas not yet tried… Transects and Land Use Tweeting Transects Pupils tweet the land use type and images to support their views throughout a transect. Fieldwork diaries An example seen on fieldwork with level 5 students Students over the course of their fieldwork in Malta, used a hashtag a day, creating an accessible diary for everybody to use. Issues with diary – level 5 students example, 3and4g connection Land use – potential to map effectively and become a time saving tool, Transects and Land Use Tweeting Transects Pupils tweet the land use type and images to support their views throughout a transect. You would need to create pre-determined hash tags and polygons for land use e.g. polygon 1 #residential @gaconference. Would be useful during urban land use model fieldwork. This then creates a land use log that then can be mapped through geo-tagging. Fieldwork diaries An example seen on fieldwork with level 5 students Students over the course of their fieldwork in Malta, used a hashtag a day, creating an accessible diary for everybody to use. More relevant for residential fieldwork. You could either have one overall twitter diary or one twitter diary per small group, monitored via the schools twitter account. Twitting extended reading and/or homework Tweeting pupils with links to websites, videos or articles. Potential with stretch and challenge for extending and deepening learning in geography. Twitting extended reading and/or homework Tweeting pupils with links to websites, videos or articles. Potential with stretch and challenge for extending and deepening learning in geography.