Students and Twitter

I read an interesting tweet on Twitter today by glovely who linked to a blog post by a parent who talks about student usage of twitter and marked it as a must read. Typically, when I see that, my eyes grow a little bigger and immediately click on the link, which I did. You can read the article here and then come back and read my comments and even comment yourself!

I thought the blogger brought up some good points:
1) We, as educators, are concerned about making sure students learn how to stay safe on the Internet and learn Internet safety.

2) If we are going to teach students how to use the Internet safely, we need to follow the same rules, even the terms of service that come with every website.

3) Educators shouldn't be so scared of technology that they don't use it

and

4) She applauds this educator's use of technology and twitter in the classroom.

She's just not sure it should be with fourth graders and in this case, I agree. I read Twitter's terms of service myself, and found that yes, an account holder needs to be 13 years or older. As much as I think it would be great to use this with elementary and early middle school students, I'm not going to do it if Twitter doesn't even allow it, let alone what the school division may think about it.

I've thought a lot this year about how to teach Internet Safety and Cyberbullying Awareness, because I really want to discuss this with the students at my school. I think it is my responsibility to use the Internet correctly and set a good example and remind students at every turn how to use the Internet properly. So I couldn't in good faith use this site with those under 13. Now, what would be great is if there was something out there just for students and educators where comments could be viewed first. It could be a whole other learning experience, as students could learn what is a good comment and what is not and how to make it better the next time. Just like with blogging.

Another Twitter educator mrlosik did comment that the one thing missing out of this post was how schools are successfully using Twitter and that would have been nice to see too, as I've considered new tools this year. But I don't think that was the point of this post and I think educators should be commenting on how they are using it. I, for one, have used it as part of my PLC this year and everyday I learn something new or find a great resource to share with others. But I haven't gotten to the next step yet.

Mrlosik also said it's great to have a parent's point of view and it is. I don't know that many parents who know what this is and it's great this particular parent uses Twitter and likes it.

So what are your thoughts on this topic?