Hello --This is Peter Kupfer, teacher of a physicist that is near and dear to you (or at least your wallet.) Iam writing to let you know of a new adventure I offered the students a chance to participate in lastweek. Some of you may have already heard from your students about the project, but we are going toinvestigate the use of Twitter and whether or not it can useful in a high classroom setting. In this e-mailI am going to explain what Twitter is, talk about how we are going to try and use it in the classroom,and provide you with some information and tips about Internet safety.For those of you that haven't heard of Twitter, it is one of thefastest growing applicationson theInternet. Twitter is difficult to explain and is often easier to understand if you experience the program, but I will take a stab at it.Twitter is classified as a micro-blogging tool which is designed to allow acquaintances to stay intouch with each other. Twitter was originally intended as a social networking tool, but it is fast growinginto a wide variety of applications including have your washing machine tell you when it is complete.For example, if you had a Twitter account you might send a post (called a tweet) along the lines of, “I just had a flat tire and now I am going to get it fixed.” Your friends who also have Twitter accounts cansign up to “follow” you. When you send a tweet all of your followers get a notice of that either via atext message to their cellular device or to a desktop computer program.Besides the social aspects of Twitter, there aremany possibilities.Businesses have made Twitter accounts to alert customers to sales.Celebritieshave made accounts to keep their fans up to date. Radio stations & DJs have made Twitter accounts to allow listeners to send in questions, comments, or todiscuss the topics on the show. During one of the presidential debates Twitter teamed with plodt.com tochart people's reactions to the debate in real timeusing Twitter.John McCain, the man who doesn't like using a computer, even twitters fromthe Senate floor ! I could go on, but the uses are reallyoverwhelming at times.So, what does this have to do with high school physics? Well, in world of education technologyTwitter is a hot topic. People are trying to integrate this technology into their classroom in differentway. One of my personal passions is to explore and work with emerging technologies so I wanted tosee what I could do with Twitter to help make my classroom better. So, I did some research into whatothers are doing with Twitter and I came up with a plan. (If you want to see what others are doing hereare a few links:

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Using microblogging in education - A Case Study

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Can we use Twitter for educational activities

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Twitter 4 Teachers - Science Teachers

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Twitter - A teaching and learning toolIn our classroom I would like to use Twitter as a tool for communicating information to thestudents. Currently, the homework is posted on the website each night (http://moodlehs.lz95.org and http://blog.mrkupfer.net

), but students don't always remember to check the web site for theassignments. My vision is that if I send out a tweet each afternoon reminding what the day's assignmentis, the students will remember that they have homework. Additionally, students could ask a question tome, or the class as a whole, via the class Twitter and receive answers to their question either from me or from their peers. This will not only decrease the response time for the question, but it could also helpother students who have the same question and help build the classroom community.Beyond simple communication there may be more uses of Twitter for the class that I have notconceived of yet, but that is the reason we are trying it out. It may turn out that the class Twitter willnot be more useful that other communication methods already in place and next year I won't use itagain. So, how do we get started?I walked the students through the process of signing up in class last week. If they choose to