18 Twitter-Based Classroom Activities for Learning With Social Media

Twitter can be an exceptional learning tool. In today's classroom, the prospect of using social media in learning gets kids excited. Learning using social media can be effective and enjoyable. These Twitter-based classroom activities will show you how.

We've compiled a list of some of the most popular Twitter-based classroom activities to get into with your learners. They are broken down into three categories:

1. Team-Building Activities
2. Communication Ideas
3. Educational Resource Ideas

Team-Building Activities

• Word Games: Use Twitter to post a challenge where students have to work as a team to solve it. These challenges could be word scrambles, definitions, or any other spelling, grammar, or writing related game.
• Scavenger Hunts: Place scavenger hunt clues and directions for students to follow on Twitter. Have them share progress with their team members and notify others of their progress in real-time.
• Tweetable Book Club: Build a book list tweet by tweet, or link to a full book list created in advance. Students can read the material and tweet their views on it. They can also use Twitter to schedule club meetings and updates.
• Global Gathering: Students can connect via Twitter with other students across the world and collaborate on projects. They can incorporate web video conferencing tools like Skype.
• Class Newspaper: A great group project, the class can create a newspaper using hashtags for each section.
• Tall Tale Train: Students create their own progressive poem or story. A student tweets out a “story starter” concept, and everyone else adds their own sentences to keep the story going.

Communication Ideas

• Recap the Day's Lessons: Create a one or two sentence summary of what the students learned in class that day. Ask students to retweet and comment with any final thoughts or even continue the conversation from home.
• Extra Credit: For students who log on to the class Twitter account outside of the classroom, you can post extra-credit assignments that can be completed at home.
• The Buddy System: Sometimes people are absent from class for any number of reasons. Twitter can keep everybody informed on class news and assignments. Teachers can post details on homework, points from class lessons, or lecture notes for absent students. They can also assign the absentee a class “buddy” to do this.
• Communicate With Parents: You can tweet homework assignments, test information, projects details, and more to parents and students.
• Pen Pal: People all over the world use Twitter, so it's an excellent tool for finding a modern day pen pal! Students can find a foreign pen pal, or one that resides in a different part of the country from them, and learn all about their culture, school, and interests.
• Field Trip Updates: Using Twitter on field trips and classroom excursions, any student can post updates with text or quick video, and even share some teachable moments with friends and peers.

Educational Resources

• Discover Career Options: Older students can communicate with career professionals to learn more about career paths that interest them.
• Be Voice From the Past: Ask a question about an event of historical significance, and have the student tweet the answer in the character of the historical figure directly affected by the event.
• Learn a Foreign Language: Students studying a foreign language can follow and interact with Twitter streams from news outlets in countries speaking the language they're studying.
• Lesson Summaries: Teachers can have students tweet a concise 140-character summary of a class or lesson to demonstrate what they have learned; a great way to measure engagement.
• Study Politics: Many government agencies and politicians have official Twitter accounts that students can follow for the latest news and information.
• Virtual Classroom: On a snow day, you can hold a virtual discussion using Twitter. Set a time limit and post a topic or question for discussion.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in 2017 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Originally published Apr 23, 2017, updated Dec 15, 2021