Re-enacting The Battle of the Alamo with Social Media

Last week I was privileged to head to Austin for TCEA2012. It is always such a dynamic learning experience that nets many great ideas to take back to the classroom. One of the new ideas I had been exploring was implementing the use of social media in the classroom. At the HP booth in the exhibit hall, they featured Mark Brumley who moderates their HP Teacher Experience Exchange website. He was presenting a variety of short presentations, one of which included using social media in the classroom. He discussed dividing students into groups, assigning them characters in a book they were reading and having them tweet "behind the scenes" information as that character. I loved this idea which sent me on a path of exploration for ways to implement this in my Texas history class. Today, I used one of the many ideas that presentation sparked.

We were watching the battle of the Alamo and I had students select who they wanted to portray. I let them select anyone associated with the battle. We used Today's Meet for our platform. I created a room on that site, posted a QR Code in the classroom that took students directly to the site and had them start "tweeting" as their character. The students were so engaged in this activity and I feel it took their exploration and analysis of this event to a much deeper level. Today, I truly believe my students relived that fateful day in March. Click here to check out their comments. The room will only be open until March 17th. After that you can access the transcript of the day by clicking here.