So much for my 21st Century Classroom

I really try to make my class enjoyable.  I lecture with as much vim and vigor as I can muster.  I am a bit loud at times.  I try and teach like a story teller.  I am also a geek, which I have mentioned here a time or twenty.  It is just the nature of the beast I guess.  I love toys. I love computers.  I love technology.  Being in a 1:1 laptop school makes it SOOOO much easier for my inner geek to come out and play.  I have so many cool ideas and I am trying very hard to move away from relying solely on traditional assessments and including more projects that can be included in their e-portfolios as we move on in journey as a 21st Century School.  


So, I have been toying with a Social Media project for a bit.  I settled on Twitter, because it is the least threatening format of mainstream social media.  I got all the kids set up, had them lock their accounts, stressed that they should only included the kids in that class, not even in my other sections.  Everything seemed to be going so smoothly when I left work on Friday.


Sill rabbit, you know there is always as SNAFU.


The panicked emails started coming in on Saturday.  Twitter was suspending their accounts.  

WHAT???  It is a THEOLOGY class!  What could they be posting to get their accounts suspended?!?  The emails just kept coming in.


I spent the weekend trying to figure it out.  It hit me this morning, 6:45, as I looked around my empty (well, aside from the 4 stooges) classroom.  They didn't do their homework.  UGH!  See, this is what happens when you don't do your homework.


I asked the kids to have their accounts set up when they came in to class on Friday.  About half did not.  So, we set them up in class. Because they were all set up from my class, I am certain that I multiple accounts being created from this IP address, sent up a BRIGHT RED FLAG for the Twitter Geeks and they suspended half of my kids' accounts.  UGH!!!


And the thing is, the project relies on the social part of social media to be successful. <sigh>


So, we are posting on the hum drum boring old Moodle forum until we can get this straightened out.  Hopefully Twitter will hear our pleas and reactivate the kids' accounts - FAST!  Wish us luck.


Happy Monday!