Tweaking "KWL" with Twiducate!

I know you are all familiar with the KWL chart.  It has been around for centuries, like Bloom’s taxonomy, and is always used as a great motivator for any and all subjects.   Don’t get me wrong, I am a fan of the KWL chart, but something always bothered me.  What if the student didn’t know anything about the subject?  What if the student didn’t want to know anything about the subject?  Any way,yesterday I sat down with my small group, prepared to read a book about prairies.  I said, “Get your laptops and open Twiducate.” In 20 minutes, and I am not exaggerating, we knew so much about prairies, it was so cool! I twittered the question, “What do you know about prairies?”  One of the students Googled a link about prairies for kids, I had her post the link, and they all used it to obtain information.  They had to write at least two facts from the article about prairies AND paste an image.  Each wrote facts from different headings, for example, Prairie animals.  After typing and posting, we discussed, and what a lively discussion we had! The pictures allowed the students to “see” a prairie, and anything related to a prairie. I used their posts on Twiducate for our whole group discussion today,and they were very proud of their work! One of my resolutions was to engage my 21st century students, I think I can say I am working toward meeting that goal.

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