So back to the internet I went to find out how 21st century social studies teachers are using Twitter.   Here are some ideas that I will add to my bag of tricks:    following historical figures, gathering real-world data, interesting facts, temperatures/precipitation of cities around the world. How about following government figures? Students could tweet inspirational quotes of the day. I could assign each student one section of a chapter to summarize in 140 characters or less--forcing a focus on quality.  I could assign pairs of students to produce a Tweet dialogue between two opposing characters about a key issue--constitutional convention tweets over slavery, Grant and Lee over terms of surrender, Khrushchev and Kennedy over Cuban Missiles, for example.  Students could be asked to summarize a topic/concept/viewpoint as a Tweet; each student would be given a different one to focus on.  Every day a student could be assigned the Tweet of the Day--they could post a helpful study skills tip, a historical fact or geographic fact they want to share. I loved the idea of a Scavenger Hunt having students find websites, pictures, or other on-line documents that fit a certain criteria, have them post the links to Twitter and once posted, it could not be posted by another group.

Sure beats the Kardashians or the Dallas Cowboys!