The key findings were:

Using micro blogging or Twitter had a number of positive benefits: -

• Pupils enjoyed it and were engaged. They perceived Twitter to be absolutely on their wave length, ‘it was cool!’
• It facilitated role play, discussion and debate and author interview.
• Its less threatening nature increased active participation.
• It led to gains in pupils’ skills of historical questioning and historical communication
• It led to gains in pupils’ knowledge and understanding of the historical events under consideration, the concepts of diversity, change and continuity and learning about the process of researching and writing historical fiction, the diversity
• In every case there was a permanent record of the debate, discussion that culd be used for follow up work

In each case study (see full report) a number of factors were essential for success. The:-

1. history teachers needed to be committed and determined
2. ICT staff needed to be fully supportive
3. Senior Management teams needed to be supportive
4. technology needed to be robust
5. history planning needed to be thorough
6. history activities needed to be rigorous, engaging ….
7. pupils required basic key board skills
8. pupils required thorough grounding in the history and learning skills required

The lesson objective was for the pupils in a mixed ability Year 7 to create multiple narratives on the Battle of Hastings, based on eight characters that fought in the battle. In the lesson eight groups of pupils would take on the role of the battle participants and would be asked to send a tweet capturing what their participant was thinking at each of the chosen moments within the battle. In order to achieve this a number of preparations were necessary

Firstly the history. Pupils needed to know about the events of 1066 leading up to the battle. They also needed to know about the battle itself. Who would be there, how they fought and what actually happened on the day. Pupils also needed to hone their source handling skills as they were going to work with scenes from the Bayeux tapestry. All of these were covered by the teaching in prior lessons

Secondly the software – Twitter. This was possible thanks to the enthusiastic cooperation and hard work of the school’s ICT Coordinator. 1. A set of fictitious pupil email accounts in the names of the battle participants such as Earl_Hugh had to be set up. 2. Then using these email accounts a set of Twitter accounts were set up. 3. Next each of these Twitters was set to follow the teacher, Nigel Watt, so that the Twitter stream could be shown on the board in the lesson. Additionally the school barrier to Twitter had to be removed for the duration of the lesson, normally Twitter is banned.

Thirdly the hardware. The school has a set of bookable laptops. Eight were booked for use in the chosen lesson, one for each character. The classroom in question had wifi access. In the event during the lesson all this technology worked smoothly.

The lesson Nigel Watt Lesson Plan

Prior to the lesson a number of additional materials were created. These were a PowerPoint presentation with the task instructions and selected scenes from the Bayeux tapestry of incidents within the battle. This was to be displayed on the board. Additionally a set of laminated colour versions of the scenes was available for students to handle in their groups. Finally, as Plan B, a set of large blank cards and marker pens were made available so that if the technology failed the lesson could carry on with handwritten tweets rather than electronic ones. To see the first scene follow this link http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=bayeux+tapestry&FORM=BIFD#focal=3cc6af79b3b6f71939a24c093ae69435&furl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.french-brand.com%2Fimages%2Frideaux-et-tapisseries%2Fcraye%2Fbayeux.jpg

The learning

The Year 7 pupils were very excited at the news that they would be tweeting and were keen to get started. Their response to the first slide depicting the Saxon shield wall receiving the cavalry charge of the Normans was very good as the screen shot shows. They reflect a range of viewpoints between the two sides with some appreciation of the differences within a side, for instance between a fyrdsman and a housecarl. They also reflect some accurate historical knowledge of events and of warfare.

Discussion

What emerged from this trial lesson were two things. The first was that pupils needed more time to explore each incident within the battle, to interpret the Bayeux tapestry scene and to consider their participants viewpoint before tweeting. And this needed to be balanced against pupils’ keenness to tweet and see their contribution on screen. Plus some pupils wanted to enter into dialogue with their friends and enemies. So for the next lesson far fewer scenes, indeed maybe only one or two will be considered.

The second was that using Twitter does have the potential to help pupils appreciate the differing narratives within a major event. And so more work will be trialed.

This community of practice is a strategy that could be adopted by initial teacher trainers with their trainee teachers. It enables trainees to stay in touch and feel supported when they are out in schools and also provides a swift route for sharing learning, ideas, problems and solutions.

This strategy has been used by trainee teachers at The University of Waikato in New Zealand. They used Twitter to reflect on their experiences.  Nigel Robertson highlighted the advantage of Twitter’s flexibility. The trainees posted tweets by text message (SMS) on their mobiles. This meant they were not tied to finding a computer or internet access and could tweet as soon as possible after an event. (Robertson, 2009)

http://lauradoggett.com/2009/03/nine-great-reasons-why-teachers-should-use-twitter/

Tuesday 23^rd March 2010, 4.15-5.30 pm, venue Thomas Hardye School, Dorchester

 This will then be followed by some time for participating teachers to experiment with Twitter or alternative micro blogging software. We will then meet for a half day (supply costs will be covered) to collaboratively plan individual classroom activities appropriate to each school.

Thursday 29^th April 2010, 1.15-4.30 pm, venue Thomas Hardye School, Dorchester

After the planning each participant will carry out the classroom work and prepare to feed back what has been learned to the rest of the project teachers on a final half day (supply costs will be covered). The date of this will be fixed on 29th April.

The final results of the project will be published via this blog and on the Historical Association website.

http://twitter.com/ukwarcabinet

During the lesson/s that follows narrate the event and at certain points ask the groups to stop, reflect and then to tweet what their individual would be thinking/saying at that point. Make sure that they have sufficient historical knowledge an dunderstanding to make this meaningful. Then use the Twitter stream that develops to explore the chronology of the event, the diversity of experience and the causes and consequences of the historical participants actions. This will be where the historical learning takes place.

To get a flavour of what the Twitter stream might look like here is an adult perspective on the activity for just three days in December 1065.

Harald Hardrada Viken, England’s throne is ripe for the taking, perhaps I’ll lead one last great military adventure, I have inherited Cnut’s claim 6:18 PM Dec 26th

Judith @Tostig Flanders, my brother Count Baldwin offers 60 ships 6:14 PM Dec 26th

Odo @Duke William Bayeux, send Gilbert Bishop of Liseux to Rome 8:57 AM Dec 26th

Morcar on the road to York, King Edward has taken to his death bed, do I hold to my alliance with Harold or do Edwin and I break away from Wessex? 8:56 PM Dec 25th

Duke William @Odo Rouen, Earl Harold plans to become King, time for us to start recruiting and ship building. Now how do I get the Pope on my side? 9:28 AM Dec 25th

Tostig Godwinson @Judith Boulogne, if brother Harold thinks I’ll forgive his treachery & give up my earldom without a fight he’s wrong, ask the Count for men 7:21 AM Dec 25th

Ealdgyth London, so I’m to be a Queen again, of England this time rather than Wales, I’m glad I took my brother Edwin’s advice. 7:15 AM Dec 25th

Harold Godwinson London, the King is dying, the crown will soon be mine, first I must persuade Edwin and Morcar to back me in the Witan, and then defend it 10:52 PM Dec 24th

Queen Edith London, my poor husband has had another seizure, I’m depending on my brother now to help me hold on to my lands and influence. 10:47 PM Dec 24th

Edward the Confessor London, not feeling too well this evening 8:50 PM Dec 24th

The same technique could be applied to any historical event, for example Year 8 or 9 looking at the opening of the Liverpool to Manchester Railway in 1830 or perhaps Year 10 studying the Peterloo Massacre of 1819 or ….

In the meantime one school has withdrawn their interest. This is because in their school there has been cyber bullying using Facebook which has led the school to block access to Facebook. In the circumstances the school’s management feel it would be inconsistent to allow access to another social networking site, Twitter. In a second participating school access to Twitter will be allowed, and in order to make it accessible to some pupils it has to be made available to all.

Finally one participating school will be discussing an activity to be trialled with pupils in early 2010 which will hopefully inform the work of the rest of the project schools.

Some resources:

Aurel Diamond’s blog (2009) on Twitter http://blogs.bath.ac.uk/ahd22/2009/08/11/twitter/

Barack, L. (2009) ‘Twittering Dante. New Models for student writing in the digital age’ School Library Journal. 4 January http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6647718.html

Becta http://emergingtechnologies.becta.org.uk/index.php?section=etr&catcode=ETRE_0001&rid=14363

EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative, “7 things you should know about… Twitter,” Educause.  http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7027.pdf

Holotescu, C. and Grosseck, G. (2009) ‘Using microblogging in education. case study: Cirip.ro,’ in 6th International Conference on e-Learning Applications, Cairo, Egypt, January 2009. http://www.cblt.soton.ac.uk/multimedia/PDFsMM09/Using%20microblogging%20in%20education.pdf

Kesmit3 (2009) The Twitter Experiment- UT Dallas http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WPVWDkF7U8

Rankin, M (2009) http://www.utdallas.edu/~mar046000/usweb/twitterconclusions.htm

Ten safety tips for Twitter http://www.digmo.co.uk/edu/ten-e-safety-tips-for-twitter/