| www.euronews.com They start them young at a primary school at Siarrouy in the Haute-Pyrénées of south-west France. Since November 2011 they have been learning to write, not with a pen, but with a computer keyboard. Some of them are already tweeting at just five years old. Twitter is playing an increasing role in French classrooms. Teachers are using it more and more with ever younger pupils. It is a simple idea. The teacher writes the message that they want to send on the board - then the children tap it into the computer. The youngsters can not even read and write yet, but their teacher says it is a useful exercise to develop spelling and to form thoughts. Olivier Menadier explained: "When you ask some youngsters, 'what could we write?' they answer, 'My Dad is strong.' That's got nothing to do with what we were talking about. So to get them to take account of what the others are saying about constructing a phrase is also an important goal." The classroom Twitter account is closely controlled. No-one can read the messages without the teacher's say-so. Here, the children do not send messages to their parents like other classes do. Here, they correspond with Canadian classmates in Calgary. One mother, Sophie Herkenrath said: "It's all part of a child's working toolbox now, you can't side-step the internet and all its possibilities, so it's rather good. Afterwards, it's like everything. You have to set a framework and limits and above all explain well the interest in this ... |
