The teacher asks the students if they use Twitter, and why or why not.

S/he asks them about Twitter's features and characteristics.

If some or most of the students use Twitter, the teacher asks them if they follow famous people from different areas of the national or international public scene (entertainment, sport, politics, scholars, journalists, activists). The whole group discusses the use of Twitter as a means of communication.

Some suggested questions:

• What do students usually tweet about?
• What do public figures they follow usually tweet about?
• What influence can Twitter have on public opinion?
• What effects can tweets by opinion makers have on the development of historical events?

Optional: The teacher can choose a relevant tweet by a notable public figure about a recent event and use it as an example to elicit reflections regarding this topic. (15 - 20’).

The teacher brings the students' attention back to the period in history that they have been studying.

S/he may choose to have a short brainstorming session with the whole group to revise the main events and characters or characteristics of that period. (10 - 15’).

The teacher now invites the students to imagine Twitter had existed at that time. Everything else remains the same, but Twitter exists. In groups of 3, the students choose a character from the time of history they are studying. There can be individual famous characters (example: Christopher Columbus) and/or common people (example: old sailor / young female factory worker). The teacher makes sure there are a variety of different characters and that no famous figure is repeated. (5’).

The teacher asks the trios to think of a possible 140-character-long message that the personality they chose may have wanted to share on Twitter, had Twitter existed back then. (10-15’).

The teacher invites the trios to represent their tweet visually as if it had been a real tweet.

There are two ways in which the teacher may choose to propose this (or s/he may want to ask some trios to use one tool and some others to use the other):

The students may search the net for a fake tweet generator.

Example: http://tweetfake.com/

Or the students may use a picture editing tool and retouch a Twitter screenshot.

The teacher and the students discuss what elements they should edit: for instance, the username, the date, the people who reacted to the post, or retweeted it, etc. (20-25’).

The students are asked to share the tweets they generated. This can be done by means of a shared folder or by posting them on a platform or social network. (5-10’).

Optional: The teacher asks each trio to pick a tweet they think their character should reply to.

They repeat the procedure to produce a reply. (10-15’).

They share again the replies they produced. (5’).

In their groups the students read and comment on the tweets produced by their classmates.

Optional: The group may decide to share these with the rest of the school community, also using a platform or social network, or by projecting them in a common area of the school. (10’).

The activity ends with a discussion about the impact that twitter can have and on the possible effects and consequences of real and fake tweets. (10-20’).