Twitter is one of those web 2.0 tools that has become part of everyday conversation, news, and social networking...and it even has its own vocabulary--tweets, tweeps, tweeple, and more. I joined reluctantly with a personal account nearly a year ago, and then got my class account a few weeks ago. I really like some of the funny anecdotes and pictures that my friends post, and I have enjoyed following some celebrities. On my class account, I have found it really helpful to subscribe to educational news sources, as the headlines come to me, instead of me having to remember to go to all the different sites and look them up. However, I'm still not entirely sure if Twitter is for me, or not.
One thing that I have noticed in my classmates' blogs is that everyone seems to equate Twitter with using your cellphone. Honestly? This is not something I want to do. 1. I have to pay for a data/internet plan, above and beyond my calling and texting. 2. I don't have a touchscreen phone or one that does lots of apps (or...does it? I don't use the web on it, so who knows, aside from not having a touch screen). I truly do not want all those messages coming to me via text messaging, and reading through all those tiny messages on an even tinier screen just isn't appealing. I DO like Twitter, and I DO see why it's fun on a personal level, and can be a great way to communicate, share, have conversations, and ask for help on a professional level. Yet, aside from setting up my personal account to accepts text message as tweets from me, and getting direct messages to my phone, I do not want the rest of it. So, it will have to wait for when I can come home, or access it at school, with enough time to scroll through. And, this in itself can pose a problem. The longer you are away, the more tweets you have to get through. And sometimes, that can be a daunting task. Never mind the abbreviated messages or text speak that you sometimes get, so that people can stay under 140 characters, or the piles of messages in a row from the same person, because they were nowhere near staying in those 140 characters.
But, anyway, I digress....
What type of information did I get from following Twitter the last few weeks. Well, first and foremost, I followed the US Dept of Education, and a number of education news sites like Education Week and US News Education. Last semester, we were following the news in education and blogging about it, and I meant to keep up with it. Yet, that rather fell by the wayside as I had to go to extra sites all the time. Having headlines come right to my Twitter client, Echofon, embedded in my Firefox browser has enabled me to read articles about changing laws with testing, see stories about teachers boycotting standardized testing in the UK, see links to blogs about the Race to the Top, and even see a few videos or comments on web 2.0 tools with regard to education. While 140 characters is not enough to give you the full idea of the article, you do get the headline and the link. And really, when you visit the main page of a new site, what is the majority of what you see? Headlines. This is what you end up basing your decision on whether or not to read the article on, and Twitter provides you with just that. Subscribing to these sites makes Twitter kind of a mini RSS feed.
In terms of who has been the most helpful in particular for me to follow, I think the two I would currently point to are Teaching Ideas which gives ideas on a range of things, from news to lesson ideas to links with tips on classroom management to suggestions for teaching FaceBook groups. It's a bit of a melting pot of teaching advice, and while some things are not of interest, the mix of information that is thrown out seems like it is bound to come in handy to nearly every level and content area at some point. Reading it can give me ideas, or may provide me with sites to suggest to colleagues.
More in line with my particular content area is Alice Ayel. She lives in Germany, and teaches French, Spanish and German, while being very interested in web 2.0. Some of her posts are in the foreign languages she teaches, and she shares ideas, blog posts (her twitter links to her blogs), lessons, links, and even teacher retail resources. In addition, she seems interested in connecting with her followers, by responding, retweeting, and asking for suggestions. I like that she uses the two-way functions of Twitter, and is open to dialogue and discussion, instead of being 100% an outward stream of information.
And also, just as a side note, I decided to follow Hugo Chavez on Twitter. He joined right around the time that we signed up for Twitter, and I thought that this would be an interesting feed to follow. Who knows? It may provide something to discuss in class, or an interesting take on a news story. Either way, it's not every day the leader of a country is posting on Twitter, so I figured, why not?
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I have found that you can't worry about catching up on what you miss with Twitter or you'll drive yourself crazy. You can look at the most recent posts, but I wouldn't try to go backwards in a day.
ReplyDeleteI agree about the cellphone use. I have an iPhone and could do this, but I find I only look at Twitter on the cellphone when I have nothing else to do. It is really most useful when it comes to my browser and I check it the first time I sign on for the day.
I agree that it is interesting to catch up with the leaders in the field via Twitter. I often use this as the "mini RSS feed" that you talk about instead of reading the entire blog. The headline is usually enough to tell me if I want to link to the entire post.