Tweet tweet, twitter twitter

I've heard of twitter on numerous occasions in the past and I always wondered what the fuss was all about. Part of my curiosity comes from the fact I never used twitter until just a few months ago. Also curious was the name "twitter". Was it a play on the word "twit"? Is this a tool for those of reduced intelligence?

My ignorance has been replaced by an appreciation for this very popular and extremely useful web 2.0 tool. What is twitter? Twitter describes itself as, “a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?” (Mashable.com) Here is my story...


The Learning Process

My own personal experience has gone from shock (I have to get a twitter account?) to disbelief (I have to follow twenty people on twitter!), to anger (how many tweets can TSN give me each day?) to enlightenment (it is useful when I follow certain people!).

Early on, I didn't do any research into the how-to and do's & don'ts of twitter, I merely signed up and chose various people to follow. Here is a summary of those I chose:
1) My instructor and classmates
2) Two poker professionals and one poker commentator
3) The Sports Network
4) Leaders in their field (Steve Jobs of Apple, Dana White of the UFC)
5) Survival expert Bear Grylis (Man vs Wild)
6) Jimmy Kimmel (best late night show)
7) iTunesTrailers
8) My sister
9) Jeremy Piven (hilarious in Entourage)
10) CNN

Only lately (primarily due to this blog entry), have I begun to seriously research twitter. As twitter is extremely popular, there are mounds of information available online and in scholarly publications. Here is a summary of the sources I found to be useful to my learning.

Commoncraft (old faithful) offers a great video explaining the concept behind twitter and puts forth some reasons why twitter is so popular with so many people. Mashable.com was another great site that offers "The twitter Guide Book", a collection of explanations, links, tips, definitions, and uses all related to twitter. If you want to really get into twitter and use it to its maximum, this is a great site to check out. Make sure you have some time as there is a lot of information there!

I also found some useful scholarly articles that offer sound advice and practical applications for twitter in an educational environment. These include Kate Messner's "Pleased to Tweet You", Jennifer Demski's "Tweets for Teachers", and William Ferriter's "Why Teachers Should Try Twitter".

I now have a solid understanding of twitter and its potential uses and drawbacks, something that I did not have when I first signed up and started using it.


My Personal Learning

Early on, I began to realize that some people tweet about the dumbest things. I don't know why people would choose to follow certain "celebrities" unless they were really bored or maybe a stalker. I also began to realize that some news oriented organizations sent out an endless barrage of tweets. I am a bit of a news hound and I also like my sports, but CNN and TSN overloaded me with tweets. There were too many to even skim and scan and I have since stopped following both of these organizations. These early observations made me rather skeptical of twitter and I doubted its usefulness to me.

Fortunately, some positive changes occurred that caused me to reconsider my earlier thoughts about twitter. First, I stopped following those few people/groups that either sent me crap or sent me hundreds of tweets. Secondly, I started looking at those people who sent me the more interesting and useful tweets, specifically at who they were following, in order to find more like-minded people that I could follow. I even went so far as to look within Classroom 2.0 and Twitter4Teachers for others to follow (I think I found some good ones!) I even checked out whoshouldifollow.com, a site that helps you find people to follow. I never used it but I guess it is an option for finding more people to follow.

Another useful aspect to twitter I discovered is the use of hashtags (#). By assigning a specific hashtag or following a specific one (I did this and it really opens up the amount of useful information avaialble via twitter) it makes it so much easier find or allow others to find information on a various topic. One of the references I used in preparation for writing this blog post came to me on twitter via a hashtag (thanks Joanne!).

Am I on the right track?? I think so. I am getting more and more "useful" tweets now and those tweets I receive with helpful links end up getting bookmarked on Delicious. I have been getting more followers (12 now) and some of them I don't know at all! I'm hoping that they have received some of my tweets and decided to follow me because they found them to be useful.

Whether I continue using twitter will depend on my ability to keep sharing useful information and in turn receiving valuable information from those I follow. Considering the following statistics via Wikipedia, I will have to remain vigilant to ensure that most of the tweets I receive have some value to me:

Content of tweets via Wikipedia:

Content of Tweets according to Pear Analytics.
San Antonio-based market research firm Pear Analytics analyzed 2,000 tweets (originating from the US and in English) over a 2-week period from 11:00a to 5:00p (CST) and separated them into six categories:[39]
Pointless babble - 41%
Conversational - 38%
Pass-along value - 9%
Self-promotion - 6%
Spam - 4%
News - 4%[39]




Twitter and Teaching & Learning

I have learned of some amazing possibilities for using twitter recently and I want to share some examples of its use with you.

The first is a theme common to many web 2.0 tools: networking. The ability to connect, share, collaborate and pose questions with a group of like-minded individuals is huge. The nice thing is, once I have established a strong network, information comes to me on a regular basis. I can quickly click links from each tweet and save the useful information for another day. William Ferriter in Why Teachers Should Try Twitter explains that "... educators who use this tool to build a network of people whose Twitter messages connect to their work, Twitter becomes a constant source of new ideas to explore".

Jennifer Demski in Tweets for Teachers discusses the importance of "new ideas" further by discussing how twitter can be used to fight complacency in the teaching profession. She mentions a principal who asked his staff about barriers to technology integration at their school. The response from one of the teachers was startling: "We, the staff, are a huge stumbling block. We get complacent [thinking] that we don't need this new stuff, when it's exactly what we need". Twitter can certainly help teachers find "new stuff".

A second potential use for twitter is in staff meetings or professional development sessions. For example, the principal who posed the question about technology integration to his staff, decided on this question by using Twtpollto present five possible topics for discussion for that portion of the meeting. The effect was twofold. Staff received an introduction to twitter and secondly the meeting was transformed from the typical "top down" transfer of information into an inviting and active meeting that had a high level of participation. The principal summed up his experience with this statement:

"If I were to present the same question in a traditional staff meeting, I'd be met with blank stares. (no kidding) I was hoping that teachers would see this as relevant to the classroom; by using twitter they might get great feedback from a student who would never say anything". What a great example!!

Next, Kate Messner in Pleased to Tweet You offers up a number of great ways to use twitter in the classroom. Here are my favourites:
1. Creating book recommendations in 140 characters or less
2. Following experts in a field of study (i.e. Canadian History)
3. Keeping up with current events
4. Following the author of a novel being read in class (the author may tweet you as well)
5. Interacting with other classes from other parts of the world.

Lastly, I have thought up some other uses for twitter that I could see myself using. The first is using tweets on field trips to keep friends, staff, and parents up to date on things. I remember a trip to Vietnam with a group of students and what a pain it was to find a computer (NOT easy once off the beaten track) in order to update a travel blog. A tweet from a mobile phone would have been much easier. The same concept could apply to sports teams traveling to out of town tournaments; an occasional tweet to pass on scores, upcoming games or even what time the team is scheduled to arrive home would be so easy and well received I believe.


Conclusion

I won't be using twitter in the "social" sense. Rather, I do see myself using twitter to improve as a teacher. This is what makes twitter appealing to me. The ability to "network" with like-minded people in order to share resources, start discussions, pose questions, and provide answers. My network is growing and over time it will increase in size as well as improve in quality.

I started this odyssey as a total novice, a bit reluctant to get involved with twitter. I now consider myself an informed user, knowledgeable about some of the great ways to use twitter in order to improve teaching and learning in the classroom. Quite a good transition over the last three months I must say!


References

Demski, J. (2010) Tweets for Teachers. T H E Journal. February, Vol. 37, Issue 2, p. 16-18

Doggett, Laura (2009). Nine great reasons why teachers should use Twitter. Retrieved from http://lauradoggett.com/2009/03/nine-great-reasons-why-teachers-should-use-twitter/ (from Joanne DeGroot via twitter)

Ferriter, W. (2010) Why Teachers Should Try Twitter. Educational Leadership. February, Vol. 67, Issue 5, p. 73-74

5 Ways to Share Images on Twitter. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2009/05/19/twitter-share-images/

Hashtags. Twitter Fan Wiki. Retrieved from http://twitter.pbworks.com/Hashtags

Messner, K. (2009) Pleased to Tweet You. School Library Journal. December, Vol. 55, Issue 12, p. 44-47

Richardson, W. (2009) Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Corwin Press

The twitter Guide Book. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/guidebook/twitter/

Twitter in Plain English. Retrieved from http://www.commoncraft.com/twitter

Wikipedia.org