Twitter Me This…
Posted by jamesfrankel on June 14th, 2009
Do you Twitter? I do. I’ve been on Twitter for almost a year now. The number one comment I hear from people who don’t Twitter is: “What are you doing? Who cares????”. For those of you who haven’t yet heard of Twitter it is a free micro-blog site that allows you to update your “followers” with brief, 140-character status updates that you can create from a wide variety of software programs, including things like Twitterific for the iPhone and iPod Touch. You can also follow a wide variety of very interesting people. Some measure their culutural significance by the number of followers they have. People like Stephen Johnson (one of my favorite authors) and Evan Williams (founder of Twitter) have hundreds of thousands of followers, and others have a few hundred. Many companies (such as SoundTree) have created Twitter feeds to stay in touch with their customers. Twitter is playing a very important role in our wired culture, often having important political and social significance (especially when current events are happening in real time). I find so much incredible information about music technology on Twitter. You can check out some of the people that I follow to see where I find my information. Following someone is as simple as clicking on “Follow Me” and you’ll instantly have access to their “feed”. Creating an account takes about 2 minutes. Soon you’ll be using Twitter jargon - re-tweeting, creating hashes, and more. Be careful, you just might get addicted to this incredible site.
What are the educational implications of Twitter? Can you see using it with your students? Do you use it with your students? What if your students were Twittering live during your lectures or classes? What lessons could be learned if your students were required to follow a famous author or musician? What if your students assumed the identity of a famous musician or composer and created a Twitter feed for them? Who do you follow? I’d love to hear the kinds of things you do with your students. I personally believe that Twitter has incredible potential in education. I only wish that I were still teaching middle school - I have so many ideas for how to use it with my former students.
As always, I welcome your comments and suggestions. And please, take a minute to follow me.
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June 14th, 2009 at 9:28 am
I singed up for Twitter about 2 minutes ago! Your blog post convinced me, especially that I got a new middle school job for next year - with an awesome technology lab! I’m in!
June 15th, 2009 at 10:15 pm
Jim,
I’ve kind of ambivalent to the Twitter experience. It’s a guilty pleasure to check in on you and other friends, especially in the music technology community, to see what’s going on, and I’ve had fun posting my goings on….and pretending more than a handful care
Still, kind of like with Facebook, I have some reservations about using Twitter with K-12 students. Lots of inappropriate and/or misunderstood communication goes on via these online tools that could have negative ramifications for educators if they are not prudent.
Your idea, though, of having students track musicians, composers, etc. seems like a lot of fun and less risky.
June 23rd, 2009 at 10:54 am
I’m using Twitter a number of ways…one is for my own personal microblog. I have another account that I’m using as a news/web portal for my high school choir program (we’re opening a new school in the fall, so it really isn’t being tracked by many people yet) at www.twitter.com/erhschoir
I’m also running yet another Twitter account to use in my duties as a technology integration specialist, mainly so I can post where I’m at in the school so people can find me when they need me.
Like many educators, I’m running ClassJump as a primary web portal for my program (in fact, I presented a session on building ClassJump websites yesterday to all the staff in our school), and I’m also using txtBlaster (sending cell text messages to subscribed members to get news out) and Contxts (text message business cards) in an attempt to contact my students (and their parents) in any way that I can.
Twitter’s biggest challenge is getting away from their own question (i.e. “What are you doing”), which is why so many people send out mundane tweets–and why businesses and schools seem to be having such a hard time seizing the opportunity of Twitter…to be concise and specific about what you send to the community (we’re used to sending news releases with hundreds…if not thousands) of words. Maybe Twitter will change that original question sometime.
August 26th, 2009 at 9:34 am
[…] to post about resources, concert performances, educational experiences and more. In Jim’s blog, he suggested that teachers could use twitter to follow a current musician. His suggestion made me […]