Twit? Whenever I hear the word “Twitter” I think
of Roald Dalh’s story “The Twits”! Just
had to say it!
Twitter. I don’t really get it. Maybe I am too patient but Twitter seems so
demanding. I don’t want to or need to
know the information going around that very instant. (I think RRS is more my style but more about
that another blog.) Twitter feels like a
gossip place to me. It just doesn’t feel
as professional or something.
I have started Twittering
at the beginning of this course. I
follow Cory Doctorow, Books n Company, Penguin, local artist friends and peers
for 477. Fiona Fraser has the best
Tweets out of the people I follow so far.
Thanks Fiona! Fiona’s tweets are
not terribly often and are relevant to my learning.
As far as using this in my
classroom, I know my students are too young to do this. As Will Richardson states in his book the
“lesson is this: Think about Twitter for yourself first.” I think that has become my rule for all of
the social web stuff we are learning. I
need to try it out first and play with it.
Eventually things sift down and I develop an understanding of what works
for me. Twitter is something I will
continue to try but it will be limited to the things (art, education and books)
I want to be informed about. I am not
into keeping informed about the last word about an election or hockey
negotiations (even union negotiations!)
Twitter, or Instagrams or
any microblogging for education purposes, for me is about my learning and about
what is out there that I can try in my teaching practice for more meaningful
student learning.
I need to play with hash tags more in this journey or sicial networking and Twitter. I also need to link my Twitter account to my Google account to make this journey easier. I really dislike having to take the time to log into all my different accounts. I know from our hangout talks on Google that I can add Twitter to my google account. I just need to take the time to do that now.
I feel that RRS is going to meet my needs though ...
Bibliography
Thank you for an honest appraisal of how you feel about twitter. You do see some potential, and I do hope you plant a few seeds here and there to hopefully harvest much reward sometime in the future with twitter. It is worthwhile and sometimes while it is hard to decipher where that might be for you, I hope you maintain an open mind and do keep it in consideration for future.
ReplyDeleteYou know I'll always be there and available for help, conversation and networking! @aaronmueller
Thanks for the compliment, Janice! I'm glad that my 'tweets' have been useful for you.
ReplyDeleteI know that before I began using Twitter, I also thought it was just a gossipy sort of site and not very useful, but honestly, I now find it to be the best source of professional development I have come across. I love that I can use it when I have time and that it is tailored to my needs. I remember some good advice that I heard when I first joined Twitter that basically boiled down to it is all about who you follow. As a general rule, I only follow people or sites that add to my professional development, I don't follow celebrities or other famous people (except Barack Obama and The Van. Canucks), so I don't see trivial information in my feed.