posted by John Borst

If you are a teacher on the edutech frontier you might want to check out a new digital form of communication one person has called a “microblog” . It is called Twitter. (http://www.twitter.com)

Let me first say that in registering and trying to use the site/system I admit I was a twit on twitter and have left in frustration, yet it continues to nag at me. I have got to go back and read the instructions. I must also warn you, you may be turned off by what the academic community calls “noise” or useless chatter that seems to make no sense. I know I was.

Johnnymac our resident guru at the Commonweal discussion group first alerted me to it. While at almost the same time The Cool Cat Teaching Blog had an article on it called “Twitter in Academics: This Prof Shows How to Do It” part of which I share below:

Cool Cat describes Twitter this was:

It is about Microblogging

It is important to look at twitter for what it is: microblogging.

In 140 characters, you must summarize.

Isn’t that what we teach with a topic sentence? I’m looking for an upcoming project hooking up all of my student accounts and I’ll have them twitter at the end of class a summary of their work for the day. (probably using their cell phones)

I’m sure some other microblogging services will come around but remember, when talking about twitter, you’re discussing the principle of microblogging, don’t get too caught up in the website when the website may evaporate tomorrow.

Then there is this comment by one Jeff Smith that really caught my eye:

My fourth grade class has recently begun to tweet as a class community. I call it the “voice” of our room during the day. (We are “Room 24″ Follow us here http://twitter.com/room24) They tweet on each subject throughout the day and do it with a partner.

My rationale has been twofold: One is that it helps my kids microedit throughout the subjects. 140 characters is very do-able for my fourth graders and much different than the 5 paragraph essays they write every week. I insist on perfect caps, grammar usage, punctuation and spelling. The other rationale is that it gives them a chance to reflect on their learning throughout the day, week, month. We talk at the beginning of each day about our objectives for the day. With Twitter, we are able to discuss whether we achieved our objectives and talk about what was learned, not just taught.

Next step for us is to begin to build a classroom network so that students can follow safely and see what others are doing around the globe. This is an ever-evolving process. Thanks for the article, its going to give me some great ideas.

Finally here is the introduction to Twitter for Academia

I must admit that when I first heard about Twitter I thought it represented the apex of what concerns me about internet technology: solipsism and sound-bite communication. While I obviously spend a great deal of time online and thinking about the potential of these new networked digital communication structures, I also worry about the way that they too easily lead to increasingly short space and time for conversation, cutting off nuance and conversation, and what is often worse how these conversations often reduce to self-centered statements. When I first heard about Twitter I thought, this was the example par excellence of these fears, so for many months I did not investigate it at all. Then I read an article by Clive Thompson at Wired. Clive’s article convinced me that perhaps it was worth giving Twitter a try. At this point I have to say, I am so glad that I did. Although I am still beginning to wrap my head around all of its varied uses—I think for the most part Twitter users themselves are still figuring this out—I have been using it for over six months now and come up with some academic uses.

Rather than cover what Twitter is or how to use it (see this video as well), I thought I would explain how I use it, specifically for academic related uses, and teaching. (For those who want the quick definition of Twitter, it allows you to broadcast and receive messages from your computer or cell phone of 140 characters in length, all those who “subscribe” to your broadcast can see your message, called a “tweet,” and you receive messages from all those to whom you subscribe. The key point to remember here is this can get sent to your phone, making it highly mobile.)

Ways to use Twitter in Academia:

(for detailed descriptions see the article)

• Class Chatter:
• Classroom Community:
• Get a Sense of the World:
• Track a Word:
• Track a Conference:
• Instant Feedback:
• Follow a Professional:
• Follow a Famous Person:
• Grammar:
• Rule Based Writing:
• Maximizing the Teachable Moment:
• Public NotePad:
• Writing Assignments:

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