I've just re-discovered Twitter, a social network that asks "What are you doing?" The cool thing is, in the Ed Tech world you can create a network of people who are there to help you, and give you support and suggestions at a moments notice.

Looking for a resource? Just send out a tweet and someone will know the answer. Dealing with technology resistance? My twitter network reminds me that there are people in the world who are as passionate about this stuff as I am. I write a blog post every Tuesday called "Two for Tuesday" where I share two interesting technology links - this week my links are all thanks to my Twitter network. (Thanks Twitter network).

Recently, I increased the number of people I'm following from 70 to 170. I've discovered that more is actually better in Twitter, it increases the odds of someone being there for you. I also downloaded Snitter an application that pops up to let me know about new tweets. You can follow me on twitter - look for lizbdavis, then check out the people I'm following and follow them too.

Kevin Honeycutt is creating a Vodcast that answers the question "What is Twitter good for?" You can follow him on Twitter too.

Are you using Twitter? What do you like about it? Still confused? Ask your questions here.

Tags: social-networking, twitter

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Just started using Twitter last week as it is blocked in the country I teach in. But other tools like Twitbin seem to work, so I have been slowly trying to figure Twitter out. I am pretty much at the same place you find yourself, although being followed by a lot fewer people! I must admit though through some of the people I am following I have read some interesting things.
I'm on twitter (smartinez). I like it because it's sort of like a lot of other apps, you have friends like Facebook, you can talk to people like instant messaging or SMS, and it's become a really quick sounding board. It's not perfect, and something better might come along, but it seems to be gathering steam. With these kinds of things, you go where the people are, not what has the best technology. Unfortunately!
I agree @smartinez. I find Twitter the best place to collect ideas. But, what I like more is the collective web surfing that takes place. I get so many great links from my Twitter stream (I use Twitbin while I am working online and really don't find it a terrible distraction, after all it's 140 characters or less for each Tweet). I also used Yahoo Tubes to create a filter that provides me an RSS feed of only those Tweets from my stream with links in them. Each day I get a list of all the links and can quickly cull through them for relevant and useful stuff.

The power is in the fact that I can hear inside the heads of people I don't communicate with any other way. If a larger connection of ideas does evolve then I have DM an individual and communicated with them via email. It helps keep my inbox filled only with the most important stuff.
Forgot, I'm akamrt on Twitter
Last Friday I had an amazing Twitter experience. I was trying to figure out the best tool to use to solve a technology problem. Teachers want their students to be able to reflect on authors that they are reading - but don't want them to be able to edit each other's posts. Thus a wiki wouldn't work. I sent out my dilemma on Twitter and had 10 suggestions within 5 minutes. One on them seemed to work. I created a blog, with a blog post for each other. Students will submit their reflections by commenting on the blog post.

I really felt the power of my network! This experience showed me that I am not alone. There are so many people out there in the world who can help me out when I need it - especially when my local network is not always there for me!
I use twitter and a host of other networking tools to share ideas and discuss various things with people. Twitter has a more laid back approach as people can discuss various things that are outside of education. It is interesting to watch as people become more comfortable and share more about their lives with their friends. I enjoy being able to see that many of these people have lives outside of school which makes what they're doing so much more real. As educators we sometimes forget that there is a world outside of education.
Your post convinced me to FINALLY start using twitter - I've started following a bunch of you that provided your twitter names...............I'm kolson29 if you'd like to reciprocate
I've been using Friendfeed + alerty thing (for my desktop) to track the Tweets. But I still like the experience of Pownce for microblogging better.
Hi!
I just started with it 2 days ago. I am really confused. I wanted to explore its use from education point of you. Could you suggest me some good ways....
Thanks
Regards
Really quick - start following the users in this post who shared their twitter names with you. I'm using twitter pretty much only for sharing resources while others use it for both that and socially. Once you're following enough people you start getting a really good inflow of snippets of what others in education are doing and some great recommendations.

follow me - kolson29
Kolson I have searched for you in twitter and couldn't find you. If you want you can start following me and then i will added you. Kisses
Sabrina (sabridv in twitter)

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