Who else is thinks Twitter is meaningless?

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Permalink Reply by Rich White on April 12, 2008 at 11:44am

I though the same at first .... but now its invaluable .. it takes a while to build up your network ... but I use it daily when seeking resources - and asking my network questions (lately revolving around Opensim) -- combines wth Tweetscan & Twitterific as the client I don't go a day without pinging my network for answers and harnessing their collective intelligence

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Permalink Reply by Stu on April 13, 2008 at 6:32am

Collective inteligence can't be found in 150 CHARACTERS.

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Permalink Reply by Rich White on April 13, 2008 at 12:12pm

Its 140 characters *lol* .... and you could not be more wrong in your assumption ... you would be amazed what a chorus in your network can reveal ... but it took me a while to appreciate it Ill admit.

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Permalink Reply by Sarah Hanawald on April 12, 2008 at 1:26pm

Hmmm. I'm working on finding ways to streamline my life and make the stuff we keep more useful. I'm actually looking into increasing my use of Twitter. Our tech group is spread out over several buildings and it seems like we are less connected than we used to be. We have weekly meetings, but invariably someone can't make it or forgets something. We're having a hard time keeping up with each other, who's working on what, etc. I set up a grouptweet account and I'm hoping everyone will post 2/3 times a day. Just a quick "here's what I'm working on right now." This will help us keep up our communication and it is far less painful than asking people to summarize their day in an email!

On the other hand, this is new, so maybe it won't work at all! I'd welcome any thoughts.
Sarah

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Permalink Reply by Sue Palmer on April 12, 2008 at 9:46pm

Surprisingly, I totally love Twitter as well, and I really did not get it at first either! A couple of things I have learned. First, I do not make friends with everyone who makes friends with me. I first look to see if we have anything in common that I want to follow. I try to really have the people I am following be those I want to get info or hear from. Second, I am not on all day. I try to check it in the morning and at night, or when I post something on my site. Invariably every day I get some useful info or an enjoyable moment with just a few minutes of time invested. I think it is amazing.

I agree with the other comments as to its uses. It is certainly different and takes a bit of getting used to but the potential is great.

Sue

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Permalink Reply by Stu on April 13, 2008 at 6:30am

Ok, besides Elise, who else is a teacher in this discussion in a Public School?

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Permalink Reply by Sue Palmer on April 13, 2008 at 7:39am

I am. High school social studies.

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Permalink Reply by Laura Gonzalez on October 5, 2009 at 6:33am

I'm in a public middle school and I've used twitter in the classroom with success.

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Permalink Reply by Elise Mueller on October 5, 2009 at 8:02am

Hi Laura,

What does that look like? Do you use it with all of your students? Or do you use it for communicating with parents? What subject area do you teach? I still struggle to see how to weave twitter into the daily learning lives of 90 students!

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Permalink Reply by Laura Gonzalez on October 5, 2009 at 9:24am

I only used it with my preAP language arts class of 7th graders. I've discovered that they were the ones most likely to have cell phones available to them (the district blocked the twitter.com) for class use.

Some parents follow me on twitter just to see what's going on in class and to follow class discussions. I had one parent who read along with us and also contributed to class discussions.

We used twitter in literature circles. Instead of responding orally or through journals, students responded to literature (Anne Frank) on twitter. I had a tweetdeck set up so students could view all responses in class.

Several students figured out that I would also respond before and after school and would leave me questions about the reading (some of them after midnight or before 5AM!) to respond to.

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Permalink Reply by Stu on April 13, 2008 at 6:39am

I knew my wording would get people stirred up. Meaningless, no. Too much. Perhaps. Would there be as many school shootings today if the media couldn't easily put it on an endless loop like they can in today's world? There is such a thing as too much information...

If you have that much time to be on the computer, then maybe you need to spend more time actually doing. I know, I'm sounding snobbish, but I need my sources to have authentic roots...Anything can be a great idea, in theory, but in practice, its a whole new world.

Live Simply.

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Permalink Reply by Sue Palmer on April 13, 2008 at 7:39am

I don't spend much time on twitter. Less than 5 minutes a day is all I need and I still have time to do plenty. I tweet with people who I want to hear from and let the rest of the world follow me. In most cases in less than 5 I have walked away with something useful or a smile. I choose who I follow. I don't follow people who post nothing but "drinking coffee" and "taking the dog for a walk" unless they are really people I know, because that is not what I am looking for; I look for people with similar interests and Twitter has allowed me to see a very wide network in a very short snippet of time.

It is not the only place I network. I am here, on pownce, and a couple of other nings which I visit sporatically. I have them all set up so I get emails in certain conversations so I don't have to go back every day, as I don't have time for that. I check in ever couple to see what is going on.

I teach social studies inclusion at the secondary level, have a life, and a website with all of my podcast work that I create for my students ... www.masterymaze.com. I recently started iPod Educators here on Ning.

It's like anything else.....It fits some and not others...No generalizations can really be made here. For me it is very helpful. I have learned to manage all of it, enjoy it , and it is part of my routine. With todays tech you really can if you are interested in it. I have the internet on my phone, give it a look when I have a free minute or two in line at the store, wherever. For me, it's not that big of a deal.

I am just a middle aged teacher (not young and living on my space) interested in using the tools to reach my students. These resources really help me do that, and also help me understand their world as well so I can better utilize it. It has transformed my way of thinking and teaching in many ways, while helping me keep in touch with people I would have never been able to follow all over the world. Pretty amazing to me..

Sue

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