Twitter in Education
Posted on March 12, 2008 by Valerie
Filed Under Web 2.0 tools
While we haven’t yet written a formal document on using Twitter for education, I have been squirreling away excellent resources and blog posts on the subject that I have come across.
Twitter in Plain English by Commoncraft (video)
- Questioning Twitter (Peter at GNUosphere). “I already use a blog and an RSS aggregator. Is adding Twitter as a tool to post and receive information going to enhance or burden my learning experience?” See great comments.
- Twitter for Academia (Dave at AcademHacK). Very helpful post and comments giving practical tips for using Twitter in higher education.
- 5 Ways to use Twitter for good (Lifehack.org).
- Twitter: Ten Commandments.
While the EDC has not yet gotten on the Twitter bandwagon, I have been using it personally and have mixed feelings. I have appreciated the ability to create a niche community of people who share your interests, so that when you Twitter you know you have an audience of like-minded people. For faculty and other Carleton staff, this can mean that you can swap teaching, productivity, or other tips and ideas with people you find also working in academia.
The only problem is keeping up with Twitter. You can read Tweets regularly on your Twitter homepage. Or for those who use their mobile phones often – they can set up notifications while they’re on the go. But most people, I think, use desktop-based applications that notify you of new Tweets in full text. At first I found these distractions endearing, seeing the things people were experiencing and learning things from their links or learning about news from what people were interested in. I found some amazing writers whose tweets are often hilarious and/or thought-provoking. But enduring these mini-distractions quickly became overwhelming for me. And if you turn off the desktop application, you should be keeping up with Tweets regularly since twittering and reading tweets are both integral to the experience. Also, twittering became a little annoying – I wondered how much I should tweet, and already have a blog for more thoughtful writing. At this point I am unsure whether to continue to use Twitter – being days behind in reading tweets and not keeping up on twittering.
What do you think about Twitter? Is it useful for the university culture?
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