What is Twitter?

Twitter is 140 character miniblog that answers the question "What are you doing?". Each post is known as a tweet and users 'follow' the tweets of their network. Often the tweet describe what an idividual is doing, or working on. However there are many more possibilities, tweets can be responses to other tweets, questions to your twitter network, links to interesting resources. It is really hard to wrap one's head around until you start tweeting and build a personal network.

How can it be used in the classroom?

(This is neat question because it has not been used to much extent yet, but there are definitely possibilities.)

• Keep students connected through another line of communication. Group members will have an idea of what each other are working on.
• Communication for collaboration.
• Forces users to be brief and to the point. 140 character limit gives students direction rather than clog the discussion forums.

• Twitter can hold students accountable to what they are working on.
• Twitter can be used in a call to everyone for assistance like the bat signal was used for Batman.

Examples of use

Horizon Project 2007 - Uses Twitter to connect students from 5 classrooms around the world. In this instance students created a wiki page dedicated to their twitter badges and they could see what group members were working on.

Resources:

EduCause - 7 Things you should know about Twitter

David Warlick's thoughts on Twitter in the Classroom. Raises someinteresting points to think about in terms of friends list as a popularity and safety/security issues. Responses to this blog are also worth a read as they relate to how some are using Twitter in schools.

Damien Bariexca blogged his ideas for how twitter might be used in English and Social Studies in his Promoting Twitteracy in the Classroom.

Clive Thompson on How Twitter Creates a Social Sixth Sense - Wired Magazine 06.26.07
This article does not reference Twitter in the educational realm but much of what Thompson writes relates. For instance, he writes Twitter "gives a group of people a sense of itself, making possible weird, fascinating feats of coordination." How great is this for group collaboration for individual with simiar projects and interests.



(An Area for thought: limitations and cons of use)