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Last weekend I attended a family reunion for my husband’s family. A very sharp eighty-eight year old relative noted: “I just don’t understand the point of Twitter. It seems like a bunch of nonsense.” I laughed because actually a few months ago, I held a similar perception of the social media tool. The idea of using a web ap to tell people what I was doing all the time seemed at the very least an annoyance, and at the very most compromising to my privacy.
I, like many others who misunderstand Twitter, made the erroneous assumption that you are on it almost all the time. Moreover, to me, the very idea that you are telling someone what you’re doing at any one moment seemed a bit pompous and self-important. Why would anyone want to know I’m folding laundry and watching my favorite TV programs?
If you are unfamiliar with the social networking tool, according to Wikipedia Twitter is:
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to the author’s subscribers who are known as followers.
You can view a CommonCraft video explaining Twitter as well:
Less than a month ago I decided to give Twitter a shot, and I discovered that I was wrong about the tool. Twitter is a respond-as-you-please type of program. You don’t have to be on it constantly and posting tweets. Also, in the past few weeks, I’ve learned more and found more connections to people in the field of learning and education, and I found these folks in briefer period of time than I would if I was just surfing the blogosphere.
I’ve also discovered that many people are using Twitter for learning including educators. For example, they are using it to keep in touch with students and manage classroom affairs. There is a very comprehensive list of how Twitter can be used by teachers and academics. Some teachers are even developing learning activities using the application. Others are using the tool for professional development and support via networking. As one educator writes:
Together we’re better…Teaching can be a lonely business. In a school where lessons are long and lunchtimes are short, not enough conversations between teachers I work with are about learning. We simply don’t have time. Twitter can be like a virtual staffroom for me, which I can step into when it suits me: in the queue at the supermarket or waiting for the kettle to boil. – Laura Walker
One thing that does disturb me a bit about Twitter is that with each tweet or post we share, we are telling a cumulative story about ourselves. These stories could be very used as marketing and manipulative tools to advertisers and marketers. However, on the other hand, these groups of people have been gathering data about us for decades based on all our behaviors (consumption, choices, actions, etc.) rather than just our Internet usage. My husband’s elderly relative asked me how Twitter could be so successful if it was free. “You don’t get something for nothing! If I’ve learned one thing in life it’s just that,” she said firmly. I nodded my head. “I think we pay for Twitter by providing information about ourselves. We collaborate with a larger group of people, but in a sense everyone wins when we do that.”
