Once again I have to be perfectly honest, I really don’t see myself really using Twitter personally or professionally. Educationally speaking, I will most likely use my own class website and create a mini-blog on there, however, that being said I do believe that if I could find a good idea I think Twitter would be a great way to have students connect with people on a global scale. I have spent the last hour searching in Twitter and have yet to find someone to follow (other than my good friend Sommer who is also in this class). I searched math, education, technology, family and nothing really seemed interesting or worthwhile to me. I think that if I could find the right people to follow I could possibly get into tweeting (especially for collaborating or sharing ideas) just finding those people seems like the hard part. I thought about following a celebrity, but how can you really be sure that the tweet is actually from them?
I do think that I could see myself using Twitter over Facebook. I was just talking with my students on Thursday (because they were yelling at me for not having a Facebook account when they know that I am so into technology) about not doing the Facebook thing because it would be one more thing that I would stress about doing. I would always feel guilty about not updating or checking it or commenting. Maybe once my life slows down (and knowing me it never will) I will have time to do something like Facebook. Twitter seems to me more manageable and less intimidating—all my posts have to be small and that I could handle. I still am not sure how I feel about putting things out there for the world to see—it just seems weird to me to write to this empty void.
I really think that micro-blogging could be great with my math journaling that I usually do with my students. I would also love to start having my students do math discussions which would be a great micro-blog application. Once again, I would use my GoogleSites because of the convenience and privacy thing.
There are so many options out there that we have to pick and choose. Most students seem to prefer Facebook and you can connect your Facebook and Twitter accounts if you want.
ReplyDeleteI agree, finding the people to follow is the hardest thing. I've followed and unfollowed a number of people over the past few years and have narrowed it down to about 10 people who don't write about where they are having coffee. I'm most interested in good links and thoughtful comments rather than personal info. I have found that one of my professional organizations has a twitter account (ALA TechSource) that is good for keeping me up to date on new developments.