While you may not use Twitter, you’ve probably heard of it and may know that many people use it regularly. 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. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. All users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS), or external applications.
Discussed at length across TV news networks, in newspapers and magazines, and even featured on an episode of Oprah, Twitter was the darling of the social networking industry last year and can be thought of as Facebook’s main competitor, even though in many ways they are not the same at all. Put simply, Facebook’s about people you used to know; Twitter’s about people you’d like to know better. If you’re familiar with the concept of Facebook’s status update, then you’ve got the gist of Twitter. It’s all about “what’s happening” in the world now.
I’ve been using Twitter for several months now primarily as a news reader to keep up with things I care about a lot. Just about everyone I “follow” on Twitter is some type of news source, such as CNN, The New York Times, Time, Newsweek, CNET, etc. Instead of having to go to individual websites to see the latest news, or having to check a RSS Reader online, I’m able to quickly and easily see 140-character blurbs of everything I want to know about everything I care about. The best part is that I’m able to check Twitter on my smartphone, so I’m always up-to-speed on what’s happening now no matter where I am. If I want to read more, there’s usually a link I can click on for a full article or more information. I’ve discovered that using Twitter as a news service is the best way to stay up-to-date in the shortest amount of time. News seems to get posted on Twitter faster than it gets posted on any other online source.
For more information about the many ways you can use Twitter, click here to read this recent New York Times article called “Getting the Most Out of Twitter.”
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Some schools are even using Twitter to keep their community up to date on what is happening on their campus. One example is H.E. McCracken Middle School in Beaufort, SC. Check out how they utilize Twitter @ http://twitter.com/HEMMSBulldogs .
An elementary school who also uses Twitter to keep it’s community informed is Red Cedar Elementary School:
http://twitter.com/redcedarele .
Zack, thanks for helping me see a useful purpose for Twitter! I’m gonna rig it on my Blackberry this weekend….
Lots of information. I love it!
I just returned from NCTIES (http://ncties.org/) where there were multiple sessions on Twitter and how to get the best use out of Twitter. I am on Twitter and Plurk (a service similar to Twitter) and like Plurk better. Both services allow you to build a personal learning network (abbreviated often as PLN) and links you to people outside of your school, state, or even country. This gives you access to many more ideas.
One way to dive into Twitter is to use a tool like Tweetdeck or Seesmic which lets you organize the “tweets” into direct messages, replies, or even hashtags. Hashtags are very useful when keeping up with conversations about a specific subject. For example, everyone at the NCTIES conference used #ncties in their tweets when sharing concurrent session thoughts, requests for tweetups (face to face meetings), and any other information learned at the conference.
Does anyone know if Twitter is not blocked for teachers?