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Twitter Made Easy – The Twitter Book by Tim O’Reilly and Sarah Milstein
by Jim Vanides


Lately I’ve been skeptically musing over the academic and professional value of Twitter. What exactly is the educational value of a 140 character message? The Twitter Book has me convinced it’s time to dive in…

It’s deceptively simple, really: Send a short message (140 characters max), from your cell phone or web-connected computer. Anyone “following” you will see your message. One way to imagine it, I suppose, is to compare it to those annoying banners that go flying by at the bottom of your television screen while you watch the news. But that analogy is short-sighted, in part because you get to choose whose information stream you want to watch AND because the messages can include links to very helpful and timely information posted on the web. It also turns out to be a very interesting mode of collaboration.
So when is real-time information and sharing like this valuable in a learning setting? Some examples include:
  •  Opening a “backchannel” for student participation (posting questions/comments) during a large group presentation – sort of like giving the audience permission to pass notes, because you can give the note-passing a metacognitive purpose (I’ve seen this at education conferences – it’s very engaging and makes the post-keynote Q&A much more lively)
  • Support real-time collaboration among a group of students (during field trips, on scavenger hunts, etc)
  • Audience interaction during athletic events – perhaps tied to fundraising?
  • A simple way to stay in touch with your students’ parents – without the hassle of always creating lengthy newsletters or wading through lots of email
  • Professional collaboration – www.ISTE.org incorporated “tweets” into the planning for its National Education Computing Conference (NECC), adding a new dimension to “being there”. See http://twitter.com/isteconnects to “follow” the stream...
So, as I prepare to attend NECC myself, I’ve decided to twitter my way through the experience. I’m not sure what exactly will happen, but I’m sure it will be an adventure. If you’d like to follow my adventure, feel free to set up your own twitter account and then “follow” me (http://twitter.com/jgvanides).
I’m sure there are many more ideas out there for using twitter to support teaching and learning. If you know of some, feel free to send me a “tweet” @jgvanides...!
 

 

Jim Vanides is currently a Program Manager in Philanthropy for Hewlett-Packard, responsible for worldwide higher education grant initiatives (www.hp.com/go/hied-blog). He also teaches an online course offered through Montana State University for elementary teachers on the Science of Sound (www.scienceteacher.org). He holds a BS in Engineering and a MA in Education, both from Stanford University.
  • Anonymous on Tue, 06/16/2009 - 15:23

    I have created a learning object for my teachers and subject advisors here: http://filesocial.com/691f6

    Maggie

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