Twitter: Do You "Get It"?

Introduction
Now I know we were advised to begin to use Twitter right away and to give it a real chance. I failed to heed the advice and now I am still at the stage that those new to Twitter seem to get stuck at, the “I just don’t get it stage”.

There are times when I have been on Twitter and I do see the appeal such as a link to a great resource or to an interesting article. The part that is hard to get is the “language” of Twitter. It has been described as “cryptic” (Wharton, 2008), and [like]a foreign language . But Twitter, according to Ellyssa Kroski, “may be a hard sell on the face of it – [but] devotees claim that you have to give it an honest go before you can understand Twitter’s appeal.”

Learning About Twitter
I signed up for Twitter at the beginning of the course and began to follow several of the recommended people to follow. I honestly did not get it and found it to be quite confusing. The language with the symbols incorporated into them was difficult to follow. Next was the stress of trying to find something interesting to write about and then trying to keep it down to the 140 characters. I didn't have much success with this part.

Early on in my Twitter experience I did find a nugget of information that helped me to see the potential of Twitter. A link posted by Joyce Valenza about boys and literacy was a great find. Finding this nugget gave me a glimmer of hope on Twitter actually being somewhat of a useful tool for professional development.

I would recommend to anyone planning on trying Twitter to find articles such as K-3 Teachers Guide to Twitter or A Teacher’s Guide to Twitter to help guide them through the learning process of this tool.

In her article, A Teacher’s Guide to Twitter, Kate Klingensmith, states,
"Most people start off in a rocky relationship with Twitter. It doesn’t seem to be as easy or as useful as everyone has said, it takes awhile before you find your niche, and there is an overwhelming amount of information to deal with."

I am finding this to be so very true.

My Personal Use of Twitter
My personal use of Twitter has been limited to following Sockington. Sockington provides comedic updates from a cat’s point of view. It’s fun and a bit refreshing because Sockington doesn’t use many symbols in his tweets and doesn’t provide too many links to follow.

I’ve tried following a few First Nation users of Twitter, but they didn’t update their profiles very often and I have since stopped following them. I will continue to look for other First Nation users of Twitter to follow.

No one in my circle of family or friends uses Twitter, in part I believe because we live in a rural area with limited Internet access.

I will probably continue to look for First Nation Tweeters and comedians to follow and of course I will continue to follow Sockington.

Teaching and Learning with Twitter
I think this is where Twitter can become a valuable tool for me as a professional and my ongoing professional development and professional growth. As the K-3 Teacher's Guide to Twitter and a Teacher’s Guide to Twitter mentions Twitter is great because
• It’s a great source of news.
• People post entertaining, interesting, and very useful links.
• Provides a daily source of up-to-date educational information, strategies, techniques, websites, questions and answers, ideas and laughs...

There are a huge amount of opportunities to use Twitter as a professional learning tool. K-3 Teachers Guide to Twitter provides a list of “useful websites related to Twitter...with a focus on Teaching and Education...”, Stephen’s Lighthouse blog lists 17 of the Top Public Libraries on Twitter, and Ellyssa Kroski in her article, All a Twitter: Want to try Microblogging? lists the

10 most “Followed” Librarians on Twitter. (The list includes their Twitter name and the number of followers).

Now what about using it in the classroom? According to the National Council of Teachers of Education as mentioned in Wharton’s article (2008) these tools are important because students need to:
• Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes
• Manage, analyze, and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information
• Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multimedia texts
• Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments

But what are the practical applications of Twitter for me and my students? I found some interesting suggestions of how Twitter could be used in the classroom. Although the ideas sound interesting and some even look like they would be fun, at this point I don't see myself trying to use Twitter with any of the classes I work with.

Conclusion
After reading through the guides for using Twitter, the “cryptic” language used on Twitter is almost making sense. The guides have giving me an idea of what the symbols @, #, DM, and RT means. However, at this moment I have run out of time to try them out on the actual site. I plan on continuing to use Twitter to keep up to date on what is happening in the areas of libraries and education and of course I will continue to follow Sockington.


Reference

Wharton, A. (2008). Three New Things Not to be Without. Access (1204-1472), 14 (4), 21-22. Retrieved from Canadian Reference Centre database.