Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Twitter



I'm starting to feel like I might be coming off a little bit negative here. I blame a double dose of Malcolm Gladwell for that. I'll try to be more positive from now on...starting tomorrow.

I think that using Twitter in the classroom is awesome and I've read many accounts of teachers effectively using it. I've heard of history teachers using it to create twitter accounts for people that they are studying to check student's understanding of the people through the tweets that they make. I've read (and plan to do this) of English teachers having students follow the tweets of authors of books that they are reading to gain a greater understanding of the writing process and of the author as a person. Twitter can be a useful tool in the classroom.

BUT, in the real world? This is another one of those things that I don't understand. I really don't care to know what your doing each moment of your day, no matter how exciting those moments might be. The few people that I do care to know what they're doing are the same few people that I care enough about to call and ask myself. To this day I've never heard of a single use of Twitter outside of education that I thought, "hey, now there's a useful addition to my life." However, every time I hear someone talk about Twitter, I think, "well now, there's another big waste of time."

Someone disagree (or even agree) with me, please!

3 comments:

  1. I am so with you! Why would I want to "escape" from the ho-hums of my daily life to read the ho-hums of someone else's life. I really couldn't care less to know that Ashton Kutcher is eating breakfast right now...do I get to read about his "throne" reading material next? Thanks, but no thanks.

    I just don't get Twitter, I know my life is uneventful, but why should I care about the idiot next door and what they are doing, I don't even care enough to walk next door and meet them.

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  2. I think the real issue here is in the name. Twitter? For twits?

    And, what's a tweet?

    I tawt I ta a puddy tat!

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  3. Have you ever called anyone and asked what they are doing??

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