The Power Of Twitter

[Jarrod Robinson]

Now im sure some or if not all of you have heard of Twitter. Given its recent media exposure it sure has grown into the most popular social network of current times but what exactly are the benefits for teachers and students?

The idea of twitter is simple. Update your status with 140 characters of less and people from around the world who follow you see this and essentially follow your life. Simple in idea but powerful in execution when you give your 'tweets' as they are known a context. My entire twitter account revolves around educational technology and next practice. So essentially i receive professional development every couple of minutes. This may sound annyoying but its incredibly useful when you have a question, you simply post the question as your status and receive replies from the people who follow you. To put it simply the other day I wanted to chase up an astronaunt to prove the powers of twitter so i asked the question 'anyone know any astronaunts' within 3 minutes I was following an astronaunt on twitter.

Imagine this for your class.....you could follow the very person who wrote your textbook, you could even follow barrack obama (yes he has an account), lance armstrong.....the list goes on, information straight from the horses mouth.

For a really simple explanation of how twitter works, consult the creative commons video below, its excellent. With thanks to the Common Craft


Twitter in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.

The next step is to check out the website www.twitterforteachers.com which is excellent in helping you get started on your twitter journey. A place where you can connect with lots of other teachers doing innovative things

Finally I give you a presentation from @Tombarrett entitled 21 Interesting ways to use twitter in your classroom which you can view below. Download the slideshow as an attached file.

Finally if you have setup your account and want to start following people and creating your social network then I would love to follow your progress and hear your ideas. You can find me at www.twitter.com/mrrobbo

[Adrian Camm]

Thanks Jarrod, I have found Twitter an invaluable part of my PLN. Not sure of its value for students at this stage, but definately worthwhile for educators.

You can find me here http://twitter.com/adrian_camm

[Jarrod Robinson]

I will certainly follow you adrian thanks for your reply.

The potential for twitter in the classroom is incredible, ive just setup a class account for a school project that the students will post replies to concerning their questions/repsonses etc. Will then use the RSS of the twitter feed and embed it on our class website to see the conversation within our class. This could be used in a myriad of ways for heaps of activities. My class twitter id is for a project im completing next term entitled 'How fit are Wii" which will be using the Nintendo Wii fit to assess fitness levels. The students will post their questions to www.twitter.com/howfitarewii which will then be aggregated into a class website at http://howfitarewii.com

For lots of other really simple, powerful activities in the classroom check out the powerpoint I posted above. The key is the students need to realise the potential of these sites for learning and there is no more powerful social network than twitter.

I honestly think that twitters model of searching for information that is user generated and timely is more aligned with the Web 2.0 paradigm and will replace google and its model.Interesting times ahead

Look forward to your tweets

[Adrian Camm]

Your 'How fit are Wii' project sounds very cool!

My concern is that the data says that students are not using Twitter. They are still using MySpace, Facebook and MSN. Can you make them converts? Do you think that once you have the students using Twitter for your (awesome) project, they will continue to use it? How quickly do you think it will then spread among their peers?

My personal opinion at the moment is that as long as students can update their status via MySpace and Facebook for their friends as well as IM and text, Twitter doesn’t really add to their ideas of useful technology. Their may be a migration eventually, but their use outside of school-based assignments at the present time, would be minimal.

Some interesting ideas here Jarrod..... I look forward to the many conversations to be had here in this Ning!

[Jarrod Robinson]

You have raised a good point here Adrian. At present they have no idea of the powers of twitter so thats where utilising it in class becomes important. However the "potential" uses of Twitter are exceptional and as it gains more awareness and students start to see the ridiculous amounts of twitter apps coming out daily its use will become more popular.

As I mentioned earlier Twitter model of searching replacing Google here is an article about it, very interesting http://www.twitip.com/twitter-destined-to-replace-google-search/

The 'How Fit are Wii' project is apart of the knowledge bank next generation project that Ive bee accepted into, really looking forward to seeing the impact of gaming on student understanding of physical fitness and appropriate activity levels.

This Ning has already proven to be a very useful place to network, so thankyou for that oppurtunity. are you a member of classroom2.0?

[Adrian Camm]

I must admit, im a bit of a lurker over at Classroom2.0, but not a member. My time is fairly heavily invested with the Powerful Learning Practice.... Some excellent conversations going on in Classroom2.0 though!

[Anne Mirtschin]

Coming home from shopping in Warrnambool, earlier than usual, I decided to check twitter as I had been negligent of late due to sheer 'busyness'. Reading the first tweet, grabbed my attention immediately as @craff2008 was experiencing an earth tremour. Further investigation, showed that there were many tweets from my Melbourne friends, all experiencing the earthquake in Melbourne. Within 15 minutes, we had found out the size of the earthquake, the epicentre which was shown on google maps and knew the extent of the geographical area affected. 1 1/2 hours later, the TV news featured the quake, but those on twitter knew far more. Australians living overseas in Qatar, USA were all sending enquiring messages.
As my year 11 students are completing the netgened project, where Don Tapscott's "Grown up Digital" is being mashed with the horizon report 2009, they are studying the very future of the internet and its potential impact on education. They had difficulty envisaging how education might use some of the applications. As a practical application, I showed the students the tweets from the Friday night earthquake and asked them if they could see applications for twitter in education. One quick student logged onto twitter, and to my amazement it was unblocked! (It had been blocked for six months at school).
Sensing a wonderful teachable moment, I asked the twitterverse if the could say 'hello' to my students. To the amazement of my kids, tweets came in from Bangkok, USA, Sth America, Portuagal, Finland, UK, Qatar and NZ, each tweet telling students a little about their country, climate etc. So, whilst on a roll, we asked for ways in which gaming could be applied in education (another of their topics), semantic aware applications and geo-everything in education. Soon, students had many valuable resources to research further.
Imagine if you are studying Portugal or Sth America, first hand information could be got immediatley. So many teachable moments, which are student driven in self directing their education! Our art teacher has tweet contacts who are commercial artists in Europe and they actually give feedback to her student work! Twitter ROCKS! See my 'my class is all a-twitter.

[Kerry Rowett]

I must admit I haven't understood the purpose of twitter until very recently. In fact it was only after hearing both Will Richardson and Jenny Luca talk about it at the SLAV conference last week that I decided to dip back into it http://twitter.com/kerryrowett
After increasing my network a little (and I do follow Barack Obama ... and Kevin Rudd!) I have been amazed at some of the interesting content that comes through, just this morning I found this great online keyboard from Ann Mirtschen http://tinyurl.com/yscrcw, skimmed an article about how facebook and youtube at work make us better employees http://tinyurl.com/c9u5av and read this article on 'education by inches' - http://tinyurl.com/dbsqyz - both from Will Richardson.
All interesting and relevant to my work. :)

[Anne Mirtschin]

Found this really comprehensive blog post on 9 great reasons why educationalists should use twitter.It makes an excellent read.

[Britt Gow]

It would be great if we could share our Twitter adresses, so we can all benefit from Jarrod's minute-by-minute PD! Mine is at http://www.twitter.com/brittgow I mostly follow educators - especially maths and science - and friends - some are both!

[Heather Bailie]

I can confidently say now that I love Twitter! I first came across it about 12 months ago and could not figure it out. For some months I read more about it but couldn't see why I would want to join - I just didn't "get" it. Eventually, 4 months later, I took the plunge and joined...I quickly realised it is something you have to do to get. I wrote about my experiences here and here.
I'm not "on" twitter all the time. It isn't blocked (anymore) at school but some days I don't get around to launching Twhirl. I actually find I'm more engaged with the twitterstream on the weekends but I have sought input from my followers in the middle of a meeting...and impressed those I'm with with the results.
The bottom line is that Twitter is what you make it...Who you follow, what you tweet, how you respond to the tweets you read. I've overheard conversations between teachers where one person (who isn't on twitter) explains twitter to someone else..."It's where people tell each other what they are having for lunch or what they are watching on TV." It could be like that but if you get involved with the right network it won't be, it can and will be so much more.
I'm @hbailie

[Anne Mirtschin]

Here are some interesting follows on twitter @Space_Mike - an astronaut twittering from outer space (my students love following him), @migranthistory (on NSW history) The NSW BOS (Board of Studies) is on there with some pertinent information for both teachers and students. There are some amazing people/institutions/software developers/authors etc to follow.
I love teaching in Victoria as we have the Innovations division in close liaison with policy makers and are leading the way in the digital age. So, how about the Innovations and Excellence/Next Practise etc get a twitter ID and tweet upcoming events, grant submissions could be tweeted etc VCAA, urls etc It would be great to have you on twitter as well!
Any other interesting educational institutions that you follow and whose id's woth sharing?

[Gabby Plunkett]

I was talking to a kid in class today who twitters all the time. I told him I was going to join just so I could tell him not to twitter and pay attention. We began talking about twitter and I told him and now half the class who were listening in about the 21 ways to use twitter in the class. they were really excited so we ahve begun thinking up ways we could twitter. I am about to join now so thanks for the useful links.
Cheer Gabby