Tweet, tweet, tweedley-deet: Twitter for Educators

He rocks in the tree tops all day long

Hoppin' and a-boppin' and singing his song

All the little birdies on Jaybird Street

Love to hear the robin go tweet tweet tweet

Ever since joining Twitter in September I have been humming this tune in my head as I sort though the growing number of tweets coming through my Tweetdeck.  Before this course, I had only conceived of Twitter as a vehicle for celebrities to further satisfy their need for constant attention, and, conversely, the people who are fascinated by these details.  After my exploration of Twitter over the past couple of months and my research this week I have come to view Twitter as an extraordinarily powerful tool for connections and collaboration. 

First Impressions

At it's conception, Twitter received it's name based on the two definitions of the word: (1) "a short burst of inconsequential information," and (2) "chirps from birds" (Wikipedia).  Creator Jack Dorsey had the idea to create an SMS based web service that would allow users to communicate with a network of followers.  

Blueprint Sketch by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey (c/o Wikimedia commons)

The very first tweet was sent out by Dorsey on March 21, 2006: "just setting up my twtter".  Ever since, the community of twitter users (the "twitterverse") has grown exponentially.  At this time, there are approximately 750 tweets sent each second! But what are people tweeting about?  Pear Analytics conducted a study of 200 tweets over a two-week period and found that people were tweeting about the following:

Wikimedia

After spending a couple of months learning about Twitter and following (and occasionally adding to) the conversation, I can safely say that most of the tweets I have read fall into the categories of news, pass-along value and conversation.  The absence of what would be categorized as "pointless babble" in my twitter stream is partially due to the unique ability to choose whom you follow and categorize and filter incoming tweets (more on this later).  This is yet another way the Read/Write web and applications like Twitter help bring useful information, connections and opportunities for collaboration to your fingertips.  

Bringing it Home: Getting Started with Twitter

Signing up for a Twitter account is easy.  After going to www.twitter.com, choosing a username and a password, I was on!  How exciting!  Quickly, however, my initial excitement dissolved when I realized that nothing was happening.  This is because one of Twitter's defining features is that it is a platform where the user selects other users to "follow".  So, I needed to find some people to follow.  My professor had given a list of educators and interesting people to follow, so, I was able to add them easily by clicking on the "find people" tab.  By entering their user name and clicking "follow", I had added their tweets to my feed.  Another helpful feature in the "find people" section of the site is the suggestions that Twitter offers.  Based on users you have already selected to follow, Twitter will offer suggestions on others you may be interested.  You can also search based on interests and friends.  Another useful way to find users to follow is to watch your stream for "retweets".  Retweets happen when users simply pass along another's tweet.  If you find something interesting on a retweet, you may consider following the originator.  While I was searching for users to follow, a link to this very useful list of Canadian educators who tweet.  Now my Twitter stream was starting to look a little more interesting!  

Finding people to follow is the easy part, getting people to follow you is a little more tricky.  Of course, many of my classmates began to follow me and I found that some users that I chose to follow reciprocated the action.  I didn't explore promoting myself further as, truth be told, I was not sending out many worthwhile tweets to add to the conversation.  My role so far has been that of a Twitter "lurker".  

After finding so many inspiring educators to follow, there was now a flurry of activity in my Twitter account.  I was inundated with tweets containing information and links to interesting articles, blog posts and photos.  In fact, I quickly became overwhelmed with the amount of information I was receiving.  After some discussion in my course eclass board, I discovered Tweetdeck.  Tweetdeck is a third-party software application that helps organize your tweets.  The beauty of Tweetdeck lies in it's column-based interface:

Tweetdeck contains one column where the tweets from all of your "friends" compile.  Using the "plus sign" near the top of the page you can add columns to further filter your tweets by subject.  Users of Twitter often use "hashtags" to help their tweets reach their intended audience.  Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context and data to your tweets.  The hashtag for our course is #EDES 544, so if I send out a tweet that I think will be particularly useful to members of my course, I would add that tag to the end of it.  This will ensure that my tweet does not get lost in my classmate's newsfeeds.  Some other hashtags that may be interesting to follow for educators include #edchat, #edreform and #cpchat (for more interesting hashtags see Will Ferritier's post on his blog, The Tempered Radical).  In Tweetdeck, not only can you create columns for relevant hashtags, you can also create columns for particular keywords and single users if you wish.  Now, I can easily prioritize the tweets I read and make sure that I am getting the most out of my own personal corner of the Twitterverse.  

Bringing it to School

After getting the basics of Twitter down and following the conversation for a while I started to think about how I could use Twitter in my professional life.  To me, the first and most obvious use of Twitter is for professional learning.  After selecting Canadian educators to follow I quickly realized that the links and content that they were sharing was good stuff!  I got lost for hours following links, reading blog posts and even bravely retweeting some neat things I had come across.  The potential for connections and collaboration is huge.  Educator Nancy White hosts a wiki where users can share ways in which Twitter has facilitated collaboration.  Some key categories of examples posted on the wiki include the dissemination of publications and materials, high speed tech support, fostering professional connections, informal research and global participation and presence in professional development.  

Twitter hold huge potential for professional development for educators.  Teacher and edchat moderator Steven Anderson highlights this usefulness: "in the past, professional development was formal and rigid. You go to these events scheduled by the district because this is what they think you need. With social
networking allowing teachers to connect one-to-one and one-to- many, they have the professional development they really desire.” (Davis, 2010).  Twitter has also been used as a backchannel for discussions and questions during workshops, conferences and presentations.  Steven Johnson describes the effect this creates: 

"Injecting Twitter into that conversation fundamentally changed the rules of engagement. It added a second layer of discussion and brought a wider audience into what would have been a private exchange. And it gave the event an afterlife on the Web. Yes, it was built entirely out of 140-character messages, but the sum total of those tweets added up to something truly substantive, like a suspension bridge made of pebbles." (Time Magazine, 2009)

 

Next, I turned my attention to how I could use a tool like Twitter in my elementary classroom.  Initially, I saw this as secondary to the professional collaboration that takes place on Twitter, but I found some encouraging examples that have helped open my mind to the possibility.  With older students Twitter may serve as a forum for "backchanneling" during a presentation or lecture and a place to broadcast school happenings to parents and the community.  With assistance and guidance from an open-minded teacher, even younger students are getting involved with Twitter.  In an inspiring article teacher Jeff Kurtz describes how he is using Twitter in his grade one classroom to stay connected with parents.  He begins the school year by modelling how to write a tweet as a whole-class learning activity during transitions, where a discussion about knowledge gained occurs.  Kurtz loves the 140 character limit.   Students can see the counter going down as the tweet is typed and it “provides a real and powerful way, and need, to teach word choice, ideas, and punctuation” After writing about 50 tweets as a class, students began trying it on their own, writing them in a notebook and revising and editing to make it appropriate to share: “my class is becoming quite adept at adapting the original message to fit within the Twitter parameters. They discuss, debate, listen, and work together, often with great passion, as they explain and defend points of view.“  Kurtz's class sends out approximately 4-5 tweets per day and parents enjoy the brief window into their child’s day and “the brief nature of the tweet makes it easy to read and move on”.  The class is even able to share photos with Twitpic and audio recordings with Chirbit.  A brief look at Room 302's Twitter stream:

Kurtz's ideas about using Twitter are inspiring.  Sending real-time updates from the students themselves seems much more authentic than the "canned" newsletters I send home each month.  Coming from teaching in a school with a heavily involved parent population I can see this as being a well-received innovation.  

As with most good social networking tools, Twitter may be banned in some school districts and its use in the classroom may be met with some resistance by stakeholders.  You must also be 13 or older to sign up for a Twitter account, so this may be limiting.  One alternative is Twiducate.  Twiducate is a “walled garden” community created by teachers. It allows for closed-group discussion, collaboration between students, sharing of assignments and parent communication.  It may be worth exploring if any of the above issues exist in your district.

Packing up and Moving on

A brief video I made (using Xtranormal) that introduces the idea of Twitter for educators:





Going back to how Twitter received it's name I am confused as to why Dorsey would have named his idea after a word that is defined as "a short burst of inconsequential information".  It seems that, in the hands of responsible professionals, the information passed along on Twitter is anything but.

One final note of encouragement for educators considering getting started with Twitter comes from Will Richardson.  His (140 character or less) lesson on getting started with Twitter:

"Think about Twitter for yourself first.  It's a great place to connect and learn with other who share your passions." 

(p. 89 Blogs, wikis, podcast and other powerful web tools for educators")

Next stop... Blogging in the classroom


References:

Davis, .R. (2010). Social networking goes to school.  The Education Digest, 11, 14-19.  Retrieved from www.eddigest.com.