More Twitter Thoughts

I've been using Twitter for several weeks now, and am growing to like it.  It is a useful source of news and interesting information, in a very convenient format.  I now get much  of my news by following CBC News Alerts and CBC Top Stories. If a story is interesting to me, I follow the link to the full story, which can include pictures, articles, and videos.  If I don't feel like learning more, I simply pass over the headline.  Very convenient.  Twitter also has interesting educational applications.  The hashtags that I mentioned in my last post often contain links to interesting articles related to education, and, because of the nature of the format and the interests of its users, they are often focused on the use of technology in the classroom.  In fact, my next current event is one that I found under the hashtag #sd33 (my school district).  So the implications for personalized professional development are fascinating.  All we have to do is find someone that consistently has interesting ideas (even in just a few weeks I can tell who from the #sd33 conversation is worth following and who I should just skim over), and check their tweets from time to time, searching for ideas and information that is relevant and interesting to me.

Twitter also has lots of potential for use in the classroom.  I am not suggesting that I am going to sign each of the 9-11 year olds in my class up for a Twitter account and set them loose on the world, but there are twitters out there that would be interesting to follow as a class, as discussion starters, lesson hooks, or writing prompts.  Pam Berger and Sally Trexler (2010), in their book Choosing Web 2.0 Tools for Learning and Teaching in a Digital World, recommend two very interesting twitters to follow as a class.  One is daily tweets taken from the diary of U.S. President John Quincy Adams.  While this is obviously an American text and twitter, it is an interesting concept, and I have started looking for significant Canadian historical figures who "tweet" in a similar fashion.  So far I have not found any, but I will keep looking, because that could be an interesting Social Studies resource.  Berger and Trexler also recommend a twitter taken from Charles Darwin's diary.  While the tweets provide interesting snippets of Darwin's perspective, I found the associated blog, which features full diary entries, much more interesting.  I also recently came across an interesting Twitter event that celebrates part of Canadian history.  on April 14th, the 100th anniversary of the Titanic's sinking, Halifax's Maritime Museum of the Atlantic will host a real-time Twitter event, where wireless messages, including the iceberg warnings that preceded the event, will be tweeted.  The museum compares Twitter to wireless messages, in that they are short messages sent out to the world that link people across distances, and communicate news quickly using the latest technology.  Information on this Twitter event can be found at Titanic Twitter Event.  This is an event that I might view (not at night time, as it unfolds, but the next day) with my class, encouraging them to think about the ways that technology has changed communication. 

That, I suppose, is the key to Twitter.  Technology has changed, and continues to change, communication.  Twitter is a new form of communication to me, and I am enjoying learning about it by exploring its possibilities for personal, professional, and classroom use.  I still haven't tweeted myself, yet, and I still have that one faithful follower, who I suppose is waiting with bated breath for that first tweet!