LIFE photos: something actually useful from Twitter!

Among my Twitter litter...

I'm not a big fan of Twitter (I actually have never yet cluttered up cyberspace with a message of my own) but I check it every day, largely because I'm "following" LIFE.com, which sends me links to fabulous pictures for use in class every day.

As we've got PCs and projectors and interactive whiteboards in many of our classrooms there's no need to print them out -- you can just beam them up at sizes which are so much more impressive than on A4 photocopies...

Click here for those black cats and the unusual phobias you can just make out in the image, above...

>> See also: RSS, which would be an alternative way of following LIFE

Twitter: no privacy, choked with spam

Largely because I've come across a number of links suggesting how Twitter could be used in education (see below), I've been having another play with it -- and frankly I'm not impressed.

Unless I've missed something, there seems to be a major privacy issue. Either spammers are forcing me to "follow" them or else Twitter itself has decided that I've got to follow a certain number of people, whether I'm interested in what they're twittering about or not. Within 24 hours, I found myself "following" (that is, receiving updates from) 24 people, only 3 of whom I'd actually chosen to follow, all of them with over 500,000 "followers".

The result? That when I log in, I am first forced to read the equivalent of junk email, and worse, have to choose to stop following each of the spammers individually, before I start to see the updates from people like Lance Armstrong (1.6m followers) that I am interested in.

>> Twitter in education:

• 25 ways to teach with Twitter (TechLearning.com)
• Nik Peachy on Twitter
  
• Twitter for Academia
  
• Twitter education groups ("twibes")
  

>> Previous Twitter posts:

• Twittering in ELT
• Twitter
  

Twittering in ELT

What are people in ELT twittering about? Is it useful to me and/or my learners...?

According to TIME magazine, "Twitter is on its way to becoming the next killer app..." (as Twitter is proud to proclaim on its home page).

From long experience, I would suggest that a healthy dose of scepticism is always called for whenever the words "next killer app" are used, be it Twitter or Second Life or interactive whiteboards, or any new bit of technology.

"Are my learners actually going to learn more, if I use this?" -- that would be the first question I think you should ask yourself as an English teacher. What are they (as opposed to me, the teacher) actually going to use the technology for, to do what, that will ensure that they learn more...?

If you can't see answers to those questions, I'd suggest you hold on before you jump on the latest digital bandwaggon.

Twitter is big at this moment, whatever people are using it for. They're also Using Twitter as an Education Tool, in a number of ways, says Search Engine Watch, such as using it to set assignments.

I'm not a Twitter user myself, either personally, or for use with my classes: I just can't see the answers to those questions...

>> 7 things you should know about Twitter
>> More on Twitter

Twitter

Look Mum, I'm eating soup...!

It's not a technology that I've used personally, but here are some links that will be of interest if all your friends are talking (or twittering...) about it and/or you wonder if you could use it for teaching.

What is it?
Twitter describes itself as "a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?". In 140 characters, or less, that is. Like, you think it's important that your Mum knows you're eating soup (see image, above)...? Or she thinks it's important...

Don't dismiss it
You don't think that's important, huh? Well, Jennifer Laycock -- and hundreds of thousands of others -- "embraced Twitter" and thinks "you should too". And maybe we should take a look at the technology -- any technology -- and ask how we might use it (see below), before dismissing it out of hand.

Laycock's is quite a good guide to getting started with Twitter (see also parts two and three).

How it could be used in the classroom
As a Twitter skeptic, it doesn't surprise me that practical classroom ideas for it are a bit thin on the ground.

Over at weblogg-ed.com, Will Richardson has 1,000 people following his twitterings (that's not meant unkindly); can see that it must have possibilities; but is still getting over "Twitter guilt" (over spending too much time on it) and doesn't seem to have pinned them down yet.

Elsewhere, this article on chronicle.com drew my attention to David Parry's more concrete proposals, Twitter for Academia, on AcademHack.

I still think it would be better just to get your students to talk to each other face-to-face or use technology to create something more permanent... But, as I say, I'm a skeptic who's never actually tried Twitter...