Entering the Twittersphere Blogging & Technology by Joel Wagner - March 8, 2008July 2, 20104 If you use Twitter, add me. I have been quickly glancing over blog posts about it lately, but never paid much attention. I see that more and more bloggers seem to be doing it. As I look at it, it seems much like Facebook and MySpace’s status updates, so I’ll go for it and see what happens. Some questions I have for my readers: Do you use Twitter? What do you do with it? Do you use it in the classroom? How? Joel WagnerJoel Wagner (@sywtt) began teaching band in 2002. Though he had a lot of information, his classes were out of control. He found himself tired, frustrated, disrespected by students, lonely, and on the brink of quitting. He had had enough. He resigned from his school district right before spring break of his second year and made it his personal mission to learn to be a great teacher. So You Want To Teach? is the ongoing story of that quest for educational excellence.
I just came back from a conference where I met many people who I only knew through twitter. So I would say it has widened my network of like minded educators. I don’t use it in the classroom but use it as professional development. Most of the chatter is just noise or intended for someone but me but among the chatter there is often a great link or some new I didn’t know about before.
My sentiments re: Twitter echo those posted by Matthew. I also add that Twitter has a clique culture: Same people talking about what only interests them to the exclusion of everyone else around them.
Peter Rock was asking those same questions a while back here: http://gnuosphere.wordpress.com/2008/01/28/questioning-twitter/ From that I would describe it not as an exclusive clique. Rather an active, open and sharing community of practice. I created this page as an introduction to Twitter with some fellow students. Feel free to browse: http://knowledgegarden.usq.edu.au/tiki-index.php?page=Twitter
Thanks CatsPyjamasNZ! Great stuff there. I am beginning for form my own opinions of Twitter and I like a lot about it. I think it adds a lot of digital noise into my life too, though. Just gotta be real careful!