Twittersphere: the entire community of all Twitter users

To be honest, I have never really been all that in to Twitter.  To me, it has always seemed like a mini-Facebook, with the 140-word posts just like status updates.  And I must admit that I get slightly annoyed when people use abbreviations such as “gr8” for “great” in an effort to stay under the word limit.  I suppose I shouldn’t make too many judgments, however, seeing as I have never actually used Twitter, and my feelings could always change (I used to be opposed to Facebook, too, but then once I created an account I got hooked!)

Before reading the articles for Friday’s class, I had never before considered using Twitter professionally.  One thing that worries me about using Twitter as an educational tool is that it requires students to have access to the Internet, either at home or at school.  In the Matteson article, for example, the authors discussed the possibility of using Twitter to conduct a live discussion feed during lecture.  In order for this to happen, the students would need to have a phone with Internet access or a computer.  I do not think teachers should assume that all students will have phones with Internet access, and because it can be difficult to get access to a computer lab for class, this exercise may not be able to be realistically implemented in schools.

Supposing that Internet access was not an issue, several of the ideas presented in the article are quite intriguing.  For example, I really like the idea of the collaborative creative writing assignment, in which students work together to build on a prompt, one tweet at a time.  I think it would be interesting to see what sort of stories the students could create in such a manner.  It would definitely be a test of their creativity and ability to work as a team!

Overall, I think the idea of using Twitter in the classroom is a great one, but I am slightly concerned about how teachers could realistically implement it.