Twitter Relationships and Benefits

Twitter is one of those Web 2.0 tools that some people either love or hate. It is after all microblogging (say it in 140 characters or less), which is a bit mindboggling in and of itself. But there are uses and benefits to Twitter.


I found that I didn't appreciate the value of Twitter when it was just me. It took my getting the google sidebar and a Twitter feed before I realized how much there was to learn from my Twitter peeps. If you follow interesting people who are doing fascinating things, posting information, links and photos, then you have a great Twitter feed. That is what makes Twitter a valuable resource: the people you follow.


Admittedly, there are silly people whom I follow like Justshitmydadsays: Justin is 29, living at home and tweets the crazy crap his 74 year old fother says. He's a Twitter sensation.

I also follow Postsecret, which is a very cool idea that has spawned several books. Essentially, people send in their secrets to him anonymously on postcards. He has started posting them on Twitter once a day.


I follow authors like Neil Gaiman and Laurie Halse Anderson and cool librarians who I think rock like Elizabeth. I follow comedians, Rainn Wilson, and the odd David Lynch (I don't know why I follow him, he is so very odd). And I follow people who read lots of books like Flashlight Worthy Books.


I also follow other teachers, technology gurus, dog trainers and social media types. And I follow my friends. And all of these people share a little bit of themselves with me throughout the day. Sometimes I see it, sometimes I don't. Depends on when I am looking at the Twitter feed.


So when I was giving a colleague a Twitter tutorial the other day and found a reply I had missed from one of my blog readers, I was really thrilled. It was about our adding captions to our photos in our blog about our guide dog puppy. Since she is blind, without the figure captions she has no idea what the photos are about. It made me really happy that I had added the captions, but it also made me happy that I now had this extended network where my blog readers could connect with me via Twitter and comment. It makes for a different relationship, but one that is valid nonetheless.


So, all of you Twitter detractors, find some quirky, informative people and follow them. If nothing else, you might just get a laugh every day.

#Twitterfail

Last week we put into action what we had spent five months planning: a unit on Twitter, Iran, the media, media bias and the 24-hour news cycle. It was part of what our school called the one-unit challenge, a call for collaborative teaching that included revamping units and incorporating new technology into them. The AP Comparative Government teacher and I had been team teaching for a couple of years a unit on media bias. We realized that the AP Language teacher also had a curricular overlap that would work perfectly with what we had in mind.

When we first started putting the unit together, we had an idea of maybe using blogging, or a ning or something else. We hadn't settled on the new technology. But when the Iran election protest broke out and Twitter became a focal point for the protest, we knew we had our technology and we knew we had something that would really interest the kids. We could teach information literacy, history, argumentation and logic and use Iran, Twitter and the media as a focal point. We would have the kids sign up for Twitter accounts (with parental permission) and we would arrange a Twitter interview with a leading social media journalist so they could ask her questions on the Twitter environment and journalism today. (To see their interview search #bps on http://search.twitter.com).

So it was with great disappointment that during our Twitter interview, our students were logging on to their newly created Twitter accounts only to find out that their accounts had been suspended for suspicious activity. Seems that if you create many accounts from one domain name, that is considered spam and abusive AUTOMATICALLY and they suspend your account. I emailed them immediately, but received an automated reply telling me the problem was solved, I wasn't suspended and that I should check again. I told our kids to reply individually, which some they did and they were not reinstated. I increased my irritated emails to support and asked for a human to read them. Nothing.

So I started sending out tweets with the hashtag #twitterfail because they failed the classroom litmus test. If your classroom can't sign up, you can't use it. There has to be a way for educators to sign up their students for school use and that means mass sign-ups at one time, Twitter. Wake up and smell the accounts.

Oh, Twitter, BTW, we are presenting our unit at multiple conferences. Just an FYI. I would love to blog about how you solved the problem. If twitter fixes this mess so my kids can do their research project, then I will be their biggest fan. Right now they haven't and I am uber-irritated.

Thanks, Twitter.

Perfect Video about Twittering by John Cleese

Neil Gaiman just tweeted about the UK's list of who is god-emperor of Twitter. Stephen Fry was knocked down from the #1 position. As I was going down the list I saw John Cleese, who happens to be one of my favorite writers/actors. He has a very funny blog to which I now subscribe. He also has a very silly video on Twitter. Watch it!

Plus, he raises chickens, just like my friend Gisah. What's not to like about that?