Twitter-(not so)-iffic
I think it's possible that I'm the only person who doesn't use Twitter. It's not that I don't like the service, but I just think that it's overhyped. Take a look at this recent post from Senator John McCain:
Vote for Mark Reynolds for All-Star! He is a great athlete and an outstanding role model. Go D-backs, 3 in a row!
Or this one from Katie Couric on the Michael Jackson memorial service:
Talked to stevie wonder afterwards. I love the song he sang. Pretty amazing to sit next to such a legend.
Ok, guys, I DON'T CARE! I think that some of the most useless stuff on the Internet right now can be found on Twitter (which is quite an accomplishment, when you think about it). I think every teacher right now reading this has too much to worry about in their own lives and classrooms to pay attention to a minute-by-minute accounting of the lives of professional narcissists.
Anyway, I'm going to end the rant here, and talk about how Twitter can be useful in the classroom:
- Create a twitter feed with daily homework assignments and reminders. Parents and students can subscribe to it, and see it every day. Also, since Twitter will send you text message notifications of subscribed feeds, a student who subscribes to your homework feed can literally have their homework texted to them every day.
- Cheap classroom responders: Ask a question on your Twitter feed, have students respond to your Twitter feed.
- Summarizing: Since they only have 140 characters to work with, Twitter is a great way to have students summarize reading assignments.
Others? Think Twitter is awesome? Post in the comments.
