I joined twitter at the beginning of Fall quarter, and although I've enjoyed exploring some aspects of it I still consider myself a beginning tweeter. I had resisted joining Twitter all throughout college because I thought it was just another fad that would soon fade away, and I heard it's only purpose was to follow celebrities. When I joined, I began following teachers, politicians, news sites, friends, fellow cohort members and (I'm sorry to say...) a few celebrities. I think twitter is a great way to quickly get a feel for what is going on in the world of education. I found some teachers who tweeted about their blogs, which was an easy way to find new educators to follow. I think twitter lends itself nicely to collaboration between teachers because your creative and effective classroom ideas can be broadcast instantaneously to a wider public.
A challenge that I had with twitter was saying what I wanted to say in 140 characters or less. I found it difficult to include a hash tag, a website address and the tweet's content without going over the allotted characters. I think this is something that takes practice and more experience. I've tweeted at least 6 times, 5 of which were related to courses at UW and tagged with #uwbc16. I enjoyed seeing other people's tweets that were also tagged with #uwbc16 because we are all in the same boat, and it's nice to see what other people in my position are thinking. I think twitter is great for live updates and collaboration. Some questions that I still have are: can you balance tweeting for educational purposes as well as personal purposes and maintain credibility from educational followers? Or, should you create two accounts: one for education and one for friends and family? In the future when I'm a teacher and I want other educators to look at my classroom blog and give me feedback, how do I create a tweet that is both interesting and informational in such a small amount of characters so I can effectively "hook" an audience? I am also just curious to know if anyone has found my tweets useful or informational in any way or if I'm just tweeting to tweet?
I have found this to be the hardest part about twitter so far as well, am I tweeting just to fulfil a requirement, or am I sharing worthwile information. While I enjoy reading other people's tweets, who have much more knowledge or experience, I didn't feel like I really had anything meaningful to share. With time and more experience that will better come in to equilibrium, I'm sure.
ReplyDelete