Twittering?

[Susan Morgan]

Are any independent school teachers twittering? I've found the Twitter network to be helpful in providing resources, links, and contacts. scmorgan

[Langwitches]

H i Susan,
I have been twittering for several months now and enjoy the instant networking.
My twitter name is "langwitches".
See you in the twittersphere.

[Fred Bartels]

Hi Susan,

I'm wondering if you and or Langwitches could lay out the advantages and disadvantages of twitter. I've resisted using it because I'm concerned about its potential for making my life even more interrupt driven than it already is? I'm curious but cautious.

Thanks,

Fred

[Langwitches]

I wrote a blog response to why I twitter here:
http://www.langwitches.org/blog/2007/11/15/twitter/

[Alex Ragone]

Hi Susan,

A number of Independent School technologists are using Twitter to communicate at our New York State conference this week. Here's the twitter group: http://twitter.com/neit

Hopefully you can find some IS teachers there.

- Alex

[Susan Morgan]

Hi Alex and Fred,
Alex, I follow you now! (I am scmorgan on twitter). And thanks for the other link.
Fred, when I began "twittering" a few months ago, I didn't get it. It seemed frivolous, and it took time away from my other networking (blogging, reading feeds, etc). However, I've discovered I can not only handle it, I can't live without it. I check it several times a day and discover leads to people, resources, and projects. I've been able to participate in online video streams with students, teachers, and administrators. I've found great web 2.0 resources for my teachers, and I have met amazing people who respond almost immediately with help if I need it. Yes, it takes time. But with 140 character limit, you can only say so much! On days when I have no time, I simply pick up where I left off and ignore the previous "tweets" from people. I highly recommend it!

[Hiram Cuevas]

I just started using Twitter too. I was also skeptical about this tool b/c I thought it was just another form of IM and to date I still think it is. That said, I believe if the tool is used with a specific purpose in mind it can be quite useful and twitter has certainly done that for me. I've managed to stay in contact with colleagues and it has facilitated the sharing of ideas and it lends itself to sharing with fellow twits a stream of consciousness, a rant, or something fun. If you haven't tried twitterfox, I would encourage you to try it. It's a fabulous widget for Firefox, it's compact and it converts your urls to tinyurls.

[Matt Montagne]

Twitter is a great tool...best of all, it limits you to 140 characters...I wish we could do the same with our email system! Think of twitter as a combination of a blog and IM...it is technically a "Micro-Blog." I've found it to be an invaluable tool to build connections with other educators...in the few weeks that I've been twittering, I've made many connections and exchanged many ideas relating to the effective use of technology with students.

I'm "mjmontagne" on twitter...follow me!

Cheers!
~Matt

[Demetri Orlando]

I agree, it takes a little while to see the value of twitter, and it is important to follow some of the bigger names in the edtech-twitterverse, because they are good about pushing out links to interesting resources. After you get the hang of it, it becomes a bit like an rss feed that aggregates brief updates from those you choose to follow. In terms of sending info outbound, some days I send 2-3 updates, and some days none. I try to say something mildly interesting, and if I have a good link I like to include it.. The response etiquette took a few tries to understand. Basically if an "@" sign and a username precedes a post, that post in "in response to" that user (and is sent to that user's "replies" tab on their twitter page) http://twitter.com/demetri

[Demetri Orlando]

Just found a few great resources on twitter courtesy of Miguel Guhlin's blog:

7 Things You Should Know About Twitter from Educause Learning Initiative.

Twitter Guide by Caroline Middlebrook.

If you're wondering how to use Twitter in the Classroom, you need to visit the Twitter Collaboration Stories wiki.

[arvind s grover]

Susan, I'm a big Twitter fan (my page here) and at our NY independ. schools tech/library conference last week we used Twitter as the conference communication tool. The conference Twitter will be quiet until next year, but you can see the network here.

I also used it with students last year for them to update on school events, sports scores, etc.

I have found amazing resources through the 100 or so people that I follow on Twitter

[Tami Brass]

Twitter's been one of those things I didn't see a use for at first but happily came back to months later. I did the same with del.icio.us