Journal 8: "Have You Tweeted Today?"

Fingal, D. (2009). Have you tweeted today? Learning and Leading with Technology, 37(2). Retrieved on October 20, 2009 from http://www.iste.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=September_October_No_2_3&Template=/MembersOnly.cfm&NavMenuID=4381&ContentID=24192&DirectListComboInd=D

Diana Fingal poses a great argument towards John Ridley's article about the twitter fad. Although twitter has been quite mainstreamed and played out, if used the correct ways, it can be very beneficial to many, especially teachers. Diana mostly spoke about the bad rep that twitter has been given due to the fact that it has given "discretion" a new meaning in everyday life. Because of the prompt "What are you doing?" many twitter subscribers posts useless nonsense about their daily life and in a way, surrender personal discretion to the public. Twitter being used this way has caused some skepticism amongst current and future subscribers. a main concern is the broadband space being used up to post useless tweets for the public to view.

Fingal's point was that twitter has been scrutinized only because of the useless half of it's subscribers, which in turn has the majority thinking of it as useless rather than helpful. If used in a better light, such as following others with similar professions as yourself, or follow subscribers which posts tweets helpful to your profession, Twitter can actually be a great supplement to life. Not only would if be a great tech tool to use but it would be better for teachers to get in with their students and keep up with them technologically speaking. Her point across, twitter should be given a chance.


Ridley, J. NPR Morning Edition, "Keep Your Tweets to Yourself": www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104033836

According to John Ridely, Twitter is just another one of those tech fads such as myspace, or facebook. Just as I mentioned earlier, many people on twitter waste broadband spacce to post useless artifacts which are not at all helpful to the public. Ridley's perspective of twitter has solely been influenced by the many useless everyday tweets and has given him the idea that twitter is just a "waste of broadband space."

I'd have to agree with Fingal on this matter. Twitter can be used in great ways if used with constructive intentions. Not all of the world uses twitter for pointless chatter and I think that's something Ridley should understand.


Question:

In what ways can twitter be helpful to Teachers?

Twitter can be used to monitor student activities outside the classroom that may need to be brought to parents attentions. Twitter can also be used as a classroom discussion board in which students can comment about each others' ideas on certain classroom concepts or lessons. It can also be used as a resource tool for students to post helpful supplemental links to a class.