Truthfully speaking, Twitter is an application that I had very little knowledge of and less respect for prior to using it for class. I didn't understand who would use Twitter for posting such short comments and how it would be used for education. Having a chance to establish a Twitter account and make a few tweets did a great deal to enhance my knowledge of the application. The genius, or madness, of Twitter is the 140 character limit. This requirement of brevity is something that most are not accustomed to, but certainly serves to limit verbosity and force the author to "get to the point". When combined with URL shortening websites, one discovers that there is actually a great deal of information which can be passed along in a short tweet.
For consistency, I chose to use my Twitter account to post ideas and research findings related to fostering creativity in early childhood. As such, I became the Twitter follower of many organizations or individuals who tweet on this subject, as well as providing my own in-class observations or results from ongoing research experiments. The final product: http://twitter.com/JeffreyAhu allowed me to post directly to my blog site using a feature called "Twitter updates". (See the side bar of the blog page for an example)
What I learned
Twitter is a mode of communication that relies upon concision, something that I often have difficulties in accomplishing in my own writing. Although somewhat limiting, knowing that one has a certain amount of space to communicate a thought can also be liberating and require more creativity and thoughtfulness. The writer is also reminded to consider the audience when designing a tweet, since people have limited time to read online posts. The growing popularity of this program undoubtedly demonstrates that a certain need for brevity and clarity in writing exists in the modern world. At other times, Twitter can take advantage of new programs, such as URL shorteners, to refer to larger files, meaning that data and information can be sent very effectively and efficiently through this means, with multiple targets (i.e. subscribers) receiving instant updates.
How Twitter is important for my field
Although Twitter is a common technology used by millions worldwide, I find few personal uses for it in my research or teaching. One positive use is the ability to subscribe to authors or topics related to my research field and receive updates immediately as posted. The other benefit is that I can post tweets to those in my network without worrying about forgetting someone, since all of the subscribers will receive the information simultaneously. Whether or not Twitter will replace emails (which allow for greater length, additional content, and more security and personalization) seems doubtful for my generation.
Future learning or teaching
In terms of language education, I believe that there are some positive and creative uses for Twitter which may be available. Requiring learners to compose a piece of writing within a limited scope is definitely a useful task. Use of Twitter for collaborative writing (i.e. one sentence at a time) may also have some potential. For my own personal research and teaching, however, I doubt that I will make use of Twitter in the near future. However, some ideas for activities include:
- using Twitter as a means of sending group messages, updates, and datafiles (i.e. through URL shortening download websites)
- use in simple composition exercises for ESL/EFL learners (i.e. one or two sentences)
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