Teaching Students to Live Tweet – Starr Sackstein, MJE, NBCT http://nzzl.us/2oysnPu – really wish we wouldn’t. Engage in extended writing.
I posted the tweet appearing above earlier today. Some time later my wife saw the tweet and took exception. She told me that I should be more positive and educators would think of me as a luddite because I question interest in using twitter.
I suppose she was right. My criticism of Twitter might be offensive to those teachers interested in this tool and they might make assumptions about my commitment to educational uses of technology.
However, the potential of this misunderstanding illustrates my major objection to Twitter. Simply put – you can’t say much and brevity at the level of a few words hinders communication and I would argue the use of writing as a learning experience. For example, I would suggest that interest in online writing is great, but it makes more sense to me to engage students in blogging. To be fair to the author of the post linked in the tweet, live tweeting might be a little different than most writing tasks that would involve greater student reflection.
The fact is I make fairly extensive use of Twitter. I tend to share links – content I find interesting and content I have written. This is also the reason I watch Twitter. I do not expect to find profound arguments within tweets, but there is always the possibility something mentioned in a tweet will be impressive.
