This brief comment is in response to a lengthy blog post by Daniel Willingham regarding the believability of educational experts based on Twitter tweets. I will leave it to you to identify just what you think is the core argument in this post, but my take would be that Willingham argues educators should not take too seriously the arguments of experts on Twitter.
The two supporting arguments seem to be that expertise in the field of education is more difficult to assess than in other fields that require certification (e.g., a license) and the area addressed by educational research is messier than other fields.
It is not my intent here to get into a detailed analysis. I agree that educational research is challenging, but so are certain fields of medicine. I am not certain I buy the certification argument as it seemingly suyggests that the skills of a physician are more uniform than those of educational researches with a Ph.D.
I do agree with the general concern that Twitter is not a good source for recommended practice. At best, it is a starting point. The brief comments probably shift the interpretation of expertise to variables such as past exposure to the author or the inclusion of degree level as part of the name associated with tweet. Blog posts offer more evidence of logic and place a heavier burden on the writer to communicate. In both cases, it is important to recognize that the posted work has not been vetted through editorial review as would be the case with journal publications.
However, here is the reality. The students I work with at the graduate level are mostly not focused on careers as researchers. They would not likely read the vetted journal articles I assign even though they are generally motivated learners. What happens when they are no longer in situations requiring they spend time on formal and reviewed research? I hope that they at least read longer-form content and have the background to be sensitive to logic, a link to evidence, and cross-referencing of suggestions with external sources. I also hope that educational researchers make the effort to provide resources with these qualities in addition to the work they publish in the research journals.