Tweet Tweet

I have long been an avoider of Twitter, the need to post your every thought or move just didn't appeal to me. I wondered, why can't people just use Facebook? Then when "status updates" became a thing, I became especially mystified by the allure of Twitter, it simply seemed unnecessary and a narcissists dream come true. I remember being slightly aghast when I heard that "tweet" had made it into the Oxford English Dictionary as something other than a sound a bird makes.

See my thoughts in video form below:

Though I find Twitter in some ways ridiculous, I can also absolutely understand its informational/educational appeal.I will say that this is the one program this semester that I only signed up for to use in this class and very likely will never revisit out of sheer apathy. Again, this makes me sound like a fuddy duddy, but I just find Twitter too overwhelming. Because I don't check it everyday, or have a smartphone to  send me updates, every time I check it (after a few days, or weeks hiatus) there is so much staring me in the face that I just can't take it. The list of tweets (because many people Tweet multiple times a day), is too immense to handle. I also can't get over people's incessant need to tell me about buying coffee, or walking to the store....seriously, who cares?

The "clutter" aka who is Mae Whitman? I don't follow her...

Thankfully, I found the Twitter interface quite easy to use as most social networking sites are similar. Very quickly I searched how to get rid of retweets (as much as possible) because they were clogging my page, and I just wasn't interested in the majority of them. I can see how Twitter can get really cluttered really fast. Also, as Facebook picks up more and more of the Twitter trends, I have a clear understanding of how hashtagging and @peopling works (does the latter have a technical name?) I do like how the site recommends people to follow based on your current interests, it seems like an excellent way to find actual useful content.

Learning to turn off certain retweets

After all was said and done with the setup, I found some interesting education professionals to follow by going to Aaron's "following" lists and discovered how easy it is to share information via Twitter. I also like how you can sub-categorize people into lists. I can see how awesome it would be to share educational materials/videos/texts with a large number of people in a short time (especially with retweets). I do wish that there was a way to ensure that you could follow people who would only tweet work based materials and not personal things, to once again limit the clutter

Using Aaron's lists to get me started

That being said, I find it fascinating how Twitter has made celebrities semi-relatable. With one click you are able to read your favourite comedian, or artists random musings and to see what they are into and people they are following. It really is an impressive social networking tool and I must say that over 50% of the people I have chosen to follow thus far are people I simply think are funny.

Note that my current Twitter "friends" can be subdivided into two lists

In regards to using Twitter in the classroom, I am cautious, though I found a good website which lists a number of ways to use the site in school : http://www.teachthought.com/social-media/60-ways-to-use-twitter-in-the-classroom-by-category/
Part of me thinks that if I wanted a Twitter account for school, I'd have to set up a separate account from my personal one as some of my humour I have /people I am following aren't the most appropriate. The idea of having to have two accounts for something I am already not sold on just makes me annoyed, though again I understand that I am simply stuck in my old ways and that Twitter is a great way to share information with like minded people.

I do have a teacher friend who actively Tweets with her classes, more than anything else as a way to answer students' questions about assignments on a last minute basis. I suppose it is like a less personal phone number. That being said, Twitter is blocked on my school's computers, so it seems like a resource I'd have to use outside the classroom rather than within it.... that is, if I ever succumb. It also seems like lots of the suggestions made on the above site could easily be done using another program and out of principle I'll probably stick with them.