In a couple of week’s I’m giving a bit of a heads-up on the possibilities of using Twitter within education. I use it extensively to source information within e-learning, but am looking for more generic information to apply, and thought this was an interesting start!
What’s the point of Twitter? Why should educators get involved? What difference does using Twitter make?
Here are some answers that you might like to share.
- Together we’re better: a virtual staff room
- Global or local: you choose: potential to reach an international audience
- Self-awareness and reflective practice: sharing best practice / challenges/ the educator’s journey
- Ideas workshop and sounding board: Share ideas and get instant feedback, and constructive criticism.
- Newsroom and innovation showcase: Keep up with current affairs, both news and with the latest developments in a specialist field – often being one of the first to know. Avoid ‘reinventing the wheel’ by working smarter/sharing ideas. “Pay It Forward”
- Professional development and critical friends: a powerful network available ‘all the time’, not just at break-out times between training sessions. Take time to find the right people to follow. A source of healthy debate, without losing days in development time/large amounts of cash, and gain the courage of your own convictions.
- Quality-assured searching: Trust the people you follow, and as your network gains a critical mass, often a more reliable source of information than Google, and offering up to the minute information on time-linked trending topics.
- Communicate, communicate, communicate: “Expressing yourself in 140 characters is a great discipline.”
- Getting with the times has never been so easy!: It’s what the students are using, and therefore we also should. “Twitter is anything but complicated”, and plenty of websites offering help on how to get started.
Read full blog entry, and also the great comments below it, where others give their ideas for using Twitter within education. It may be rather schools focused, but it’s important for Universities to know what schools are doing so that we can start from where the students are familiar!
