"It's a great way to tell people what's going on in my life," she said, "and to find out what's going on in there's." I had no use for this; I already had Facebook and texting for keeping in touch with people. Not to mention, I really don't care who made an omelette for breakfast or how quickly someone got home from work.
I asked another friend the same question. "It's a great way to know what's going on with celebrities," was her response. I had no need for this either; I'm not the sort to really care, let alone actively keep up with, the lives of famous people, with the exception of maybe an author or two. I use Goodreads for that, though.
I asked one final friend. He told me, "I can search for posts using hashtags. It's funny to see what all was posted with #worstgiftever or #momjeans." I didn't have an over-abundance of time for meaningless searches on the internet. Plus I didn't understand the purpose of hashtags, aside from making a person sound stupid when they use them in conversation, as Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake so eloquently show us in the video below!
So I continued my life without the use of Twitter, never knowing all that I was missing!
When we started this class and I saw that I was going to need a Twitter account, I was very excited. I knew there had to be a reason so many people were using Twitter that had nothing to do with celebrities, breakfast foods, or funny hashtags.
I couldn't wait to get started on the chapter involving Twitter in Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms by Will Richardson. Reading this chapter, I learned many things about Twitter that my friends just couldn't explain to me. It is not just a means for keeping in touch with people, it is a "microblog" for people to share their experiences and their versions of the world. It isn't just a way to keep track of celebrities, it is a way to keep track of anyone with a similar interest or profession.
Most importantly, the hashtag actually serves several really important purposes, and not just in Twitter (although I will only discuss its uses for Twitter). By labeling important posts with certain hashtags, users can sort through their own posts. Users can also share a common hashtag, and then they can see what everyone using that tag is saying about it.
Twitter also has several professional uses as well, the most obvious being using it to update students and parents about things going on in the classroom--reminders about homework assignments, test dates, etc. One more subtle idea is to use Twitter to keep track of professional resources, links, blogs, and news. Just simply say something short about it and provide the link and Twitter will do the rest. If you want to find that resource again, just scroll through your Tweets until you find it, or label it with a hashtag for easy sorting.
As an English teacher, I have done a "Tweet" assignment in the past during a narrative writing unit. Students were required to write a personal narrative in under 140 characters, while still following certain criteria. The students loved it, although we couldn't actually access Twitter because it was blocked from our network. These are only a few ways it could be used for classroom purposes; there are of course many, many more.
Sources:
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. (2013, September 24). #Hashtag with Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake (Late Night with Jimmy Fallon) [video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57dzaMaouXA
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms (Third ed.). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Corwin Press.
