It is What it is - Twitter
There has been a lot of buzz about Twitter (on Twitter) this week. Maybe Twitter just is what it is and we don’t need to analyze it. Maybe we’re a community of educators used to broken tools, so we are constantly looking for workarounds. Twitter has been useful to us the last six months or so because we are a small (less than 300) group of people with the same interests.
Now that school is back in session, or getting close, many of us are sharing Twitter with larger audiences. How many of us? Each day I see Tweets posting numbers in the 30’s, 50’s, 100’s. If those workshop attendees join Twitter and start posting and following the existing herd of ed tech folks, what will happen to the usefulness of it? I suspect we’re going to be creating Twitter cliques as well as cutting back on our Tweeting as a new form of Twitter etiquette.
I like reading what people are eating, drinking, washing, fixing, teaching, and viewing. It makes up for the lack of personal contact and helps me feel I have something in common with the Twits aside from being an ed tech nerd. I like when conversation goes astray and turns into a game. Is it unproductive? Maybe. But maybe it stimulates creativity. Maybe it produces adrenaline and motivates.
Do I think Twitter is the wave of the future? Nope. I don’t think the current model will last much longer. It won’t be long before marketers find a way to interfere. I do think it has sparked creativity and a collaborative spirit, and even a little healthy competition. I know it has made my job a lot easier, because I have found others who have already done the work I need to do. Twitter is just one step in a long technology journey. It is what it is.
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