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ProfJulie · 04-24-2009, 03:22 PM

I've been on twitter for about two years and have 8 twitter accounts. I am active on 2 of the accounts, and use the other accounts to post announcements (for example, I use 2 accounts to post announcements to my students on my course websites).

Twitter is a great tool, if you manage it, but it can also be a huge time sink.

The thing I like the most about Twitter (and the reason I gave it a run) was that you can post global messages to a wide audience from a cell phone (or at any computer). At the time, I wanted a way to alert my students (especially my 7:30 am class) if I got delayed in traffic and would be late to class. I posted a twitter badge to my course website and I can post announcements from my cellphone to my website almost instantaneously.

I'm really enjoying Twitter's hashtag system (this is where someone posts a tweet and places a # before a word, like this "#mobileread" You can search on that word from any tweet (simply by selecting the word in the poster's tweet) and find a whole dialogue from other folks who posted tweets that included that hashtag in it. This is great for conventions and other social events, but I've also discovered other uses for it:

Twitter's hashtag system saved me a lot of time and frustration this week when Earthlink had its huge outage (i.e., #Earthlink). Earlier that day, some of my students told me my course websites (which are hosted by Earthlink) were down . When I got home I checked Twitter and found out that Earthlink was down all over the country - this knowledge saved me from calling Earthlink and getting frustrated when all I would have gotten was voicemail. I also knew right away when folks started getting their Earthlink back.

I like to watch my favorite shows on tv and check what folks are saying about the show on Twitter - it's like watching the shows with a room full of friends (i.e., #Fringe). This can be bad, though, if you don't live on the East coast because you could find out about the show before you get a chance to watch it yourself.

Twitter can be so much more than the constant stream of mindless dribble that you hear about.

04-24-2009, 03:22 PM	#52
ProfJulie Evangelist Posts: 423 Karma: 890 Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: USA Device: whatever	I've been on twitter for about two years and have 8 twitter accounts. I am active on 2 of the accounts, and use the other accounts to post announcements (for example, I use 2 accounts to post announcements to my students on my course websites). Twitter is a great tool, if you manage it, but it can also be a huge time sink. The thing I like the most about Twitter (and the reason I gave it a run) was that you can post global messages to a wide audience from a cell phone (or at any computer). At the time, I wanted a way to alert my students (especially my 7:30 am class) if I got delayed in traffic and would be late to class. I posted a twitter badge to my course website and I can post announcements from my cellphone to my website almost instantaneously. I'm really enjoying Twitter's hashtag system (this is where someone posts a tweet and places a # before a word, like this "#mobileread" You can search on that word from any tweet (simply by selecting the word in the poster's tweet) and find a whole dialogue from other folks who posted tweets that included that hashtag in it. This is great for conventions and other social events, but I've also discovered other uses for it: Twitter's hashtag system saved me a lot of time and frustration this week when Earthlink had its huge outage (i.e., #Earthlink). Earlier that day, some of my students told me my course websites (which are hosted by Earthlink) were down . When I got home I checked Twitter and found out that Earthlink was down all over the country - this knowledge saved me from calling Earthlink and getting frustrated when all I would have gotten was voicemail. I also knew right away when folks started getting their Earthlink back. I like to watch my favorite shows on tv and check what folks are saying about the show on Twitter - it's like watching the shows with a room full of friends (i.e., #Fringe). This can be bad, though, if you don't live on the East coast because you could find out about the show before you get a chance to watch it yourself. Twitter can be so much more than the constant stream of mindless dribble that you hear about.