Twitter Quitter? I think not.

In the last few weeks I’ve logged on to my twitter account every day…all I really wanted to do was quit…every single time. Then one morning, National Grammar Day to be exact, I woke up and had some kind of tweepiphany.  I don’t know how I went from hating the idea of twitter to liking (sorry I can not yet say loving) it a lot, but I did. I can see how it could be a fun little tool in the classroom if you wanted to have everyone do something very short and very specific, like write one poetic line to later assemble as a poem, or chime in on a short question…or encourage your students to follow people for academic reasons and not just for fun. 

I don’t think I will actually do any of the above mentioned classroom activities, but I did have fun following Margaret Atwood who made me fall in love with poetry all over again, and Grammar Girl, who made me laugh at her clever little grammar jokes. As far as the usefulness of Twitter, I think I will look for more authors who are also educators like Jim Burke author of Reading Reminders, and Writing Reminders. I think twitter will help me feel connected to people I respect in the teaching world.

The type of information I gained at this point did feel random and fragmented, for example some of the people I follow might give a grammar tip, but others might be talking about a private joke or some other random detail such as “just walked into Menards.” Not that it isn’t useful to know that someone is in a Menards looking for a new toilet, but I just don’t care.  I definitely think that it is important to choose who to follow based on specific criteria. I think I’d like to keep my Twitter account just to follow authors, teachers and professionals. If I want to follow friends, I’ll create a separate account. That way I don’t have to feel bombarded by odd facts when all I’m looking for is a little brain food. In the end, I like the tool now that I’ve decided on a direction to go with it.