Over the past months, Twitter-a social networking site primarily known for being a source of celebrity updates-has become something more, it is slowly being introduced for use in the classroom as an educational tool. This new resource has sparked quite the debate of whether or not it is truly educational, whether it has a place in education, and whether or not it is more entertainment than education based. In this posting I plan to give my input to the debate, and address some solutions to the nay-sayers out there.
Is there a place for Twitter in education? If you ask me, I say there is and why it has taken us six years (Twitter was created in March 2006) to bring it in to the classrooms of the world? Teachers could use this tool for so many things: announcements, school closings, parent/teacher meetings, field trip reminders, etc. They can also use it to communicate with teachers not just in their district, but around the world. For example, let's say a teacher is wanting to do a lesson plan on any given topic but is unable to find a new and creative way to present it to her class. By using Twitter and making a tweet about her dilemma they now have an entire user interface able to bring solutions to her by replying to her tweet. This, in my opinion, is extremely beneficial; it gets ideas out there and helps them continue to grow.
People who say it is more suited for entertainment are looking at the most popular feeds on Twitter, but of course the celebrities are going to be more highly followed than an educators page. However, it is us who is feeding this, we are the ones following Ashton Kutcher and Leo DiCaprio instead of helping those teachers' pages rise to the top of the ranks. So try not to look at it as solely entertainment based; by doing some research it is possible to find those education based pages educators are looking for.
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