On the Uses and ‘Abuses’ of Twitter (or, “Digital Gymnastics”)
David Jakes’ post slamming questioning Twitter has done a good job of generating reflection on “the uses and ‘abuses’” of Twitter. I left this comment there, and want to copy it here for my records:
The dismissals of Twitter as idle chatter, or stunted substitutes for extended thinking, miss something I’ve noted (and practiced) on a number of occasions: Twitter is a launchpad, not a landing one, for thought and connection. Examples: many of my podcasts start as ideas flitting across Twitter, small exchanges, and then end with the Tweet: “Want to Skype for a podcast?” At least three or four podcasts have come from this approach since I started tweeting regularly in January.
I like the metaphor - and I use it with my students - of all these digital tools as “different trapezes.” In isolation, they’re pretty limiting. We have to be “gymnastic” with them, and swing from one to the other as whim and inspiration strike us. Here’s my favorite trapeze act of late:
Twitter to Skype to Garageband to posted Podcast on Blog to blog Comment Thread to Trackbacks ad infinitum
You notice my entry trapeze is Twitter. You notice my exit trapeze is blog conversations. Twitter is that indispensable for me these days.
But we’re all experimenting in this new Wild West. Let’s keep the carny interesting with the acts we bring to it. They’re all educational, all learning experiences, good and bad.
To change metaphors: we’re evangelizing this stuff, but it’s all so new we can’t be too “expert” at it. We’re not only evangelists of the new Gospel - we’re its guinea pigs as well. We’re experimenting on ourselves. So it’s good for us to experience the abuses, the extremes, so we can, to riff off your post, “better help kids learn.”
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I don’t like too much idle chatter or tweets that go back and forth for ever when they should be DMs. Last November I wrote “twitter is for linking, blogs are for thinking” on the techlearning blog. I still feel that way. http://www.techlearning.com/blog/2007/11/death_of_a_blogger_part_ii.php#comment-99467
susan
24 Apr 08 at 4:04 am
It took me months after opening my Twitter account to find value in it. I have a small group of folks who I follow, and I have little patience for the self-promotion that some seem so keen on. I do however find that sometimes those of us who are not in a first wave of early adopters get the sense that the party was great … before we got here. I have felt that way at conferences - “this was great… last year.” Jakes’s complaint feels a bit like that to me. I don’t feel like my Tweets are messing with the gestalt.
Twitter allows me to check in with people that I respect - and not everyone is a teacher.
Kate
24 Apr 08 at 4:25 am
I love Kate’s comment about the party analogy. I’m still approaching twitter with an open mind, although I’m not particularly fond of posts that try to determine how the rest of us are meant to use this tool. I don’t think that you’ve tried to do this, Clay, and I appreciate the fact that you’ve acknowledged it’s just one more creative medium for us to use.
Pat Wagners last blog post..Twiddla
Pat Wagner
24 Apr 08 at 5:01 am
Clay,
Twitter is my home base, the place where I leave “notes”, exchange information, keep track of my network of online friends. It complements, but does not replace, my blog and RSS feeds.
Though I’m happy to welcome newcomers (my Tweets are protected), I have developed a core group of diverse souls whom I rely on and trust.
Twitter is more than a launch pad for me: it’s a unique destination in and of itself.
diane
dianes last blog post..I’m Nobody! Who are You?
diane
24 Apr 08 at 7:05 am
The comments so far just show how different people have different views in this Wild West, don’t they?
Susan, I’m opposite to you. I love seeing banter going back and forth (though partial to banter about ideas instead of foods or “I’m brushing my teeth”). I don’t like to DM people, or be DM’d, because it comes to my inbox as an email and Twitbin doesn’t let me DM back (okay, I just learned you can “d” before the username). But I like the cocktail party aspect of inviting others to overhear the conversation and join in. We can always unfollow those whose style doesn’t draw us in.
I also wonder about all the “self-promotion” talk going on. If by that we mean announcing a new post we just wrote, it seems most people do it (me included), and I actually like it. It gives me a chance to discover more deeply explore the personalities in my Twitbin. I actually use Twitter far more than my RSS reader these days to read new posts. (I also like the writerly aspect of it: Tweeting a New Post announcement requires the ability to write a terse blurb that entices me to click the link.)
Is that what people mean by “self-promotion”? Posting links to new posts? I see it as inviting conversation on the blog, I guess.
If that’s not what people mean by self-promotion, I think I just found a topic for a good open thread
Clay Burell
24 Apr 08 at 10:48 am
I’m relatively new to Twitter, but I am already discovering several different ways it works and ways it doesn’t. I definitely feel like my “ideas bank” has expanded, mostly due to the things I hear / see tweeted back and forth between others. Sometimes the idle chatter is actually interesting, though I agree with Clay that the “I’m eating lunch” tweets feel like clutter at times. But posting links to new posts — that’s not really negative self-promotion, is it? I think it’s simply saying, “hey, come look and let me know what you think.” Don’t teachers do this outside of Twitter, too? Even when I have what I think is a cool idea in my classroom, I run it past a few people and invite dialogue about it. Twitter is just a way of doing that on a wider basis.
I am reminded of a comment a (now ex-) colleague made several years ago: “Really, aren’t all teachers a bit full of themselves? To stand in front of the room and talk and expect a room full of teenagers to listen to you? You’ve got to be a bit conceited to take on that job.” … which made me wonder about the kind of teaching and learning that was happening in *that* classroom! And so, if you’re using Twitter as the same kind of avenue, then I have to wonder what kind of an educator you are and your real purpose in using Twitter.
Adrienne
24 Apr 08 at 3:20 pm
[...] around the blog-hood these days. I frankly don’t know what it means. I say as much in this reply to comments on my last post: I also wonder about all the “self-promotion” talk going on. If by [...]
Open Thread: What Do We Mean by “Self-Promotion” on Twitter? | Beyond School
25 Apr 08 at 4:20 pm