At March’s Michigan Association for Computer Users in Learning conference, there seemed to be a few refrains:
- Blogs? Wikis? Podcasts? The big hits of 2007? Oh, so passe. (Don’t tell my editor.)
- Moodle, baby. All grades, all subjects, all the time. Be there or be squared.
- Endnote saved _____’s sanity!
- Twitter! Twitter! Twitter!
- Tech folks! Tend to be even more enthusiastic! Than librarians!
I kept hearing from the national presenters that Twitter.com was the best professional development tool they had ever run into! They could type a question into their Twitter account and someone out there would instantly answer! Phenomenal! In 140 characters or less!So a pal and I made Twitter accounts (I’m activelearning) and found a few folks to track.But then I started to realize some things:
- National presenters have lots of “followers” keeping track of their Tweets. Celebrity leads to readers, and readers, in turn, want to be recognized by celebrities, so the readers/followers are more than happy to respond. So is it possible that Twitter has the most value to those who already are in “authority” positions? And less valuable to the average Jo/Joe?
- Normal people, like us, have few followers. We ask a question, and it’s like the hypothetical tree falling in the hypothetical forest — nuthin’ happens.
- What do people really want to know about me? Seriously?
- People I know — and, even weirder, people I’ve never heard of — are “following” me.
- Martha Stewart’s dogs do Twitter. Uh-huh. Is this what MSNBC has sunk to? Some “dogs” Tweet 3 times and it’s news? I’m serious. No April Fool’s joke or anything, they have 1800 followers. Now is about the time my Italian grandma would make a rather loud observation about using time wisely.
- Some people have ghostwriters who Twitter for them. Again, I’m not kidding. New York Times.Â
So what do you think about Twitter? Life-saving gateway to professional development? Or just another fad to rival LOLcats?Â
