The social media service Twitter has been in the news a lot lately. It seems like it's everywhere, even appearing on Nightline and any and every other news outlet. Don Lemon on CNN broadcasts tweets everyday via his account. Celebrities like Britney Spears, John Cleese, and Shaquille O'Neil use Twitter. Even the President sends the occasional tweet.

So what is this Twitter and how can we use it in the classroom?

What is Twitter?

Twitter is basically a blog that allows a user only 140 characters per entry, roughly 1 or 2 sentences, maybe 3 if each one is really short. Twitter prompts every user with the same question, "What are you doing?", to be answered as best as one can within the textual constraints. 140 characters does not seem like enough for a good response but that is the beauty of Twitter: it forces people to be concise with answers.*

So what's the big deal? The attraction to Twitter is real-time content displayed in bite-sized nuggets of information. Twitter is a social network and encourages people to become friends with each other. You can keep tabs on what your friends are doing by clicking their "follow" button. Every person you follow has their updates lumped into a "feed" for you to peruse, just as your updates are lumped into the feeds of the people that follow you. You can even do a search on Twitter to see what the entire social network is doing, such as all the times the Twitterverse has updated about education in Georgia. Using the Advanced Search, this can even be limited to people posting to Twitter in the Atlanta area, between certain dates, even what kind of attitude the post uses! And these searches refresh whenever someone updates, even as you look at the results!

See what I mean about real-time? Not only are these quick posts to type and send, but they are also unintimidating for the casual reader. What is 140 characters to read? The limitations make the posts short and sweet, easier for people to enjoy. The other great thing about short bursts like this is that it allows for portability. Since Twitter posts (called "tweets") are so short, it's easy for people to type them out on the computer or on their mobile devices (a person can even update by sending a text message from their phone). So people can actually post as things happen.

But it would get boring for people to only read what each other are actually doing. Let's face it: there are only so many times you can read about your friends eating breakfast and going to work. That's why many people ignore the question and post different things they see (even taking pictures with their camera phones), what they read (posting links for others), and questions for the Twitterverse to respond to. Companies like the AJC and FOX News post up-to-the-minute news updates while job sites like CareerBuilder and Monster.com tweet local job postings and career advice. It's a new way to connect to your world as it develops.

How Can You Use Twitter for Education?

So the real question is how can you harness the power of Twitter in the classroom?

• The most obvious use is to send reminders to students about assignments and tests. Encourage students to sign up for Twitter accounts and to follow your feed, turning on the mobile phone updates (Twitter will send a text message when a person they follow updates) or, if they have next-gen phones like the iPhone or the T-Mobile G1, they can get a Twitter client to alert them when you update. This will ensure messages get to them without necessarily keeping an email contact list or having to individually remind each of your students. Everyone that follows you will get the message.
• Twitter is also a good way to send out extra information as you find it without filling up your students' inboxes with links. If you're a political science teacher, keeping current and topical is important and connects the concepts in class with what is happening in the world today. You can tweet links to news stories, important websites, or even the Twitter profiles of political leaders. You can even use URL-shortening services like TinyURL or Is.gd to create a compact version of your link so you can use the rest of your characters to give a short description.
• Twitter breeds the ability to communicate in short, meaningful bursts. It forces people to be concise and to get right to the point. This is an important skill to cultivate and assignments on Twitter give students the opportunity to work on this ability.
• Encourage collaboration and peer feedback. Post a link or a question for students to respond to together using @replies (Twitter's system of responding to a single person) or #trends (Twitter's system of grouping a group of tweets under the umbrella of a keyword). This will capitalize on the things learned in the lesson and continue active learning beyond the classroom.

Of course, Twitter is not limited to just those. Here are some helpful links:

• Twitter - sign up for an account and try it for yourself.
• "7 Things You Should Know about Twitter" [PDF via Educase] - an overview of Twitter and its educational applications.
• "How Twitter Creates a Social Sixth Sense" by Clive Thompson [via Wired] - an article about the growing importance of Twitter in society.
• Twitter Tweets for Higher Education - an article with many different uses for Twitter in the classroom.
• Twitter for Academia - a list of suggestions mostly for university-level courses but many are applicable to any classroom.
• How to: Twitter - from a column in last August's issue of Wired featuring 140-character blurbs on what makes a good tweet.
• Hive 5: Five Best URL Shrinkers [via Lifehacker]

What are some ways you can think of to use Twitter (or social media in general) in the classroom? Do you have your own links on Twitter to share? Leave your suggestions and stories in the comments! And, of course, follow GPB TIE Network on Twitter!

* All the sentences in this paragraph are 140 characters each.

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