14 June 2009
Teacher is a Twit
18/06/09 15:08 Filed in: Social
networking trends
A teacher has started using Twitter in the classroom
as a teaching aid. The kids get to use Twitter, they
use trending to help them track what’s being
talked about, it’s all good stuff. A blog entry
telling you all about it is here.
I have a feeling I should approve. They’re finding Twitter has its limitations (hint: nobody has ever said it offers more than 140 characters, deep articles this isn’t) but that’s not my issue. No, for me the problem is far simpler: it hasn’t been around long enough to prove it has staying power.
What? An inveterate Tweeter like me, unconvinced about Twitter’s longevity? Well, frankly yes. I use it. It gets me work. It’s brilliant. Facebook does a similar job but if I’m honest nothing suits my individual needs as well as Twitter. But I wasn’t using it so much a year ago and I have no idea whether I’ll be using it as much a year from now. This stuff changes. Five years ago I’d have been praising FriendsReunited as defining the social web, and I think we can all agree that medium’s time has pretty much gone.
And these are students. They’re very much at an early stage of their career - and they’re learning today’s technology, but a technology that might be subsumed by something entirely different within months. I hope it works for them; I hope they’re focusing more on the skills needed to manipulate social media than the individual medium itself (although the students can probably tell the tutor a bit about that). I just can’t quite see any long term application for this.
I have a feeling I should approve. They’re finding Twitter has its limitations (hint: nobody has ever said it offers more than 140 characters, deep articles this isn’t) but that’s not my issue. No, for me the problem is far simpler: it hasn’t been around long enough to prove it has staying power.
What? An inveterate Tweeter like me, unconvinced about Twitter’s longevity? Well, frankly yes. I use it. It gets me work. It’s brilliant. Facebook does a similar job but if I’m honest nothing suits my individual needs as well as Twitter. But I wasn’t using it so much a year ago and I have no idea whether I’ll be using it as much a year from now. This stuff changes. Five years ago I’d have been praising FriendsReunited as defining the social web, and I think we can all agree that medium’s time has pretty much gone.
And these are students. They’re very much at an early stage of their career - and they’re learning today’s technology, but a technology that might be subsumed by something entirely different within months. I hope it works for them; I hope they’re focusing more on the skills needed to manipulate social media than the individual medium itself (although the students can probably tell the tutor a bit about that). I just can’t quite see any long term application for this.
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