From LIS 460 Summer 2007
Contents |
What is Twitter?
"A global community of friends and strangers answering one simple question: What are you doing?" - Twitter
Twitter is described by Wikipedia as a social networking and microblogging tool.
Someone (and maybe someone in this class, so if it was you, tell me) recently described Twitter as a combination of an away message in an instant messaging program such as AIM and the status bar on Facebook. It is also quite similar to text messaging in that you have only 140 characters to say what it is you are doing, but in this brief space there is a lot of room to communicate simple answers, as well as questions, ideas, links and responses to friends.
An update, post or message on Twitter is called a Tweet.
Friends on Twitter can see your Tweets and you can see theirs. You can choose to have Twitter "protect your updates" meaning that only your friends can see them, or you can choose to keep your updates public, which will make them a part of the public timeline on Twitter's main page.
There are several ways you can create and view Tweets with Twitter:
- The webpage www.twitter.com - when you log in it has a space to ask: What are you doing? and below lists the updates you and your friends have made in starting with the most recent.
- Twitterrific is a desktop application for Macs that looks a bit like an Instant Messenger window. It lists Tweets, showing your friend's icon on the left and post on the right, just like on the web page, starting with the most recent, and includes a box at the bottom for you to type your updates. Twitterrific updates frequently, about every minute or so.
- PC users can add the twitterbar to their browser windows. An explanation of what this is, how it works, and how to get it can be found here
- By mobile phone, a favorite for professors on the go. You can set this up here
- Instant Messenger client. This can be set up here and supports Instant Messenger clients: Livejournal, GTalk, Jabber
- On your website. If you make your Tweets public you can add a badge to any website.
- On Facebook you can add a Twitter badge to your profile, but this has not really been working for me so far, seems like it takes a very long time to update.
Using Twitter alongside or with other applications and devices that you use habitually allows it to integrate more easily into your day to day activities. If you chose to use Twitter with students or with other teachers these other ways of managing Tweets would allow them to share information with you and with each other via Twitter easily. The multitude of options means there should be a way to use Twitter that works for everyone.
Twitter in the School Library
Content to send out via Twitter: For this I imagine that several computers in the school library have Twitter accounts, mostly for the purposes of having an open Twitterrific window to recieve content relevant to the library, perhaps posted by the librarian. These computer specific accounts could, however be used to ask questions during a lesson, or signal the librarian that assistance is required when a student is working on an assignment or looking for a book.
- Several times a day TwitLit posts the first line of a book and a link to that book's page on Amazon.com. A school library could make TwitLit a friend on Twitter, or follow its example by posting first lines of books from their own collection with links to the catalog.
- Book Reviews by the librarian, teachers, students or outside sources could be posted to Twitter several times a day and viewed by students or teachers working on library computers or checking in from home later in the day.
- New book updates would be like an instant RSS feed to let patrons know what is new in the library. There's something to be said for information appearing directly on a screen. It could catch a student or teacher's interest about something they were already wondering, or pique a new curiosity.
Content your community of students and teachers might send you:
For this I imagine each student or teacher using their own Twitter account.
- What are you doing? Twitter's tagline question is an icebreaker for library users. Just using Twitter to send Tweets, links, questions, etc is a way to get to know your community and share ideas.
- What are you Reading? A library related take on Twitter prompting everyone to share what they have been reading. It would give you feedback from your community as well as allow them to share this information with each other and encourage people of like interests and reading tastes to share titles. I'm not sure if you could actually make a Twitter client directly ask "What are you reading?" but perhaps you could have a certain day or week where you ask everyone to share their answers.
While Eileen makes some good points in expressing concern for integrating technologies into schools that may seem frivolous to the masses over in her entry on microblogging I still feel that one should never underestimate the potential for connecting with students by using something fun and exploring its potential for relevance to learning. All you need is one teacher and one project to get started (this notion is not mine, but I don't remember where I heard it).
The potential for using Twitter as a means for instant updates on library books and events may not even need teachers and students to use Twitter during the school day. It could be used strictly on library computers, or as a place for updates posted by the librarian at his or her convenience that teachers and students could check from home on their own time.
Twitter News Blurbs
"Twitter is on its way to becoming the next killer app." - TIME Magazine
"It's one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the Internet." - New York Times
"Suddenly, it seems as though all the world's a-twitter." - Newsweek
quoted from Twitter's website
Other Things to Think About
While Twitter is a great way to share links it does not allow for long URL's, thus using TinyURL along with Twitter can be very helpful.
Sharing links to articles and web pages is instantaneous with Twitter, but for saving a list of links relevant to a class, a particular student's interests or research, or a particular teacher or group works better in del.icio.us. I'm still dreaming of a way to use both together that would only involve posting the information once.
Twitter is somewhat like Pownce.
You can read about Pownce here on the Student Tech Encyclopedia.
Or visit it on it's own site here
Pownce is very new and may in fact be better because it allows you to send information to different separate groups and has an attractive interface. However, it is still new enough that you must be invited by another user to join, which may limit it's use in a school or library community. Pownce does not yet support use with mobile phones, which is a turn off to some. And many of us are still just more comfortable with Twitter. So though I may switch in the futre, for right now I'm sticking with Twitter.
There are also other services out there that are similar to both of these. It would be good to explore them further before deciding on which one to try as a project in a school.
