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Contents 1 Overview 2 Why Would I Want to Use It 3 Implications for Teaching and Learning 4 Resources, Related Blog Posts, Miscellaneous Thinking 4.1 Rationales for Using Twitter 4.2 Various Blog Posts from Around PSU 4.3 Learning About Twitter 4.4 Misc. Uses of Twitter 5 So What, Podcast 6 Twitter Tools

Overview

From wikipedia's entry on Twitter:

"Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send "updates" (or "tweets"; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter web site, via the Twitter web site, short message service (SMS), instant messaging, or a third-party application such as Twitterrific or Facebook.

Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and instantly delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. The sender can restrict delivery to those in his or her circle of friends (delivery to everyone is the default). Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, instant messaging, SMS, RSS, email or through an application. For SMS, four gateway numbers are currently available: short codes for the United States, Canada, and India, as well as a United Kingdom number for international use. Several third parties offer posting and receiving updates via email."

Why Would I Want to Use It

• To connect with friends
• To learn about what others are doing in your field
• To get help or input on questions and/or projects
• To get news
• To get new easy recipes (@cookbook) :)
• To meet new people
• To plan get-togethers (tweet meets)
• To promote your own projects, increase awareness
• To show colleagues the non-formal side of me
• To decrease "virtual distance" of coworkers and community

From a Campus Perspective: Working at a campus location, Twitter connects me to other Penn State Tweets across the state. It also gives me the ability to tweet right at someone, if I am working on something with them. It makes me feel closer to other Penn State people who may be experiencing similar obstacles or issues. It also opens a door to collaborate more even if geography separates us.

I have built new working relationships with folks, who I otherwise would not have met, because we do similar jobs but at different places or departments, so we never would have crossed paths. Twitter builds an overlap with positions and brings us closer together.

Some days, the tweets are light. But on other days, I'll pick up on ideas on anything for a book review, to a new application to try. I was not a "believer" until I actually tried it.

Implications for Teaching and Learning

• An impromptu backchannel for sharing educational event hilights with others, URLs, etc.
• Reminding students about homework, etc.
• Forced concision (140 chars per Tweet) can be used in any writing curriculum.
• Helping students build a sense of community; enabling them to get to know each other.
• Word tracking. By sending the message "track WORD" to Twitter, you will receive updates on all Tweets that use that word.
• Following a professional. If a "Big Name in the Field" person is on Twitter, you can follow him/her to learn how s/he thinks.
• Directing people to good causes.
• Another push technology. People follow you on Twitter, you can push things out to them.

Resources, Related Blog Posts, Miscellaneous Thinking

Rationales for Using Twitter

• Beth Kanter's Rationale
• Twitter Fan Wiki
• Advantages of Twitter

Various Blog Posts from Around PSU

• Cole Camplese's Twitter Blog Posts
• ETS' Blog Posts Related to Twitter
• CI597C's Team Twitter's Synthesis
• Shannon Ritter's Twitter Blog Posts
• Natalie Harp's Twitter as Public Brainstorming
• Brad Kozlek's Tweet Meet, TLT Symposium Aftermath, Twitter Explanation Matrix, and Twitter vs. IRC
• Chris Stubbs' One of Those Moments and Sure It's Disruptive, But Is It Disruptive Enough?
• Nikki Massaro Kauffman's Twitter: Teetering Between Toy and Tool and Listserv: "I'm Not Dead Yet"...
• Robin Smail's My Twitterverse, Listservs, Blogs and Wikis, Oh My!, Twitter Humor, the Gift that Keeps on Giving, and Peer Pressure
• Ellysa Cahoy's Coffee with Your Next-Door Neighbor Could Do More for Your Brain Than a Thousand Twitter Updates
• Mary Janzen's If Only It Didn't Have Such an Inane Name written only shortly before I happily learned I could attend camp

Learning About Twitter

• Twitter in Plain English
• Twitter - A Beginner's Guide
• The Twitter Life Cycle?
• Blogs and Wikis for Internal Communications - @Robin2go, @ndw1, and @NikkiMK06's Web Conference 2008 session presentation including information on microblogging
• Twitter Instructions for Beginners
• Getting More Out of Twitter
• 17 Ways to Visualize Your Twitter Universe

Misc. Uses of Twitter

• Can Twitter Save Lives?
• Twitter Use in Mexico Earthquake
• Twitter as a fund raiser
• Twitter and the Power of Micro-Blogging in Emergencies
• Using Twitter to Get a Job

So What, Podcast

Twitter Tools

• TweetClouds - Make a tag cloud from your tweets!
• TwitterCamp - Show your account on big screens.
• Twitter Landing Pages for Your Blog
• TwitThis - Give people reading your blog a way to Tweet
• Quotably - Threaded view of a twitter user's tweets with others
• Summize - Search all tweets by desired criteria
• Twitterfone - Send your tweets by voice!
• Jott - Another way to converts your voice into tweets.
• TwitterLocal