to titter; giggle

danah boyd on twitter
The link is to the archive of the twitter tag on danah boyd's blog (three posts in all), it seemed more relevant as she doesn't discuss the use of Twitter in education, but some points on Twitter in general. In the first post she discusses the result that 40% of the conversation on Twitter is "pointless babble", comparing it to spoken words and suggesting that more than 40% of that would count as pointless babble. Her argument is that human beings are social, so they will use any tool available to be social and that is a good thing.
The second post is about the misrepresentation of the results Nielson survey on Twitter, with the statement being "teens don't tweet". There was then a big outcry against this on twitter by teens who tweet. The survey result was that 16% of Twitter users were in the 2-24 age bracket. She points out that hte methadology used to get this result is questionable and points out the number of social groups that are over represented on Twitter. Her interpretation of the Nielson result was that

Everyone expects social media to be used primarily by the young but OMG OMG OMG old farts are just as likely to be using Twitter as young folks! Like OMG.

She then commented on the response on Twitter and her observations of the responces and the group categories of the respondants.
The third post is about an academic paper (in review at the time) on the conventions of retweeting and that she has released onto her blog. In the brief, brief summary she makes the point that in retweeting.

There are authorship issues and attribution issues. The fidelity of a message often gets corrupted as it spreads, revealing the ways in which retweeting has become the modern day incarnation of the “Telephone Game.”

The "Telephone Game" I'm guessing is an American name for Chinese Wispers (confirmed by Wikipedia). It is a very interesting and apt analogy, showing how that even in the Web 2.0 digital age information can still get "corrupted".

Laura Walker: Nine great reasons why teachers should use Twitter
In this post Walker discusses the professional community which can be created by teachers using Twitter. She highlights that it can be used to connect teachers from around the world for self-awareness, activity suggestions and feedback and cutting down the time used to develop ideas. She gives an example of a teacher than can use Twitter to find quality answers questions faster than a generic Google search. The character limit of tweets is highlighted as a tool to develop concise, to the point, messages (without using sms speak). Comments on the post are supportive of the suggestions.

Twitter4Teachers Wiki
A big list of teachers on twitter, sorted by subject area and it gives locations where possible (even schools).

TES Connect: Chirping about Twitter
This newspaper like article starts off by discussing that a UK report has suggested that tools like Twitter be included in the education curriculum. They make the point:

It is tempting to think of Twitter as a gimmicky social networking site for media darlings, but, as with most technological gimmicks, it’s what you do with it that counts.

It gives examples of teachers using Twitter educationally in the classroom. In one interesting example, a teacher collected pictures of the snow fall around the United Kingdom, with locations, from people he knew on Twitter. As a class activity, the pictures and comments were collated onto a Google Map which apparently made a good educational activity for the students. One interviewee comments that by using Twitter her students know they can talk to her about technology. It also discusses some pros and cons to Twitter. Something I haven't seen before is the following.

There are other, safer options. Services such as Edmodo (designed specifically for education communities), Yammer and ShoutEm offer closed communities with the advantages of communicating as an online group. These services allow teachers to maintain a separate Twitter account and followers for professional purposes, but pupils can still benefit from online group discussions and continued learning in a safe environment.

Its good to know such tools exist.