So this list of ideas is based on a similar list of ideas for business by someone else. Quite a few of the 'ideas' are suggestions on how to use Twitter in general, not just in education. Things like making yourself human by following a variety of people, discussing things of interest to a range of people and limiting self promotion.
Its first point on what to tweet is:
Instead of answering the question, “What are you doing?”, answer the question, “What has your attention?”Which I have seen quite a few places already and its intersting as Twitter itself has changed the question to "What's happening" - is this a responce to Twitter being used in emergancies before emergancy services have been contacted? The list also suggests using Twitter to ask questions. It highlights some positives and negatives (cast in perspective of criticism and answer) with those of interest to me that its a time waster that needs a usage strategy, thought it can work towards directing student attention, provide an avenue for questions and news often occurs first on Twitter before other locations. The last of those does require you to know what you are looking for though.
Most of the comments were thanking the author for the list, however one of interst was
Twitter is defintely going to be the future of collaborative learning. Tweet your question and get answered in seconds! We are moving from a traditional learning to system to a more on demand learning. I want to learn what i like, the way i want.This is an intersting opinion on the topic and I'm attempting to see if the commentor says more at their own page - the answer is they don't.
Blog by Carol: How to Teach with ... Twitter
At first this is an overview on how to use Twitter, however the juicy stuff later has things she didn't mention in the previous blog post. She suggests using it to keep up to date with other educational people, who may but out interesting thoughts or links (and suggesting you should do the same). When in class or a conference, using hashtags is suggested as it gives an easily searchable term for tweets to be retrieved. It also suggests keeping your tweets to a single topic.
Verso wiki: Twitter
This page suggests using Twitter as a secondary communication channel in educational courses. Its first few examples of course and system updates I personally don't like - they are the detached, non-personal messages that have been used in other communication mediums which really should be "check the website" content. The examples of self-reflection, student equion and answer and supplimentary information are good. A secondary communication channel should be an optional communication channel and this is sort of communication which encourages participation. The page points out that the default openness of Twitter means that outsiders can participate and contribute to the course. It also makes this point
"Since Twitter is available through SMS, it can provide a low-threshold mobile communication channel.". Honestly, not sure what they mean by this and may be something to research later.
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