The short answer to the question “can this tool (Twitter)
meet an instructional need?” is yes. First,
Twitter can be a valuable research tool for finding instructional resources,
research, blogs, etc. through the use of hashtags. Using Twitter as a research tools saves a
significant amount of time as others already identified resources that may be
useful and tagged the posting to share with a much broader audience. The Twitter feed below is an example that shows how postings with the hashtag #edtech are currated making the search process much more efficient. Second, the 140-character limitation of “tweets”
also forces individuals to keep posts short and to the point. Well-written tweets quickly identify the
resource and its purpose. The third, and
one of the most important uses of Twitter in my opinion, is establishing
connections with other individuals that have similar interests. Whether you’re interested in educational
technology, science, math, biking, fishing, gaming, or e-learning, Twitter
makes it very easy to find and connect (i.e. follow) to others with these
similar interests......an essential component of a personal learning network
(PLN).
Twitter’s learning curve is not steep at all. I have been using Twitter since April
2009. Twitter’s interface parallels with
several contemporary social media services such as Facebook and blogs where the
most recent posts are always at the top of the feed. Twitter also integrates with Facebook, mobile
devices, Feed.ly, the Canvas learning management system, and a wide variety of
Web-based applications that makes sharing resources to a large audience in a
short amount of time quite efficient.
