Why am I using Twitter?

In a recent comment, Don Roddy asked why I just started using Twitter.

Answer: I just thought I ought to know about it. I saw Michelle Lentz give a breakfast byte session at DevLearn. She gave some good examples of how it might be used for learning. I thought I ought to check it out.

I admit I'm skeptical.

My Twitter ID: WillWorkLearn, if you want to follow me.

So here's my first observation.

Twitter's one question is, "What are you doing?"

Wouldn't a better question be, "What are you thinking?"

I suppose it would be too complicated to have two options, a thinking-doing dichotomy. Or maybe thinking is doing. But the prompt connotes action, not thinking...And I think I'd rather know what other people are thinking. At least some other people. Maybe Twitter could enable us to elevate some people to the "What are you thinking?" level, while keeping most in "What are you doing?" level.

Anyway, if you've been thinking you want to check Twitter out, come join me for the ride. It's free to use. Apparently they don't have a business model.

I do think Twitter might be an excellent way to stay in touch with my family. I'm going to see if I can talk them into it.

 

Comments

[Corrie]

Will,

Welcome to Twitter. As you can see from my stats I've become an avid user of the service, and it has paid me back handsomely. The folks I follow have taught / led me to discover new ideas, tools and techniques that I've passed on to dozens of educators, impating hundreds of students. My knowledge about Web 2.0 (gained in large part via Twitter) got me a significant consulting engagement. It's even helped reduce the workload of our church secretary - I helped her move the church's online calendar to Google Calendar, which I learned about through Twitter.

[Laura Kratochvil]

Well, glad you could join the twitterites! I have to admit I wasn't exactly sure what to do with it when I started...but I found it really fun when I would go on trips --incl a tennis tourney (actually used utterli and then fed to twitter) since it had images/vid/sound imbeded. It was an lazy person's bloging tool -- and a quick way to post scores, quick thoughts, and pose questions. And now with DevLearn, I can't believe how many new people I was able to go up to (good icebreaker) and say, hey, your such and such --saw your twitter!! and then it was the begining of a beautiful friendship...