Understanding Twitter
Written on May 12, 2009 – 1:36 pm | by regano
When I first came across Twitter I had a very limited understanding as to what it was all about. To me it was a social networking site that allowed viewers to read the mundane and ridiculous of peoples lives that they had posted, by asking the question, What are you doing?
But recently from my return from the Apple Bus Tour and talking to colleagues here at school I began to realise the huge potential that Twitter has to offer.
Twitter can offer people the chance to alert others of updates to their blogs, websites and wikis. It allows readers (or followers) the instant notification that a blog has been updated in order for you to read the latest post.
A great example of the benefit of Twitter came from a teacher here yesterday, Marama, who showed me how another teacher had used Twitter to find out about school’s policies on student permission for Internet and image use on-line. The teacher had simply posted, ‘What is your student policy about posting student pictures on-line? Do you have one? Where is it written?’ This question prompted multiple responses from followers who provided an immediate answer to the question about their schools policies – instant, real time answers.
This example shows that through using Twitter, people are able to connect with a global audience to find instant information to inform future planning, policies etc.
This social networking allows greater connectivity between people to share and collaborate.
I have a Twitter account, it will just take me a bit more time to get used to Tweeting!
Tags: Apple Bus Tour, social networks, web 2.0
One Response to “Understanding Twitter”
I was initially a hater of the world of twitter, but now i can realise that it does have ability to become a powerful tool when used the way that you have described. However, I feel that too many people tweet to ’stroke the ego’ especially if you look at celebrities like Ashton Kutcher who use it as a tool to promote themselves. I like that there are celebrities like Kanye West who stated his reasons for not tweeting, “I’M TOO BUSY ACTUALLY BUSY BEING CREATIVE MOST OF THE TIME AND IF I’M NOT AND I’M JUST LAYING ON A BEACH I WOULDN’T TELL THE WORLD. EVERYTHING THAT TWITTER OFFERS I NEED LESS OF.”