About Twitter

I made a Twitter account long ago before it became as popular and ubiquitous as it is now. I understand the use of it as a requirement for the class but honestly: I hate Twitter. It's basically just Facebook's status messaging to me and while it does serve its purpose for some people I certainly have no personal use for it. Also, communicating on Twitter is horrible. I like to put in as much detail as I can when dropping a comment; if I wanted to be short and concise I'd switch to an IM client. Following Twitter could be as useful as having an RSS feed if the site is compatible with Twitter and updates regularly while being Johnny-on-the-spot with the tweets. I did read the article about a professor using Twitter as an alternative communication for an entire classroom. I totally like the idea but using Twitter for that is limiting, especially when you can only type in a max of 140 characters each tweet. What if you were in a 3000+ class and you wanted to make a point that had a lot detail or technical jargon? You couldn't do that with Twitter it'd be impractical, you'd have students tweeting "(part 2 of 4), continued on next tweet, etc." before or after every tweet. With a forum discussion (i.e. Blackboard) you can make your point however you want. Of course, an in-class discussion has the one dynamic no other technology can and will ever possess: the human dynamic. Bottom line: If you update Facebook statuses every 15 minutes with the minutia of your life, go with Twitter. If you want to have a full length discussion about a certain topic, go with a forum. If you want to have a network of students who can readily access vital information with a personal identity, go with Facebook. And if you want a discussion in real-time, where every participant is on their toes to prove themselves, nothing beats a fac-to-face debate.