Thing 18

Twitter is the new and upcoming form of social media. First we started with MySpace, now Facebook, and most recently Twitter. All of these are ways that people communicate to others and develop relationships with those they have things in common with. Until now I have never even been on Twitter. Here is the link to my Twitter page.

Twitter along with Facebook and other various social media websites are important to understand as an educator because this is a part of our students daily lives. For some pages there are age restrictions, but this may not stop some children from getting on them. Social media websites are a prime place for students to get bullied and harassed. As a teacher, we need to understand how these websites can affect our students confidence, personality, and well-being.

After exploring Twitter, I found that it is a face paced and constantly updating. Facebook can be this way as well, but not to the extent from all different feeds. Normally on Facebok you have your friends who will post stuff and that's about it. Twitter is multiple feeds all at once and from all different areas. I found it fairly easy to set up and search for people or pages to follow. The only thing I had no idea on how to go about is searching for specific things such as certain educational sites. The whole hashtag (#) is unknown to me. As far as using Twitter in the classroom or school, I personally do not feel the need for it. Twitter is something that should be allowed to remain an activity outside of school. I feel that if Twitter were allowed in the classrooms there would be an issue with distraction and productivity. Twitter is best left at home or on the go, not in school.