Twitter Account

The articles make me think about Twitter in ways I never did before.  I’ll be the first to admit, the twitter phenomena never captured my attention or imagination.  I could just never understand why anybody would be interested in knowing what Ashton Kucher was having for breakfast.  But know I’m starting to get a sense that its about more than just that.  At first glance Twitter may look like just one more social networking platform designed ultimately to connect as many people as possible to one more ad stream, but I can see now that it has far more to offer.  Using Twitter as a resource portal and a means to connect to people with similar interests and/or valuable information changes my attitude about it.  The other thing I really like about Twitter is that the limited space forces writing directly to the point and often in creative ways.  With the incredible amounts of info and endless linking to further information on the web, I can’t help but think that brief, critical-info-only is a boon to all parties involved. 

When I think about ways I might be able to use Twitter as a learning tool in my future classrooms, I’d like to try it as a creative writing aid.  I think a critical lesson to learn in writing is learning how to say a lot with few words, to tighten prose and practice valuable self-editing skills.  The twitter parameters would help facilitate this learning process.  Being a huge fan of the power in story telling one idea I have is to set up a creative writing assignment where I would ask students to write a shared narrative where each student, or student group, would play off a previous tweet and improvise a story line.  With each new tweet students would vote on which one they liked best – needing to use at least one (or more) tweet from every student or group – then continue on.  Ideally the assignment would create a sense for team building and collaboration as well as being fun, engaging and a proactive lesson in what makes short stories effective.    

“Look, this girl is beautiful, and she believes in me. And if I can get her to put out, she will be 3 out of 3. But right now she's only 2 out of 3, and I'm sorry but 50% just ain't gonna cut it!” – Michael Kelso