It’s Micro-Blogging Maddness! Twitter is going mainstream.
Tuesday, March 17th, 2009For some time now people have heard the word, but never really understood the use or simply dismissed it as just another ‘geek thing’. The question is, however, how long will people be able to ignore its impact?
This past week I’ve been stuck primarily in bed and in front of the TV because of an unexpected appendix operation. The interesting observations I’ve made during this week was how twitter was starting to surface even in my un-connected bedridden state. So I’m writing this post just as an observation and will be giving a few examples…
1. Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
Not being able to do much I had countless hours channel surfing lying back on my parents’ couch watching Foxtel. Being a fan of comedy I decided to watch the Comedy channel. I noticed that Jimmy Fallon was replacing Conan O’Brien and was curious to see what he would be like. It was a very Twitter episode! Here’s a link to an article that says it far better than I can:
2. Rove Live
Talking on the phone to my very special friend on a Sunday night, she asked me a question completely out of the blue… “What is that Twitter thing? They just spoke about it on Rove and made quite a big deal about it.” Intrigued I decided to search more about it on the RoveFeed website. Here is what they had to say: Rove Feed: Twitter
Searching for Rove and Twitter I also came across this video on YouTube, not particularly useful, but interesting anyway: YouTube: Lilly Allen talks to Rove about Twitter (PG)
3. Shaquille O’Neal
This one is one I’ve actually known about for a while now. Out of curiosity I’ve been following Shaq just to see what on earth a Basketballer quite possibly be twittering about. I was surprised. He is really into it, tweeting about his gadgets and inviting fans to meet him and joing him at a coffee shop. But here is the story that got all that started:
4. Earthquake in Melbourne (6′th of March)
On Friday I saw a few tweets flying around about an earthquake in Melbourne (also saw some updates from friends on Facebook). I didn’t know at the time that something like that would actually make news in The Age. This was published on The Age website on Sunday the 8th: The Age: Did the earth move for you on Twitter?
5. Twurgery?! Surgeons Tweet while Operating
This morning when I got back to work, semi-recovered, I noticed something that obviously now peaked my interest. Through one of my sources I came across this article with one of the most bizarre uses of Twitter I’ve seen so far (ok, not as wierd as the twitter user who connected a device to his wife’s stomach to let the world know everytime the baby kicked). Henry Ford Hospital in the states are now using twitter to let followers know what they are doing while operating: Twitter Surgery - Awake Craniotomy (on the 18th of March)
What does all of this have to do with education? With comedians, celebrities and even surgeons out their evangelising new and exciting uses for micro-blogging, we can be certain that it would amount quite a following. Jimmy Fallon’s talk show alone caused quite a surge in Twitter usage as he challenged the world to make cartoonist Bryan Brink the most followed person on Twitter. Here are some figures to show the amazing growth-rate of twitter users:
With such amazing growth, why would it not have educational usage? The media is by far the leader when it comes to twittering in the industry, but educational tweets are on the rise. So here is a leading question: How can you use twitter to enhance your student experience?
I know that many people are probably already thinking, “yeah thats great, but why would I want to let my students know what I’m having for lunch” or “i’ve seen how people use it and I really just don’t find it relevant” (probably referring to other people talking about what they’re having for lunch… *guilty!*). But twitter usage is changing as the platform is maturing:
Like I said, these are just a few things I’ve stumbled across in my almost-not-connected life on the couch during the last couple of weeks. I hope that it would challenge you or even just intrigue you to give twitter a go.
If you do, you can follow:
- me at http://twitter.com/rheinardkorf and/or
- Steve Linquist at http://twitter.com/loungingman
