We live in media...using Twitter - Oxford Study Courses

Yesterday morning I read a handful of interesting posts about Twitter, and found the poster shown at the left, by Tom Woodward. As it all followed on a long Skype conversation with a colleague about Twitter, I felt that all the signs were pointing to today’s blog post focusing on Twitter.

Quick catch up, or background info: “Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables users to send and read short 140-character text messages, called “tweets”. Registered users can read and post tweets, but unregistered users can only read them.” Wikipedia

About Ted Nelson, whose quote is illustrated in the poster at the left: “Theodor Holm Nelson is an American pioneer of information technology, philosopher and sociologist. He coined the terms “hypertext” and “hypermedia” in 1963 and published them in 1965.” Wikipedia

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In his post, David Lee King wrote about how to Improve Your Twitter Engagement, pointing to a post by Twitter itself What fuels a Tweet’s engagement? Twitter wrote that “Each Tweet represents an opportunity to show your voice and strengthen that relationship with your followers. Adding a hashtag, photo or video to Tweets undoubtedly makes them richer, but does it bring you more user engagement? We wanted to find out…It’s not just about optimizing every single Tweet, but about building a compelling way for your followers and Twitter users to connect with you.”

On Engaget, Mat Smith wrote about how Twitter is experimenting again, tries replacing ‘retweet’ with ‘share’ button: “…it could be an epoch-defining change to what the social network called one of its core features: retweets. So, it’s possibly not a big deal, but in Twitter’s latest experiment, (retweet has) been changed to ‘share’..” perhaps to make it feel more like another social sharing site. How do you feel about this? Is “retweet” an integral part of the Twitter experience? Does “share” carry the same meaning?

On Gizmodo, Ashley Feinberg wrote that Twitter’s Losing Sight of What Makes It So Great. She describes other ways that Twitter is morphing towards the look and feel of that other social sharing site. “Once confined to the strictest of social network diets, tweets are now free to run rampant. Theoretically, under these new rules one tweet could contain four photos tagged with 10 different friends. That is one crowded canoe, that still leaves you room to babble.” She goes on to list and discuss many of the changes in Twitter’s formats possibilities and allowances, and ends her post with this sentence: “What Twitter needs to realize is that encompassing more ground doesn’t necessarily mean more users. And that it’s at its best when it gives us what Facebook doesn’t.” I would tend to agree with her. “In instilling a strict, 140-character limit, Twitter forced you to cut your tweets in to their most basic, witty, and informative forms… Brevity, as they say, is the soul of Twitter.” Four photos, videos, tagging, hashtags, and 140 characters of text will push many of us to find a “Twitter reader” – perhaps Flipboard will fill this role.

Regarding unlimited tagging, Selena Larson has posted about How To Prevent People From Tagging You In Twitter Photos on Read Write “…thankfully for the privacy-conscious, you can determine who, if anyone, can tag you.” She gives clear directions for changing your settings from the default “anyone” to one of three choices: Anyone; Only people you follow; or No one.

Have a look at 10 Amazing Ways For Teachers & Tutors To Use Twitter In Education. Is there anything in this list that your teachers don’t know about? Would you like to share with them? Maybe send them a Tweet?