Last week I began using Twitter for the first time. As someone who almost never posts things on social media it has been a slow process getting comfortable with the platform. Naturally, I have been reading other people’s tweets far more than I have been posting myself. My first impression is that twitter is a platform that is effective at sharing resources, and marketing oneself.

A key feature of twitter is the limiting character limit allowed per tweet. This feature can be both a negative and a positive depending on how you look at it. I believe that the character limit is an advantage for sharing resources and news articles. When sharing something, you do not need to go super in depth when justifying why you posted it. Just a quick description and possibly what you thought about it is all that is expected.

Last week our class had the opportunity to participate in #SaskEdChat. This was an experience I greatly enjoyed. Initially, I was so focused on thinking of my own answers for each question and making sure they were written correctly before posting that I realized I was not paying enough attention to the tweets made by everyone else. While I understand the reasoning behind not allowing edits to tweets, the fact that the primary method of interaction is through text without the ability to edit does add some pressure to making sure my tweets are free of mistakes and reflect what I am trying to convey.

I ended up taking a break from tweeting during the last half of the #SaskEdChat in order to focus on reading other educators’ responses. Someone more experienced with Twitter might be able to handle posting and reading at the same time but I did feel overwhelmed by all the information. This is a feeling that I have had throughout the last week. I feel that if I do not check Twitter multiple times throughout the whole day, I will miss a lot of information. I expect it will get easier as I become more comfortable with the platform, but right now I find it difficult to keep up with just our EDTC300 List with 33 members, I can’t imagine keeping track of my feed if I was to follow multiple hundreds of users.

Despite my own challenges getting comfortable with Twitter, I absolutely see the potential in using it as a learning tool and even in the classroom. I feel like having a setup like we do in our EDTC300 course and allowing students to share information with their peers’ benefits everyone involved. I could see it being incorporated at the beginning of a unit and allowing students to share information they find outside of the classroom. This could encourage students to take responsibility for their learning and take initiative in seeking out knowledge. Also, by incorporating Twitter into the classroom, it opens the door to the possibility of teaching students about respectful interactions on social media, critical thinking and evaluating the origins of content they find online. Finally, Twitter can also be used to communicate with, and update, parents regarding what is going on inside their children’s classrooms.