While nearly everyone is aware of the social aspects of Twitter, I was asked to look at the educational possibilities of this popular micro-blogging site for a class that I'm taking. I'd never thought that Twitter had any business being mentioned as an educational tool, but upon further review I think there could be some ways for teachers to use this.
One tool that can be used with Twitter is called TweetDeck. This can help you keep your personal stuff and teaching stuff separate within the same Twitter account. Another option would be to simply create a specific Twitter account for educational/teaching purposes (this is what I did).
After opening my job-related account, I decided to search "middle school math" and came up with a long list of Tweets. Unfortunately, a lot of these Tweets ended up being more spammy than anything else, advertising the latest and greatest (?) quick fix tools for helping students with middle school math. Side note - I don't like the blind clicking I'm doing hoping that the link I select doesn't infect my computer with something or bring me to something I wouldn't want on my work computer... hmmm.
Upon searching "mathematics," I came up with a bit more to dig through, a couple good links (like a math poem), and a lot of not-so-interesting stuff. I'm starting to think that Twitter would be better used as a means of establishing a learning community of "real people" that you know as opposed to starting from scratch trying to dig through this endless mess.
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