Right Here, Right Now: Twitter is revolutionizing education worldwide.
Right here, right now, there is no other place I want to be
Right here, right now, watching the world wake up from history
I sat in my eighth grade History class listening to Jesus Jones’ “Right Here, Right Now” blasting out of the teacher’s boombox. It was 1991 and the topic de jour was centered around how much the world had changed in the past 50 years. Pretty much everything has been invented already, I remember thinking as I sat there and listened to him drone on and on about “when he was a kid…” We were at the end of the age of newness, and I’d live the rest of my life with everything that we had right then.
I wonder if kids still think that? Sometimes I wonder if adults do?
So as I was teaching my eighth-grade class a little History of Technology last week, I cranked up the speakers and played them the same song. Other than enduring some harassment for choosing an “old” song, I think I was able to successfully facilitate the same discussion that I’d been a part of two decades earlier. Surprisingly, however, the students were probably more interested in the topic than I was – which completely caught me off guard. Most of the conversation that followed, however, was based around something that happened by coincidence while we were talking…
My TweetDeck popped up an #EdChat notification on my projection screen.
“What’s that”, one student asked. “It’s his Twitter account and he shouldn’t be using it in school”, replied another. The the barrage of comments started flowing; “I don’t use Twitter – it’s stupid. I use Yahoo! Messenger and send text messages”; “I use AIM”; “I use Facebook” “Facebook is stupid”; “All of my friends use MSN”; “MySpace is so much better than everything else”… I live for teachable moments, so this was almost too good to be true.
I could discuss every detail of the rest of that class, but it’s the epiphany I had afterward that I want to discuss here. Why, with all of the highly-developed communication programs that are (and have been) available, has Twitter taken off? Why does it seem like it’s the impetus for an educational revolution that’s gaining momentum every day? Why didn’t educators flock to an AOL Chatroom when it first came out? What was wrong with Yahoo! Chatrooms? MS NetMeeting? ICQ Chat? Orkut? Yuku? Freetel? (and the list goes on and on…) So why Twitter? Why here, why now?
In all honesty I haven’t got an answer to that question. I’m hoping some of you will be able to comment and help me out! Is this educational revolution relatively new? Has it been going on in certain private circles for decades? Am I part of something big, or is this all going to be a passing “fad” by mainstream educators? Will the education books look back at 2008-2009 and say “this is where the tide turned” – or will we simply be a blip on one of the waves? (no pun intended – although it was pretty good, eh?)
Why here, why now? Why Twitter, why #edchat? Why me and you?
#1 by Jerry Blumengarten on October 28, 2009 - 5:39 PM
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I was criticized by my college professor in 1967 for predicting that teaching machines would be in the classrooms of the future. That was back in the days of punch cards, dot matrix and before home computers. I have been a part of using computers in schools since the 1980’s. It was me and the techies on the Internet in the 1980’s. Twitter, in my opinion, is here to stay and it is a tremendous way for collaboration in real time. Young people are just discovering Twitter and it will catch on with them too.
#2 by LeeAnn on October 29, 2009 - 2:41 AM
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I did belong to some different groups for teachers when I was on AOL, a long long time ago. After that, my best pd came from an email list through middleweb.com. I think what is so fantastic about twitter is that everyone and anyone can be a part. Because internet speeds and access are so much better than a few years ago, that probably plays a part. And I see twitter as different from those other venues because they were created by and for teachers, while twitter involves anyone and wasn’t created just for educators. Thanks for your great post!
#3 by Dodie Ainslie on November 5, 2009 - 6:27 PM
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Educators who believe in growth and being a life long learner have always found ways to collaborate. The vehicle has changed from friends gathering for coffee to bookclubs after school to listserves to now the ability to have a global PLN using twitter, ning, facebook…and others.
I don’t know where we will go next, but right now twitter works for me. I love that my ‘digital posse’ has gone global. That I can feel connected to something bigger then my own work issues and celebrations. Until the new thing comes around… I’m riding the ‘wave of collaboration’…
#4 by Bob on November 6, 2009 - 7:28 AM
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“Educators who believe in growth and being a life long learner have always found ways to collaborate.”
YES! The thing is that there are early adopters, adopters that come on board eventually and those that don’t want to adopt (not saying that is necessarily bad, just saying it’s something that happens).
But to get back to the question, why has Twitter taken off? Because the time is right…more educators are getting into this technology (finally) and/or being “allowed” to. There has been a fear from “some” educators not thinking it’s a tool to be used and uneducated parents/administrators, etc. who think it’s a waste of time. We’ve all been pushed to use the “traditional/Industrial Revolution” method of teaching. The world of education is slow to evolve.
It may also be that Twitter is fast enough and slow enough. Twitter is chat that is fast enough for those not needing an instant message and slow enough to not need constant user attention.
Another reason is the usability. It’s easier than discussion boards because you don’t have to drill down to read information. For our tasks it’s simple, especially compared to Facebook. Twitter is all there to see in one flat file. You don’t even have to jump through hopes to create groups like Facebook has you do. You can do it instantly with hash tags. To see a person’s Facebook you don’t need to ask to be their friend, in Twitter you can just follow them.
Perhaps most importantly there’s nothing that keeps the user out because it’s all public (yes, you can have it private if you choose). And what do educators like to do? Share of course!
Not thinking clearly today. Hope that made sense.
#5 by club penguin on December 30, 2009 - 3:07 PM
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I love this site! Thank you sooo much for all your posts!