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?