Twitter in the Classroom?

I was discussing Twitter with my Grandfather over the weekend. Let’s just say he has always limited himself to an email only approach to computing, so the concept itself was a challenge to explain. Handily enough, we were in a restaurant in Nanaimo whose placemats provided a twitter address for anyone interested in keeping up to date with Nanaimo’s New York Style pizza subculture. You can ‘follow’ the restaurant and find out, presumably, if there is live music, what’s on special etc. Very useful – functional even.    

I have been attempting to evaluate Twitter, in terms of its potential usefulness in a classroom. My – and my Grandfather’s interestingly enough- initial response was that it would be an unnecessary distraction. While interacting with Twitter while watching a movie in class is potentially a way to encourage student involvement, but Google documents could provide a similar service in a more controlled online environment.

However, I began to think about Twitter as a lesson unto itself… the lesson could include source evaluation, online etiquette, privacy concerns, and could easily make use of student expertise.  Perhaps a lesson on source evaluation could begin with students doing a 5 minute ‘research project’ on what is happening – right now. Afterwards, there could be a discussion about Twitter’s social and academic usefulness. All in all, I don’t think Twitter’s immediacy and popularity outweigh the fact that it is basically a tool designed for, and on the whole used for, self promotion.