Twitter as RSS reader

So Shaun had a nice aggregated post of all the times I have talked about Twitter either here or on The Thinking Stick. Does it have use in the classroom? I think the concept does. The concept of learning in a space where everyone is a contributor to the conversation, where you read and respond where you want, post bits of information at short intervals could an interesting tool for learning.

What I would really like to do (although risky I know) is to get say your Seniors all hooked up with a Twitter account in a 1:1 school and then have a screen/TV that  gave the updates from the students throughout the day. How cool would it be to see random thoughts from a group/class/grade/school throughout the day. Training them to use it appropriately of course would be an issue and I know it would never fly…..but still….would be cool.

OK, so Twitter. I’ve been using Twitter since last summer and have over 700 people in my twitter network and today someone actually sent a twit to me asking “How do you follow all those people?”

Easy, I don’t. I don’t use twitter to follow people, it’s a network and I think you need to make the distinction between following the network and using the network.

I am a user of the network. I do not go back and read missed twitter updates, I do not feel like I am missing a conversation if twitter isn’t running all the time. Instead I use the network for answers, questions, discussions, and at the same time give to the network in the form of links, answers, and random thoughts.

Lately I’ve been thinking about Twitter as an RSS reader. My Netvibes page has about 30 RSS feeds in it, but my Twitter account has over 700 people or feeds that I can learn from. What I have found recently is that I’m reading and following more links from Twitter than I am from my RSS reader. Part of the reason I think is because twitter is just there, always open, always active, and always serving up links to things that are relevant to me and the network because they follow a line of discussion somewhere in twitter.

It can be a very powerful tool for learning and conversations, but it can also become overwhelming if you let it. If you feel like you have to be there, have to read, you’ll soon become overwhelmed. But us it as a way to stay in contact, as a way to think and support what you are doing in the classroom and I think you will find it a useful tool.

So what does my set up look like?

There are a number of Twitter tools that you can use. Doing a quick search will bring up a host of add-ons and plug ins you can use.

My set up at this time includes a piece of software called twhirl which runs on Adobe’s Air platform (which you’ll want to have anyway as it has great potential!)

So to get started:

1. Go to twitter.com and sign up for an account!
2. Download Adobe Air and install (Windows and Mac)
3. Download Twhirl and install (Windows and Mac)
4. Start Twhirl and put in your username and password for your twitter account.
5. Start following people on twitter. You can start with my account here www.twitter.com/jutecht if you are logged in you will see a follow button. Click that and you’ve started building your network. Then scan others that follow me and add them to your network as well. I suggest starting with 5 or 6 at the most 10 people. What you will find is that as people start to have conversations you’ll want to follow others. You have a conversation on twitter by replying to someone with the @ symbol.

Every couple of minutes twhirl will fetch any twitter updates from your network and display them for you in the timeline.

From there your network grows. For me, Twhirl is one of the first programs I start in the morning and runs until I shut down in the afternoon. It sits in the background just doing its thing. Read when I can, click when I can, use it when I need answers or help.

There is a great network of educators already out there waiting to be a part of your network. You just have to create an account and start following some of them.

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