My Experience with Twitter

When I first started using twitter I did not like it. However, after finding out about a few helpful tools I learned that Twitter can be a great way to stay updated on news, keep up with my favorite bands, and learn from other teachers about teaching methods and how they are in fact using twitter themselves and how their students are using it. This became much easier after I began using tweetdeck and monitter. These tools make it easier to find people to follow and organize your tweets and messages.
Through twitter I was introduced to various podcasts on autism by following "Autism Speaks", met teachers from all over the country, found articles on early childhood special education, and followed my favorite band by keeping up with "PanicCrew" tweets. I also was able to tweet briefly with my computer professor about problems I was having with it! It is a quick, easy way to communicate with others and proved to be very helpful! For an entire weekend I was slightly addicted to twitter. After a while I began signing on periodically just to check for messages and see if there was anything tweeted about that interested me.
As an early childhood special education major, I don't see my future students having the capability of using a tool such as twitter. However, I will certainly use it for ideas for teaching and for collaborating with other teachers all over the world. I also find it to be a great tool for older students who can effectively navigate a computer. This would be a great starting point for research or other ideas related to school.
The only negative aspect about twitter as that tweets must be kept SO short. There is so much I want to say in response to certain tweets! However, I can see why it must be kept that way, when receiving so many messages from so many people. All in all, I feel twitter is a great way of communication and conversation between people from all over who may have never gotten the chance to share ideas with those living in other places.