My Journey into the World of Elementary Tech

Recently, Lee over at Geeky Momma’s Blog posted these questions regarding Twitter. I figured it was easier to answer them here than as a reply. I was sitting right across the room from Lee during this discussion. Here are most of Lee’s questions and my answers plus one additional question.

1. How do you choose who to follow? When someone wants to follow you, you get an email letting you know. Do you click through to see who they are? Or do you ignore it? I click through to see who they are. If they don’t share any information and are new I’ll send them a message suggesting that they share some information or people may not follow them. If they post that info I’ll follow them. If someone is following thousands of people I don’t follow them and often I block them. When someone new joins the Elementary Tech Teachers Ning and they list a Twitter name I look them up and follow them.
2. Jeff Utecht asked for a show of hands for everyone who ONLY followed other educators. Only a few people raised their hands. Raise YOUR hand if you only follow other educators. I was one of the people that raised my hand. I found out about Twitter at an educational conference and started following other educators. I don’t have any face to face friends that use it and I’m not sure how to find others.
3. Have you ever blocked someone? If someone is following thousands of people I don’t follow them and often I block them.
4. Have you ever received an email from someone asking why you are not following them or why you unfollowed them? How did you respond? How should you respond? No
5. Do you think there has been a natural evolution of etiquette on Twitter? Clearly Twitter was not intended for the “conversation” tool it has become, yet people are actively enjoying the networking benefits of using it that way. What etiquette has emerged and what do you think is still needed? I’ve been using Twitter since November and it took me quite awhile to get to a point where I started to find Twitter helpful. I don’t think I’ve used it enough to see an evolution in the etiquette.
6. Have you changed as an educator since using Twitter? Yes, I’ve expanded my RSS reader through reading posts I found through Twitter which is turn has made me more informed about issues around education. I’ve also learned about many new sites and tools that I can use in the classroom through Twitter.
7. Another question raised was “What do you think about people asking to say hello when they are introducing Twitter to someone?” I agreed with most of the people gathered there that this is fine and it’s even better when the person asks a question. Closely related to this is Twitterpolls, I don’t mind answering these and especially like it if the person does a blog post with the results.

Filed under: Twitter | Tagged: Jim Miotke, Twitter