Twitter is about banter. That banter is the best part. I’ve written this blog for a few years and I’ve talked to lots of bloggers. Getting people to post comments is hard. Getting conversation going is harder. The majority of things I write here get no response at all. On Twitter I don’t get responses to everything I say, but I sure get a lot more fast feedback than I do here. It’s also a lot easier to make a quick response to someone else — much more so than commenting on a blog post, especially if, like me, you read your blogs through an RSS reader. That back and forth makes me want to keep participating in Twitter. In comparison, blogging feels like a solitary endevour.

Still without Twitter I wouldn’t really get the chance to see some of the longer thoughts published. I’m awful at checking my RSS feeds and, by nature, am a very impatient person. That’s why I like the speed of Twitter and it’s tiny urls and re-tweeting. Here are some of my latest finds–all great blog posts about teaching with Twitter and how social networks are changing our language:

Devon’s response to the Time magazine article on Twitter

Bill’s look at using Twitter in the graduate classroom

USA Today’s examination on the art of writing on Facebook and Twitter

This last one is great for me to use in my own teaching of writing b/c it points out how “Funny, clever and sassy updates and tweets stand out because they are the exception.” So far I haven’t pushed my students to be creative in their posts, but I will be asking for more quality over quantity in the Fall. Even though it’s informal writing, I want them to use it to keep the attention of their audience [fellow students and me] in addition to their own reflections and quick note-taking.

When I write up new evaluation standards, I’ll post them here.

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