Going Aboard

     Tomorrow I climb aboard the internet vessel that is Twitter and begin a new social networking path. For the last five or six years, I have used Facebook. I rarely update my statuses unless I spot a whale, which is almost never, then I report "there she blows!" Because for me, only something as important as a whale sighting deserves to be published for all to see and is worth being published by all to see. However, twitter has revolutionized this view of social networking. Instead, twitter is nothing more than 140 characters of tweetness with no limit on how many times a day. I don't believe people care that much about me eating frosted strawberry pop-tarts, taking a shower, or brushing my teeth with a new kind of toothpaste. Call me Ishmael.
     A class I am taking this summer about integrating technology into the classroom is the cause of my dismay because I have to get a twitter account for the class. However, the articles they provided to generate this discussion pertain to using twitter not so much as a status update but a venue for which you can view other status updates to follow educational, twitter accounts. While I like the idea of exposure to new methods and measures, I don't like the idea of it on twitter. Why can't we follow these teachers or educational reformers blogs? Instead of being limited to 140 characters, these educators can fully develop their ideas. Some of the other articles have mentioned incorporating twitter into the classroom, and I don't know where I stand. On the one hand, I have fundamentally been against twitter becomes of its self-obsessive nature, but, in an educational setting, don't we want the students to be tuned into their self and what they are doing? However, the ever pervasive question with technology, won't it be a distraction if kids are tweeting in class? Allowing students to use twitter surrenders a teacher's power of controlling the classroom which is both positive (allows students to develop knowledge of decorum) and negatives (they don't exercise the knowledge of decorum). I can see where twitter could be like Queequeg (reliable, efficient, exotic, eye opening) in the classroom or could become a captain of the classroom like Ahab (maniacal and out of control).