Trending Upward

You may have noticed that I’ve been writing about Twitter lately. You may be asking yourself what exactly Twitter has to do with web analytics in higher education. The answer is nothing (usually!). I do think that there are valuable conversations around Twitter, though, and since I’m interested in those conversations, I’m saying that Twitter is fair game as a topic for this blog – even if I’m not tying in analytics (which we can do!).

Anyway, on with the post.

There is a great article in this month’s “Best of Online” issue of Campus Technology called Teaching Twitter. The article appeared on the website in March, but was printed in the magazine this month.

It’s a question and answer session with David Parry, an assistant professor of emerging media at The University of Texas at Dallas. An excerpt:

A lot of people built on my post in terms of, “Oh, here are some things you haven’t thought of.” People came up with some interesting uses, in particular about teaching large lecture classes, which I’ve never taught. And some were skeptical and critical: “I don’t want to keep up with what my students are doing when class is over….” So I respond: Well then, don’t. But for me it’s an effective teaching tool that can change the rules of the classroom. So I’m going to continue to use it.

Exactly! Twitter is what you want it to be. This is always such a sticking point with people for some reason. There is no one size fits all. Use it how you want to use it. That is the only way you will actually find it usable, if that makes any sense.

A lot of Twitter newbies say that one of the reasons they don’t *get* Twitter is that they’re not sure how to find people with things in common. In my last post about Twitter, I suggested a couple ways, but last week, thanks to a friend at work, I found out another way.

Go to Twitter Search. You’ll notice there are “trending topics” on the bottom of the search box. Click one of them or type in any topic you choose.

When you search for a topic or click on one of the trending topics, you’ll notice that now you can create an RSS feed for the topic (look in the right hand column).

Click the feed and add it to your favorite RSS reader. Then you can keep track of your favorite topic without having to go into Twitter. See a conversation you like? Click on the tweet, go to the profile and friend that person. Or, just keep up to date with conversations around certain topics.

Check out tweets from my iGoogle homepage.

Yet another great use for Twitter.

More ideas about uses for Twitter? I’d love to hear them.

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