Twitter Group

What makes Twitter a valuable resource and tool is its versatility. While it may not seem like much, a lot can be done with only 140 characters. The best way to find ideas of how to implement Twitter into any type of situation is to explore how others use their 140 characters to make an impact in people’s daily life.

Personality
Information
Collaboration and Community
Announcements

Personality
Twitter updates can be quick and unique way to get to know someone. As students, do we know our administrators? Do we know our professors? Twitter could be a way for those people to reach out, to interact with students and to elicit valuable feedback.

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown is an excellent example. While he personally does not write his Tweets, his admin (No.10 Admin, as he refers to himself) at 10 Downing Street usually post two to five tweets each weekday about the activities and travels of Britain’s highest official.

His 5,888 followers (myself included) can track where the PM is for the day, occasionally connect with live video feeds of PM events and view updates on his Flickr stream. No.10 Admin and Downing Street welcome feedback as well and often respond to @replies.

Colgate University in upstate New York has a featured Twitter-er on the university’s homepage. A freshman in physics, Ajay Chahar tweets about his life at Colgate. His tweets give prospective students a feel for the college experience in Hamilton, NY, and provide a unique personal touch.

Information:
Long gone are the days when reading the newspaper was the only way to stay informed. Keeping up with world events, business, government, popular culture, and professional organizations can be a crucial portion of some courses. Twitter can become much like your RSS aggregator–bringing the news and views in tweet form to your homepage.

Of course, not every story or blog post published will make to the Twitter feed, but the daily highlights may be more than enough to stay in the know.

Some news Tweets: Chicago Tribune, New York Times, CNN Breaking News
Some Library-related Tweets: Library Journal, ALA OIF, YALSA

Collboration and Community:
Sick of clunky Blackboard discussion boards?
Overwhelmed by blogs to comment on?
Bogged down by school-related emails in your Inbox?

Twitter may be the solution. It can become a collaborative group space for students inside and outside of the classroom. A space for taking notes and reactions to lectures, programs and discussions. Groups can limit who views their group tweets, if needed.

Announcements:
Much like the case studies of UIUC and Elmhurst College on this site, one of Twitter’s best features is getting announcements and news out to a large number of people. These tweets can help an student organization, a new class or event gain exposure. Tweets can serve as mini press releases–hoping to strike the interest of even a few Twitter users.

Teachers can create Twitter accounts for a course and tweet helpful websites or assignments out to students following the feed.

To make these announcements into something more than just a tweet-size RSS feed, Twitter allows for users to interact. Oddly enough, museums on Twitter appear to be doing just that. Chicago’s Field Museum is relatively new to the Twitter world with only 311 followers since April 2008. Their feed is anything but static—–welcoming new followers and soliciting questions and comments.

Other dynamic announcement feeds: Starbucks Coffee, Adler Planetarium, MoMA, Whole Foods Market, Chicago Public Radio (WBEZ), University of Chicago Press