Thing 2: Twitter

OK, I confess I have a Twitter account for the TAE library for probably 3 years but I don't use it and quite honestly I don't really love Twitter (sorry to burst your bubble my social media lovers).  I really am a bit too old school and while I love to connect with my friends and colleagues, I really find the old fashioned way works well for me - a call or in person chat.  It is nice to be able to track some folks like authors or Joyce Valenza but I'm really not sure I need to know what folks are doing all the time to help me feel more connected to them. 

I actually feel like Twitter clutters things up for me more than it clarifies, however, that being said, there is some really great info that travels the Twitter highway so I do check it out here and there.  With my time each day so limited, and other things more of a priority I find that tweeting that I am trying to teach citing to 120 wiggly Freshmen is the last thing on my mind :) 

I'm thinking I could use it to promote library events and books more, but again, administration is certainly not totally on board with teacher use of social media so I err on the side of caution.  Maybe it's because we are a small school and we interact so regularly with all our kids that makes Twitter less appealing to me. 

I like it ... it's a good tool ... I don't love it!  Maybe after the press of the Common Core implementation I'll feel more Twitter-friendly.  I could even see us using Tweets to do book reviews in the future if I can get the OK.  I have told my students to think of creating tweets out of paragraphs to help put information in their own words and keep things short and to the point.  Maybe that's the value of Twitter, teaching us all how to be good paraphrasers!