Twitter Nation

Week 9: Thing 15

I have some experience with Twitter, and really love the clever way that 140 characters forces people to write. To be truthful, Twitter is also full of idiotic information, but for the most part, I do appreciate it as a form of communication with parents, and patrons. I currently Twitter for my school, @ButlerMiddleUT,  my principal asked me to start after we lost power, and the phones went down, but all the teachers still had cell phones. We thought it would be a good way to keep in touch with parents in case of emergency.

I have my own Twitter account, @5guysnme,  but I just use it to follow other organizations, I never tweet about my personal life, that does not interest me.  Lastly, I just started a Twitter account to match my blog, @TheLibraryMama, as part of an assignment for JaDene's class. I thought it would be fun to start a Twitter campaign to get teachers to come to my library, so I embedded that account widget into my blog.

The downside of course, is actually getting people to follow your Twitter account. Currently, our school only has 50+ followers, but I find that it is a great way to send out reminders to the community. As a teacher, I appreciate the brevity of the messages sent, and so I think it would be a great way to give gentle reminders to the teachers at my school about the ways that the Library can help them!

Another great thing I use Twitter for is to get messages from Education groups and sites that can help me in my classroom. I follow groups like Discovery TV, Edutopia, ReadWriteThink, and Canyons School District. I find that is a great way to keep up with the latest and greatest, but it doesn't take a lot of my time.

I also think it would be REALLY fun to run Twitter scavenger hunts or contests in the library! But that would take some SERIOUS creativity and so I will put it on my list of things to do, when I am actually in a library!

Tweet on People!!!!