Twitter

I have really gotten into using Twitter for professional purposes. I currently use it to let my 'followers' know about the events going on in the Office of Education Abroad and I also put in world holidays that are happening. I also follow others in my field and can keep up on the latest events and on the latest technology. I have also started using ping.fm to be able to post to multiple sites at once - such as Facebook, Twitter, and IM.

I have heard about Twitter for quite some time but had never tried it.I just created an account following the instructions in this course and found it quite amazing. I do not expect to post my own twitters at this point but I have selected some users I will follow to keep updated on what is new in the word of teaching technologies. The use of Twitter and most Web 2.0 applications is limited when you live in a country like Lebanon, with short bandwidth and low connectivity. I tried to register my cell phone and I got this message:
 * Note: We currently don't support sending SMS notifications to this number. **

I see two other possible uses for Twitter. First, you could have students post tweets about an Ah-ha moment or a summary thought as they are reading, discussing online, sitting in class, etc. It might give clues to what students are struggling with or what seems to be of particular interest. Second, in foreign language courses or science courses that have long lists of terms to remember, the instructor could tweet a definition or a term each day and challenge students to be the first to respond with the correct definition or term. Maybe a few points of extra credit could be earned.