Since I’ve been on Twitter, I’ve noticed that one important group of people is very underrepresented in the community - students.
Why are they not on Twitter? To me, it seems that Twitter would be the perfect medium for students to communicate with one another - SMS brought to the next level. Is it too early in Twitter’s lifecycle to have entered the student consciousness as a whole (and I am just an early adopter)? Or is Facebook + SMS enough for most students?
Students on the same campus have a lot to gain from using Twitter (think emergency and non-emergency alerts via Twitter), but I think that Twittering across campus is a great way for students to build networks with one another and look outside of our little world.
Check out @KellySutton’s story on HackCollege about using Twitter for organizations to communicate with students on campus. I wish that I had this professor, as part of his (Computer-Mediated Communication) class, students are required to Tweet.
I am starting a student TwitterPack? (see Chris Brogan’s blog for more information on TwitterPacks) here, if you are a college (or high school?) student on Twitter, add yourself to the list here. You can follow me on Twitter at @davidgiesberg.
Comments 6
David,
Thanks for the link. I can’t think of a reason why a club or organization would not want to use Twitter to get the word out quickly. Do you know anything about the reliability or the speed of Twitter when dealing with large groups? (Say…around 60,000 users?)
Posted 25 Mar 2008 at 10:58 am ¶That is the question.
3 things:
1) you need to distribute the invite code for that pbwiki somewhere. I don’t know what it is.
2) Thanks for the mention
Posted 25 Mar 2008 at 12:16 pm ¶3) Chris and I talked about this briefly towards the end of our last podcast episode. It was more of a rant than anything else. Linking anyway:
http://www.hackcollege.com/2008/03/24/hackcollege-podcast-episode-20-easter/
@Alan It may be something as simple as a chicken/egg scenario. Back when I did college radio, having something like Twitter would have been handy for quick notifications and information.
@Kelly Yeah, that key might be useful - it is “project”. Also, here is the main page if you are interested. As for the podcast, I’ll throw that on my iPod for a listen.
Posted 25 Mar 2008 at 4:34 pm ¶The people I know who are on twitter are always plugged in–figuratively and literally. Twitter is the ultimate tool for people who are always plugged in because it delivers a steady stream of information/distraction 24×7.
Most students I know aren’t in front of a computer as often as a wired professional. They batch up their online socializing (Facebook) and fill in the gaps with cell phones (which are ubiquitous).
I’d like to see the development of the kind of twitter utility applications you mention.
Todd (AKA Bandit)
Posted 25 Mar 2008 at 10:11 pm ¶@Todd You’d be surprised how plugged in some students are - engineering students in particular. My old school (a little engineering school) was like that - it reminded me a lot of some of the offices where I have worked before.
Posted 25 Mar 2008 at 11:56 pm ¶After that hoopla about kids getting expelled for using Facebook as a study group, they will need to migrate, lol.
Really though, this is a great method for students working on projects, homework or researching. Think of how quick and efficient it would be to send a Tweet to all your lab mates to let them see the same link you are looking at and so on.
Love it! Social Media for the greater good!
Posted 26 Mar 2008 at 8:23 pm ¶Trackbacks & Pingbacks 2
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