For the uninitiated, Twitter is a messaging service that limits you to 140 characters and spaces per post (or per tweet)

The advantage for a lecturer is that you don’t need to know the phone numbers of students to get messages onto their device: they are the ones who authorize their mobile phone from the website and they subscribe to your Twitter feed.er “tweet”).

Twitter is basically a potential alternative to email, instant messaging and discussion forums, as ways of communicating with students.

Students can also use this when doing their classwork, trying to understand the material. Tweet: “I don’t understand what this reading has to do with New Media? any ideas?” Other students then respond. (This actually happened recently in a class)

Students can follow someone else who is on Twitter, who interests them. For example if they are thinking about technology in education they can follow @topgold who works for LIT and Tweets about a range of topics including the use of technology in education
Twitter integrates with blogs and other Web pages, providing Flash and JavaScript code options that allow Web pages to access Twitter updates.

What are the downsides?

The most common criticism of Twitter is that it enables inane interaction. Tweets that say nothing more than “I’m eating pickles” or “Really tired today” are not uncommon, and, indeed, the value of such postings to the casual user is minimal. TO be honest I just don’t follow people who put up posts like this. However there even when you have an ideal set of people to follow, as an asynchronous broadcast service, there is no guarantee that any individual tweet will be read, let alone responded to.

The selection of video tutorials below are taken from YouTube and will help you to set up your twitter account. Click on the small box in the bottom left of the youtube screen to get the full list of youtube tutorials available through this list

For more information on Twitter please below a link to useful websites I have found on Twitter

http://www.diigo.com/user/markglynn/twitter