Does the use of Twitter Improve Education?

George Couros writes, "There has been post after post acknowledging how educators love Twitter while also encouraging others to use it themselves. With that though comes skeptics (as there should be), questioning whether the use of Twitter is beneficial to educators. I have thought about that question a lot and I can give a definitive answer: yes and no ( I am 100% certain of this)."

Photo: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

So to prove this, we have to look at a few things. First off, we have to look at how educators are using Twitter. Simply signing up for Twitter doesn’t improve anything in your classroom (similar to the notion that having a Twitter account will make people do inappropriate things and cyberbully). It all comes down to the use of it. I offer two scenarios in my own use of Twitter below.

Scenario A – Being on Twitter for the sake of being on Twitter
When I first started Twitter, my first follows were my brother, Shaquille O’Neal and every other Laker related Twitter account I could find. Although I liked talking to my brother, I was more worried about seeing what was happening with my favourite basketball team. Then about two weeks I quit using twitter and then thought to myself, “How does this improve teaching and learning? Whoever thought that is seriously crazy.”

Scenario B -Using Twitter to follow and learn from other educators
A year later, I went back to using Twitter in a totally different fashion and followed educators, found some great information on things that were happening in classrooms and schools, and it took my learning to a different level. I started trying different things and engaging in conversations that sometimes took place on Twitter or went to another space because of Twitter (blog, website, webinar, etc.). I started learning about things in an abundance, but also started to question educational trends (flipped classroom, BYOD, interactive whiteboards) because I felt that I had built enough knowledge to feel comfortable wondering aloud about these trends.
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Source: Connected Principals