Facebook v. Twitter

Let me start by warning my students that this is not your regular "what's going on in class" entry.  No, this is the teacher-geeky side of me and my intended audience for this post is other fellow geeks.

For those of you who don't know, I teach 6th grade in a school that was Title 1 the first two years I taught there, wasn't Title 1 for the past six, and will be Title 1 again next year.  Our population and demographics have not changed the 8 years I taught here.  Rather, it is the mechanism through which the district designated use of its Title 1 funds that did.  

I have an amazing class this year.  I really enjoy the students as individuals - they have a lot of charisma and character and desire to learn.  And, being 6th graders, they will tell it to me like it is.

My new superintendent posted a link on his Twitter feed today to an NEA article called, "Can Tweeting Help Your Teaching?".  I read the headline outloud.  Suddenly the class was abuzz.

"You have a Twitter?"  "Twitter sucks."  "Facebook is better."  "Your mom lets you have a Facebook?" (Remember, these are 12 year olds - TOS for Facebook is 13+.)

I had to jump in.

Me: What don't you like about Twitter?

Them: It's just people saying stuff.  

Me: What do you mean?

Them: Well, you know on Facebook how you can see what people are saying about one thing someone wrote?  You can't see that on Twitter.

I was suddenly reminded of the conversation I had with my new principal last Friday when I was giving her a quick Twitter tutorial.  

It is harder to track multi-person conversations on Twitter, unless you were the conversation starter.  It is harder and sometimes impossible to answer a question in 140 characters (hence this blog post).

So, why do I use Twitter?

1. It's great for tossing out a one-liner which may or may not require a response.

2. I can access Twitter from school (Facebook and MySpace are both blocked).

3. I can link Twitter and Facebook and then all my Facebook friends can reply and I can follow the conversation.

A few other observations of the students:

MySpace - gross, too many creepy people

Facebook - love it, not just the games, and roughly half of them have their own account (remember what I said earlier about the TOS and 13 years old.....  But, I let my 11 y/o get a Facebook page, too....)  Oh yeah, and I told them I would accept their friend requests after the school year is over.  Until then, I'm just their mean teacher!  :)