Presentation: Twitter is Dead (really?)

I was not privileged enough to be able to attend this years eLearning Conference at the University of Plymouth, but have been following some of the conversations and sessions on Twitter thanks to the #pelc10 hashtag.

One presentation that really caught my eye is the ‘Twitter is Dead‘ from Tony McNeill. While it may have been the title that (shocked) interested me, the content is far more interesting – Tony shows the results of his activities with students who were asked to use Twitter for an element of their classroom activities.

Tony uses the tag line of ‘Reflections on student resistance to microblogging’ for the presentation, and that is what it is, reflection. It doesn’t constitute ‘research’ but it wouldn’t be too far to stretch the imagination that a full research paper on this would come up with very similar results.

Twitter Is Dead – View more presentations from Tony McNeill.

The interesting points, where the results are really put into perspective, are from about slide 41 onwards; the positive and negative views from the students on it’s merit as well as it’s failures.

I like the presentation, and think there is much that we, as educators and facilitators, can take from Tony’s ‘reflections’ with a view to working Twitter into the classroom activities and make it more mainstream.

Obviously, Twitter is not dead (yet) but to make sure this doesn’t happen is partly our responsibility; to ensure it is used appropriately with our students, and not just for the sake of integrating a fashionable technology.

What do you think?