January 4, 2010 - Could Twitter create responsible writers?

Back to the original format! Happy 2010 again everyone. I brought home a big box of new graphic novels to review; I created 5 separate to-do lists and have started accomplishing things on them; I began my Wii Active exercise regiment ... I think I'm ready to be healthy and productive.

This past week, I made my first Tweet on Twitter. I told myself I was not going to post anything on Twitter. My main aim was to follow leaders in the library, technological, and education fields to get a daily dose of PD. LD was my model and I admire how she finds amazing things as part of her Professional Learning Network on Twitter and shares it with the rest of the teacher-librarians in our school board. My tune changed when I realized that my pal PT had shared some great sites with our small team. Would that be fair for me to hoard all that neat information and not share it, when others share so freely with me? I don't know if my first Tweet actually worked. I'm not astute in the ways of the Twitterer to see my own posts yet.

I noticed that several people I have chosen to follow have in turn decided to follow me. That's a great honour (since I think these people are rather neat-o) but also makes me think carefully about what I post. I don't have huge amounts of followers, unlike Peter Facinelli, who was chosen for some award as the Best Celebrity to follow on Twitter - he plays Carlisle, the patriarch of the Cullen family of vampires in Twilight and New Moon - he has thousands of followers and uses his Twitter account to promote charity events as well as keep his fans abreast of his professional and personal life. However, unlike this blog, for instance, where I know people are reading it but they are relatively faceless and nameless, I know exactly who is watching my Tweets. Could that make people who Twitter think carefully about how or what they post, or am I an anomaly? Does that 140 character limit force people to be choosy about their words, or just too brief to be meaningful? Knowing their teachers were watching didn't stop one or two of my junior division students from misusing the class blog but it's hard to record evidence of "would've" or "thought-about-it-but-didn't"s. I'm still new to Twitter but time will tell. My Twitter address (if I get this right) is @gntlinto.