Re: Gathering information about another Dark Side

I am considering joining yet another Dark Side, one besides Facebook.

Twitter.

See, I was talking to my students about the idea of setting up a Facebook page for our classes, mentioning that it would be a good place for me to post news regarding the classes, links to articles regarding subjects studied and, among other things, let them know right away if I wake up ill and am calling in sick. (See, where I am, we don't have supply/substitute teachers unless someone's off for a while. If you just have the flu, you inform the students -- at the very least someone else in the department sees them or puts a sign up on the classroom door etc. -- that you're ill and what you want them to work on in the meantime.)  Most of us email students, but they don't often check their emails. So, I thought, maybe Facebook.

Nah, they don't do that much on Facebook, they said. They mostly use it for messaging people individually. Twitter would be better, they told me.

Those of you on Twitter -- how crazy is it? Might I have a personal feed and one just for students? Can I control who sees what?  From your personal experiences, do you like it?

Anything you share on Twitter can be seen by all your "followers", and "re-shared" by them.  You will only see posts shared - or reshared - by those you follow.  I don't think you can restrict your "tweets" to just your own students, but I think you can block anyone who follows you that you don't want.

--   Jette Goldie  jette.goldie@gmail.com