As Matt and I are trying to figure out this whole “twitter thing”, today I decided to go out and see what big names I could find who are also twittering away. Besides your favorite Edugeek Journalists (or should we call ourselves “Edugeekers”? Or just “Edugeeks”?…), below is a list of Twitterers of note (in no particular order) that I was able to find.
- John Edwards
- Google (inactive)*
- NASDAQ
- Reuters
- MTV (inactive)*
- BBC ***
- New York Times
- Hillary Clinton (inactive)
- Barack Obama (inactive)
*I’m not quite sure if Google is legit or not. However, myself and 31 others have signed on as followers, just in case.
**Not sure about MTV, either. But they’ve added an icon to their account, so they *must* be legit!
***NOTE: BBC has been *very* active using Twitter. I know I’ve at least two other BBC Twitter accounts pop up — BBCPersian and BBCVietnamese.
Looking at the list, understandably, the big news orgs are jumping on the bandwagon. It’s a really good way of getting breaking news without cluttering up your email. Interestingly, the Democrats are in there as well, but currently only John Edwards is actively twittering away. And of note are the number of (I guess you would call them…) twitter squatters. George W. Bush‘s Twitter page is humorous.
I tried to find academic institutions using Twitter, but to no avail. Honestly, though, I’m having a hard time figuring out how Twitter might be effective in education. Sure, it’ll be great for us when we’re attending conferences and want to twitter about some great new tool or concept or research, but how else can this be used? Maybe online students can twitter about their progress on projects? Q&A Twitter groups for classes?
So anyway, who’s missing from my list? Let me know!
Howdy folks! I’m an Instructional Designer at UT Dallas. I have a Bachelor’s in Elementary Education from Angelo State University and a Master’s in Computer Education and Cognitive Systems from the University of North Texas. I’ve been working in edtech for 11 years. Hmm… what else? I’m a *huge* fan of that little Irish band called U2, and I’m a bigtime Firefly/Serenity advocate.