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March 1, 2008

Twitter In The Classroom

Michael Arrington

36 comments »

Edmodo says it’s going to be Twitter for teachers and students, with features like calendaring events that are tailored to the classroom. Personally, I think Twitter itself works just fine as the Twitter for teachers and students, but give edmodo a shot if you’re interested. They’re taking signups for the private beta now.

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 1st, 2008 at 12:29 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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  1. Clif's Notes

    March 2nd, 2008 at 3:28 am

  2. BlueVerse

    March 2nd, 2008 at 4:59 am

  3. LOVE it or CHANGE it . com » Blog Archiv » Twitter für die Bildung?

    March 16th, 2008 at 2:01 pm

  4. blue sky in texas » Cool stuff found on 4/16

    April 16th, 2008 at 5:05 pm

  5. notes, thoughts, ideas and responses » Killing many birds with one boulder, how and when social media can go mainstream

    May 8th, 2008 at 10:41 am

Comments

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  1. Mike Bach

    March 1st, 2008 at 12:33 pm

    Well, it “works just fine” when it, you know, works…

  2. Michael Arrington

    March 1st, 2008 at 12:35 pm

    yes. that’s very true.

  3. adam

    March 1st, 2008 at 12:45 pm

    And I think we sure as shootin’ don’t need “Twitter for teachers and students”. Aren’t students’ attention spans short enough? With CA class sizes set to increase by 50% next year due to budget cuts, is this really where we ought to be focusing our educational energy?

  4. LOLATTACK

    March 1st, 2008 at 12:52 pm

    The concept of Twitter still sucks and it’s not going to make it more appealing by reaching the educational audience.

  5. Darren

    March 1st, 2008 at 12:57 pm

    Twitter is blocked by many school district admins.

  6. Steve Shapiro

    March 1st, 2008 at 1:11 pm

    @LOLATTACK - just because it is not something you find useful doesn’t mean the concept sucks. Twitter support has been the most requested feature since we launched digsby. This may simply indicate an early adopter crowd but it also indicates that people find utility in the service and want better access to it.

    Steve
    http://www.digsby.com

  7. Ryan Merket

    March 1st, 2008 at 1:31 pm

    #5 - good point.

  8. Trace Johnson

    March 1st, 2008 at 1:41 pm

    I wonder why this won’t be solved by the new Google pages. Google is blocked by no one since it is likely the starting point for just about every research project at the Elementary and Secondary school levels. Online collaboration tools are there; it’s just a question of Google getting in front of the students.

    I’d gotten some notes from a university WIKI system that sought to create a home for each institution, but it wasn’t very user friendly or well designed.

    Edmodo could be an attractive acquisition target for someone like Kaplan or McGraw-Hill. Online test prep and tutoring services could be improved with this, but you probably want someone providing content tools to aid the educational value.

  9. Al

    March 1st, 2008 at 1:54 pm

    This might work if the teachers actually gave a damn.

  10. Are You Listening?

    March 1st, 2008 at 2:03 pm

    Lol what? No one will acquire edmodo. This isn’t an educational product and schools tend not to use things in-school integrated services that are free if they don’t have educational value.

  11. Trace Johnson

    March 1st, 2008 at 2:10 pm

    For a large publishing company, it would be far cheaper to establish an online collaboration presence by acquiring a pre-revenue company like Edmodo.

    I don’t accept the premise that there is no educational value. Like all software, it will be as valuable as the users determined.

    If Kaplan or Princeton Review were to attach it to any online test prep, and it can maintain its free features as well, they’ll be creating a forum of interested parties to which they can advertiser their wares, and improve the quality and results of their services.

  12. Jeff O'Hara

    March 1st, 2008 at 2:41 pm

    Mike, thank you for the nod on techcrunch.

    Trace, you are correct that the value is determined by the users. We hope our future users will find value in edmodo.

    -Jeff O’Hara
    http://edmodo.com

  13. Matt

    March 1st, 2008 at 3:37 pm

    i’ve personally been waiting for the day when the school district will start to use twitter (or clone) to instafy disseminating alert information to parents (such as school closures, early release reminders, holliday reminders, etc…) as a very busy fater of 3 kids, believe me… this space need attention and needs to think of all aspects of educational institutions’ communication needs.

  14. Jeff O'Hara

    March 1st, 2008 at 3:52 pm

    Matt,

    You have nailed exactly what we are trying to do for the parent alerts on edmodo.

    -Jeff
    http://edmodo.com

  15. Dar Rone

    March 1st, 2008 at 3:59 pm

    This looks like a great idea! As hooked as kids are on myspace, IM, and general computer stuff, getting a tool like this might help to keep the student’s attention.

    The Blackboard tool has had success in the universities but is not well suited for the lower grades. I think a tool like this might help get, otherwise dis-interested, kids organized and open new channels of communication with their teachers and classmates that does not currently exist.

    Good Work Edmodo!

  16. Clif

    March 1st, 2008 at 4:03 pm

    I’m going to be keeping an eye on this endeavor. I look forward to the possible contributions it can make to education.

  17. Matthew

    March 1st, 2008 at 5:45 pm

    Good idea. Best of luck. One of the first long-term practical possibilities for the tweeting.

  18. Damien

    March 1st, 2008 at 5:48 pm

    Twitter needs to get a CTO employed that knows how to keep their services up first. All these extra’s are diluting their purpose whilst their underlying platform fails to support demand and current usage. Who wants to use a service that is flawed and has debate around its possible uptime.

  19. Walt

    March 1st, 2008 at 6:34 pm

    Should go the wordpress route - opensource it , let schools DL & install locally if they wish on their intranets.

  20. Jon Bischke

    March 1st, 2008 at 7:00 pm

    Looks interesting and I wish these guys luck. Always interesting to see other people who are trying to shake up the education industry in a meaningful way. I can’t think of another industry that has seen less true innovation in the last 50 years.

  21. steven

    March 1st, 2008 at 8:06 pm

    Silly app, silly niche.

  22. Lotus

    March 1st, 2008 at 8:45 pm

    Pageflakes for teachers and students - http://teacher.pageflakes.com

  23. Bibokz

    March 1st, 2008 at 8:53 pm

    Droping by to say Hi, Twitter needs to get demonstrator for each program or what?

  24. CherylT

    March 1st, 2008 at 9:00 pm

    Twitter works great for me, but I’m always up for new things.

  25. John Lynn

    March 1st, 2008 at 10:01 pm

    I prefer the real twitter for my classes. I can ask a whole mob of highly qualified tech people questions about real life applications of technology. That’s much more valuable than the few not so technical students in my classes.

  26. Jake McKee

    March 2nd, 2008 at 9:45 am

    I sure am tired of seeing this conversation unfold:

    1. TechCrunch publishes a story about something uses a technique or idea that’s been seen already.

    2. TechCrunch describes it as the “[Insert existing site name] for [insert new audience]”, as a way to avoid doing real research into what the product actually does.

    3. Commenters jump into the fold saying either:

    - “[Insert existing site name] is fine as it is!”
    - “A [Insert existing site name] for [insert new audience] is stupid, since I’m not part of that audience!”

    This is so damn tiresome.

    There a technology ideas (such as short burst micro-blogging) that can be implemented in a variety of ways for a variety of purposes for a variety of audiences and that’s a good thing. Blogging is an idea. Forums are an idea. Photo sharing is an idea. Thank god we didn’t say “OK, a blog exists, now no more!”

  27. Mystery CEO

    March 2nd, 2008 at 2:50 pm

    So they trying to go up against Blackboard?

    Mystery CEO

  28. Jason de Nys

    March 2nd, 2008 at 3:39 pm

    In a recent survey of one of my year 7 class, all but 2 had a mobile phone. It is hard to keep up with all the new stuff coming out but I love the fact that there are start-ups out there targetting the educational market. It makes a change from otherwise useful services rendered unuseable by advertising that is inappropriate.

  29. Kate Olson

    March 7th, 2008 at 4:02 am

    I was actually given a chance to view edmodo alpha last night, you can read my thoughts here: http://googtweetblog.edublogs......ha-invite/

  30. Sonja

    March 16th, 2008 at 3:09 pm

    My system seriously frowns on programs that frequently “ping” - thus tying up network resources and slowing down the pipelines. Would this be a problem with Twitter?

  31. wina

    March 25th, 2008 at 1:49 pm

    Thanks for this very good article. Can I translate this with all comments and insert on my site? Thanks

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