Part I of Couples Twittering for Education

In 2010, Twitter’s future seems uncertain. I am concerned with this news, because Twitter is my major source of communication and engagement with other educators. According to Bill Heil and Mikolaj Piskorski of the Harvard Business Review, a study showed that  10% of Twitter users accounted for over 90% of tweets. The article concluded that Twitter is more of a “one-way, one-to-many publishing service more than a two-way, peer-to-peer communication network.” However, I believe that educators are challenging these results and have made Twitter a strong tool for peer-to-peer communication.

Several of us are really passionate about Twitter that we have convinced our better halves to tweet with us!  I was really fascinated to see in my Twitter stream a few couples who tweet about education. I was fortunate that two couples I have grown close to and who are dear friends agreed to let me interview them about the ins and outs of tweeting as a couple.  This interview is the first of many interviews I will be doing with educators. I warn you now that I laughed quite a bit in the interview but did do many edits.

Interview with Phil and Jo Hart

Background Information: Phil and Jo Hart, who tweet from Australia, are best known for their weekly Elluminate sessions. Each week you can find them providing free webinars for educators on Thursdays, 23:00 GMT / 6pm EST. Every other week is a serendipity session where you can propose topics you would like to learn about.

Blogs- E-verything by Jo Hart, A Techie’s View by Phil Hart
Twitter names- @PhilHart, @JoHart

Listen to the 9 minute audio interview here: Phil and Jo Hart Interview

Interview Highlights:

• Both have been tweeting for a little over a year.
• They were inspired by Sue Waters to keep tweeting.
  
• Both tweet from their desktops in the same room, desks back to back.
• Yes they tweet each other, especially if they are exchanging information from work or need to remind each other of everyday to-do tasks, or to tweet each other links they want to share. They use it in place of e-mail.
• They both have laughed at tweets from each other and and were sometimes irritated by tweets from each other.
• They both agree Twitter is an effective way to debate, because people have to focus on structuring their arguments in 140 characters and this leaves room for both parties to get a word in. In real life debates, usually one person does the arguing and no one listens to the other person’s argument.
• I liked this quote from Phil:

Twitter is being miss sold.

• I liked this quote from Jo:

That’s one of the great things about Twitter that we all use it in our own way.

I had a great time interviewing Jo and Phil Hart. Next, you can look forward to my interview with Eric and Melissa Sheninger.

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How do you use Twitter? Do you agree that Twitter is a good way to debate educational issues?