Although the twitter assignment may have been an ambitious idea, I feel it lacked the very connection amongst students it was trying to provide. The use of social media as an educational tool is a good idea, but I feel the forced cohesion creates an awkward relationship between the users and the educational aspect behind the use of social media.
The real problem I find with the project is that throughout it’s duration we were taught to delve deep into complex ideas surrounding and incorporated in the novel to develop a different or new understanding of what the novel means to us. After numerous lectures about said topic we then had to broaden and dilute these ideas by trying to fit them into “micro-blog.” Yes, I understand the point of this is to just get ideas out into the open and create a constant flow of opinions and insights which everyone can see, but this I feel is the sole problem with social media. Refinement is something that is sorely lacking in a society of excess. I guess what I’m trying to say is what i found confusing and frustrating is not the assignment itself, but the information we were taught in class that contradicted our “micro-blogging” online.
Skyler,
You present some valid points, even though I generally did approve of the twitter project, your critique does have parallels with mine, which was I thought it was not used enough by students.
But you bring up a good point that I saw myself struggle with, which is trying to microblog (in less than 140 characters) some profounds thought that I was having. However, this was no fault of the twitter project, as I reveled in the idea of using an “unrefined” social media platform, ironically as a tool to refine reading and writing.