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How Using Twitter Increases Intelligence

March 18th, 2009 by Admin | Filed under Uncategorized.

Why being active on Twitter is like can be like playing brain games to increase awareness, perception
and intelligence

Among the Social Media sites Twitter stands out as unique for its short 140 Tweets (micro blogs) and
totally visual presentation. While other social media sites rush to incorporate video, music, groups,
games, and other applications, Twitter execs keep plodding along ignoring possible competition and
just being twitter. Twitter is all sight, no sound, no video, and as its screen based so smell or taste –
just messages with 140 characters.

According to Wikipedia : “Intelligence (also called intellect ) is an umbrella term used to describe a
property of the mind that encompasses many related abilities, such as the capacities to reason, to
plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn.”

Recent scientific discoveries in neuroscience have shown that a healthy human brain can continue to
grow, by adding more connections and even mass throughout one’s lifetime. People can actually
gain intelligence. What makes the difference is how one uses one’s brain on an ongoing basis.
Stimulated, challenged and learning brains grow.

Spending time interacting on Twitter on an ongoing basis can foster growth in many kinds of
intelligence.

Spatial, Visual and Kinetic Intelligence

Twitter is the most immediately interactive of all the major social media sites. Whether a person
uses Twitter straight from the web (my personal favorite) or uses apps to break the streams up, such
as TweetDeck , the stream continues to roll by. Blink and one may miss important information or a
link, a great joke –or a comment in a fascinating conversation between other members.

Much like forms of instant messaging and chat, people hold real time conversations on Twitter.
However, as the stream keeps moving the Twitter member must make quick decisions as whether
and what to reply. This means that the type of viewing Twitter requires is not passive, but active and
engaged. This is the type of viewing most aware and best suitable for learning.

Messaging back brings in the tactile or kinetic component as the Twitterer must use a keyboard and
mouse quickly to message or copy and ReTweet (RT) someone’s message as the stream keeps
relentlessly rolling along with new messages. While doing this many Twitters, have a second Twitter
screen open to keep an eye out for other messages pertinent to the conversation while quickly
composing one’s own reply.

This quick back and forth finding, reviewing and responding to several visual sources of scrolling
information promotes greater skill with spatial, visual and kinetic (the typing) information. In a way
this visually mirrors actively participating in a sport where one must follow a moving target, ball or
player, access the situation and then take action in response.

Enhanced Creativity

Every great artist knows the luxury of rules and limits. Constraints foster creativity, as one seeks to
get around them or at least transform them through one’s choices.

The Twitter rule of 140 characters per Tweet fosters creativity. One’s best idea or comment must be
condensed to 140 characters and if one is in a conversation this must happen quickly. Plus if the
message has a chance of being RTed and going viral, the maximum it can be is 128 characters. This
extra shortening leaves space for one’s own Twitter ID, such as mine, @judyrey, plus the letters RT
and a space.

The 140 character rule has prompted many creative abbreviations and terms within the Twitter
community. For instance, the hashtag (#) sign is used to congregate messages on a topic, such as
#pray4 or the most popular one, #TCOT (Top Conservatives On Twitter). Using a site such as
http://search.twitter.com or http://tweetchat.com one can follow the separate # conversation much
like a chat room.

While Twitter also incorporates texting abbreviations, terms, apps and many hash tag abbreviations
are subset of English unique to Twitter, which fosters language learning skills.
Interpersonal and Emotional Intelligence

Twitter is a social site that fosters relationships. Aside from the celebrities and gurus who are
followed for obvious reasons, the people who have the most followers often follow back and busily
interact and build relationships. Just as in any real village, people who are popular are helpful,
interested in other people, fun and busily interacting with others.

In order to explain #TCOT above, I turned to the Twitter stream at about 2 AM EDT on a Sunday
evening and asked, “ What does #TCOT actually stand for T C O T? Needed for an apolitical blog
article on Twitter & how it can promote intelligence.”

Within a minute I had five replies. When I Direct Messaged the people who replied asking permission
to use their account ID’s in this article four immediately replied, while the fifth seemed to have
stopped tweeting for the evening. In alphabetical order credit goes to @Bass_ @eMarv @you_count
@vanityfairer and @AngelaVCampbell for being helpful, knowledgeable and demonstrating how
Twitter helps bring people together and fosters relationships.

What is interesting is that I have not had any or much of a relationship with these specific Twitter
members prior to asking this question. Partially, this is due to the time I asked it. Yet a reply came in
from another member I have conversed with asking that I tell her answer to what TCOT is as she has
wondered also.

As the information flowed in the stream as I publicly thanked those who replied, members who
follow me and were present saw the interaction from my side and were introduced to the IDs of
these Tweople.

No one in the Twitter village drives a really fancy vehicle, lives in a mansion, dresses well, or has any
real world trappings that can impress someone. It’s impossible to show any of that in the stream.
Everyone is reduced to using 140 characters, one avatar (which can be changed, but only one at a
time), plus one bio page and URL link; that’s all, there is no visible gold, glitter or bling.

Tweets enter into the stream in an orderly fashion on a first come first served real time way. It is
impossible to out shout, shove or bully anyone in the stream. Each tweet is just as loud and has the
same space and visual importance as any other. Whatever one’s race, sex or creed, everyone gets a
chance and is accorded the same space.
People who have a victim or nasty attitude soon either change their ways or discover that they have
few followers and few people who are willing to engage in conversation with them. Their messages
are not RTed.

Although there’s no body language and the only Twitter visual aids are each user’s avatar and
whatever is used for a background on their Twitter Bio page, after a while people one follows
become easier to read. It is a process that takes time. This can be a social learning lesson for those
who tend to rush into relationships full steam. On Twitter it’s easy to spot obsessive behavior—even
one’s own.

Everyone can easily see who follows who and how many people follow each member. Moreover,
every single message tweeted is kept in a log of updates, which is also open to every other Twitter
member. Thus, Twitter naturally fosters transparency.

Since the majority of conversations must occur in the stream as Twitter has limits for the number of
direct messages allowed we witness each other’s behavior. The people who are successful on
Twitter, who use it to foster relationships, including ones for business are opening doing their thing.
Anyone can learn how to interact, spot phonies and users by watching and participating on Twitter.

Using TweetDeck type applications means a person may have three or more streams moving
simultaneously as one interacts in several conversations on different topics with different members
of the Twitter village at the same time. It’s a visual and metal juggling act that top Twitters with
many followers who follow back many have learned to do well.

In prior generations men and women hunted for game, watching for movement or searched for food
to gather. Visually Twitter supplies some of our natural need or enjoyment for spying out discoveries
or even prey.

Visual and Logical Intelligence

Thus just following the Twitter stream forces a person to concentrate, skim relevant information,
and make quick appropriate choices as to what links to follow, bookmark for a later time (by using a
favorites star) or ignore.
This is the type of information sorting teachers try to instill when explaining how to take outline
notes – only on Twitter the information seems more relevant than classroom learning ever did.
Increasing one’s recognition of what is important and what is less so is a way to directly increase
functional intelligence.

Twitter for Learning

Like a book, Twitter lacks sound, and so mimics a streamed book current life in its stream of ongoing
Tweets.

Many of the Tweets contain links to articles that range from fast breaking news to arcane
knowledge. Information can be found on health, childrearing, business, investing, the arts, religion,
self help, books, and of courses how to use Twitter. At times Hanging out on Twitter can seem like a
stroll through a library where links in Tweets are book titles.

Using Twitter to Increase Intelligence is Fun!

Studies in neuroscience continue to indicate the benefits of mental challenges, especially those that
involve the perception of vision, socializing and social networks, hand eye coordination exercises,
etc.

Twitter can be so much fun and so interesting that it has not been noticed as a brain enhancing tool.
Brain enhancement was not the purpose or goal of Twitter’s founders, but Twitter definitely
succeeds at it when a member uses it to interact and build community. Community is what sets
Twitter apart from other brain enhancing programs on the web as on Twitter one is never alone.
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TWITTER LITERATI FOR ENGLISH TEACHERS

Posted by Darcy Moore on Saturday, July 24, 2010 · 16 Comments

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Australian English teachers have not flocked to twitter in the way I envisaged back in early 2008.

I have been guilty of spamming email distribution lists, evangelising at conferences and publishing
traditional print based articles in professional journals, all with very limited success in convincing my
colleagues, in any great numbers, to tweet. There are some notable exceptions, tweeple I admire
greatly, like Kelli McGraw, Troy Martin, Bianca Hewes, Jo McLeay, David Chapman and others who
are all passionate about their English teaching. Our cleverest practioners have quietly resisted the
lures of social media for many reasons not understood by me but I somewhat ’courageously’ posit,
in the Sir Humphrey Appleby sense, some suggestions as to why:

time – they would rather do other more ‘grown-up’ things

not keen for the populist social media bandwagon - they never envisaged twitter would ever be as
big as it is for EVERYONE and it is just too late to start

technophobia – many, many neo-luddites reside in English faculties

demographics – the average age of our teaching profession means they are just simply not online
like Gen Y or even Gen X

the penny hasn’t dropped – people just don’t “get it”

what else (feel free to comment)?

This is NOT another attempt to convince my colleagues of the importance and usefulness of the site.
Quite simply, it is an anecdote about twitter’s usefulness to an English teacher and a student.

Firstly, there are many writers and literary groups who are on twitter. Here’s my ‘literary’ twitter list,
if you would like to check out which of your favourite authors tweet. Margaret Atwood, Steven
Johnson, William Gibson aka @GreatDismal, Doug Coupland, Brett Easton Ellis, James Bradley aka
@cityoftongues, Cory Doctorow and John Birmingham are some of my favourite tweeple. There are
many writers of young adolescent fiction such as Nick Earls, Wendy Orr, Margo Lanagan and Penni
Russon, who tweets as eglantinescake, to be uncovered here too.

Recently, a colleague brought a young student to me who was seeking feedback on ‘her book’. I
mentioned this too Penni Russon via twitter and she was generous enough to assist this student with
some pertinent comments about the story. The fact that Penni is a successful, published author
made the critique powerful and has inspired this girl to re-draft her work with renewed enthusiasm.

Don’t panic authors, I am not suggesting every teacher in the state contacts you with their marking!
There are many ways to connect using twitter and many teachers are doing that in unique ways.

What (lateral?) ideas do you have about the usefulness of twitter for English teachers?

Here’s an excerpt from Penni’s critique:

The novel has a very strong beginning and I get the sense that you are very sure of your characters
and the world they inhabit. I really liked the hint of magic in the relationship between the girl and
the raven, there’s heaps of potential there.

I am going to offer a few criticisms, just to give you something to think about as you develop your
writing. My first novel I had to rewrite about 4 or 5 times to get it right. The novel I am working on at
the moment is my ninth and I have lost count how many times I have rewritten it! This doesn’t
always happen – sometimes novels come out almost right the first time. However, fantasy is
particularly complex because you have to create your whole world for the reader, as well as the
characters and the story, and you have to be able to manage the logic of your world (which is
exceptionally tricky). Even if your world is this one (as in urban fantasy), as soon as you introduce
magic or a fantasy element, you really need to build a new world from scratch and ask yourself
certain questions – who else has magic? Where does the magic come from? Does your magic have
rules? What are they? You need to know ALL these things, even if they are only hinted at in the
novel. I get the sense from the prologue that the necklace is a magical object – what is its history?
Will it work for everyone? How does that relate to the raven?

Prologue

A prologue can be a great hint at what’s going to happen in the future, later in your novel and your
prologue is packed with mystery, intrigue and excitement. But they usually work best as a
COUNTERPOINT or contrast with the present – eg Chapter One could give us a glimpse into Kai er
Sai’s domestic life with her fake parents, before she feels the need to kill them (so we understand
what them being fake means). Going from one very violent scene to another doesn’t give your
reader much of a chance to identify with the characters (though I am intrigued to discover the
relationship between Melissa and Kai er Sai).

Chapter One

So much happens in this chapter! It is full of blood and bodies and incident, which of course is always
compelling. But at the same time I got to the end and I wasn’t sure who I was supposed to care
about. Are we on Kai er Sai’s side – were her “fake parents” bad? Or is she mentally unstable and
unreliable? Why did her fake parents want her so badly? If you began with a more domestic scene
you could show us some of these things through dialogue and scene setting.

Her pleasure in killing the stranger makes her impossible to like or empathise with. Maybe this is
your intention? But it might be a good idea for your first chapter to show the character we are
supposed to care about most, the one who’s journey we will eagerly follow. When you write a novel
you are asking your reader to invest time and energy into following your story, and to deny all the
other distractions – other books, facebook, tellie, the radio! So you need to give them someone to
care about, to want to invest themselves in. A protagonist should be flawed definitely, but we should
know and understand their flaws. Bloodlust is perhaps too big a flaw to be able to truly forgive a
character and care about them anyway, unless we know the reason why she takes pleasure in killing.

A few little points:

*You and I share a bad habit! We both use the word ‘but’ when it’s unnecessary. Go through and
make sure all your buts are doing what they are meant to do!

*Be wary of using “Chinese” as an adjective. You need to avoid stereotypes, or they can seem racist.

*Don’t be scared to slow down and set the scene, or focus in on your character. A lot of action is
great, but it can be exhausting to read about things happening all the time.
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FIVE TWITTER TIPS FOR YOUR PLN

THURSDAY, AUGUST 12, 2010

Recently, members of the Imagine Learning instructional design and writing teams have started
using Twitter to connect with educational communities. In this way we have each developed our
own personal learning network (PLN), and we retweet the best of what we discover through our
@ImagineLearning account. By doing so we have found a powerful space in which educators can
interact with developers. Here we learn about student needs and teacher challenges.

These vital conversations allow developers to build pragmatic tools that can ease teachers’ burden
of addressing individual student needs, ultimately translating into more effective learning
environments. We’re grateful to you for allowing us to participate in these online communities and
are excited about our future involvement and the new discoveries we will find together.

Using Twitter has helped me stay connected to the educational community. Yet I realize the
hesitancy some may have about using Twitter. This post’s aim is to help you maximize your Twitter
experience and grow your PLN.

Rethinking Twitter

There is a perception out there that Twitter is a time-waster. Perhaps this comes from the juvenile
nature of derivative words like twitterific, tweeple, or twitterverse, or the confusing messages we
sometimes see from people cre8ivly trying 2 stay under 140 char. I wasn’t always a Twitter fan
either. I first started an account in 2007, but I didn’t do much more than that. No one I knew was
using it yet, and I wasn’t sure how to find people with relevant interests. So I gave it up.

Still, I heard so many success stories that I tried again this year. I’ve been surprised to find a much
more positive experience through my recent engagement. A social network is only as valuable as the
people who use it. Now, literally thousands of professional educators use Twitter to share their
experiences, techniques, and ideas and to help each other grow. Here are five tips to ensure your
Twitter PLN is effective and professional.

1) Connect with quality educators. They’re out there. Look at bios and recent tweets to identify
people you can learn from. Let quality be your filter—with followers, quality is more important than
quantity. So be discreet about whom you follow. After all, it is your PLN.

2) Follow hashtags. Hashtags are keywords preceded by the hash symbol (#). Educators on Twitter
use them to identify relevant tweets. Hashtags I like to follow include #edu, #edtech, #elearning, and
#edchat (more information about #edchat below). Also, hashtags gain popularity and organize
tweets about educational conferences and events. I learned a lot this June by looking at the hashtag
#ISTE. There are a lot more. Please include your favorites in the comments below.

3) Participate in #edchat. Every Tuesday over a thousand educators come together to discuss their
views on a specific educational topic. There are two sessions: one at noon and one at 7pm EST.
Follow @TomWhitby, @Web20classroom or @ShellTerrell to see the week’s topic. This is a perfect
space to interact with quality contacts, stay abreast of timely thought trends, and contribute your
thoughts and experiences to the community.

4) Ask for help. It’s nice to have a mentor. The great advantage of connecting with educators is that
they are usually willing to teach and be patient with people trying to learn new things. Follow some
experienced educators on Twitter. Ask them for advice and ask them to introduce you to their
followers. Let us know and we would be more than willing to introduce you to ours
(@ImagineLearning). When I first started using Twitter, I was amazed at how willing people were to
help me build my PLN. @SueWaters is one educator and social media expert in particular who really
helped me get things started. People like her are great resources and can help you get quickly
acclimated to Twitter.

5) Don’t overdo it. You will quickly find that so many valuable ideas and links are floating around
Twitter that it is impossible to keep up with everything. I could easily spend my whole day on Twitter
and I still wouldn’t be able to catch all of it. Set a reasonable amount of time you can afford to spend
on Twitter and stick to it. Realize that the best ideas and trends will resurface again without you
having to constantly monitor everything that’s going on in the twitterverse.

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