What a twit! That’s what my mother would say to my siblings and I when we were being too fresh. Well now being a “twit” can be a good thing. In fact, I’ve recently created a whole class of “twits.”
Twitter is a program that allows students to create miniature blogs in a format that most teenagers are familiar with, instant messaging. Twitter limits each entry to 140 characters (about the length of this writing so far) before the entry is saved and made viewable to others. Other Twitter users, “Twits,” can then respond to the original twit. This is a great way to get reluctant writers or students who are having trouble getting ideas for creative writing to brainstorm with each other.

It doesn’t take long to set up a Twitter account. I set mine up in a minute. My students set their accounts up in about the same amount of time.

Usually, I like to list some other websites that offer similar services, but so far I have not found anything that works as well as Twitter.