I am a frequent tweeter. I find it really useful to get ideas, inspiration and advice from others in, and on the edges of, the education community. I value the replies and responses from the variety of users to the many questions I have, and (when I can) I'll happily respond with advice to others when I know the answer. However, not everyone does the same.
I've been chatting with others over the summer who have the same thoughts as myself about those who use Twitter and as I've watched tweetstreams I've noticed a definite trend to tweets within the education community out there. It's been a fascinating little study into the politics of tweeting.
It seems that there are four groups of tweeters out there, and I've given each of these groups an avian theme to tie into the whole twitter thinking...
Firstly, there are the quiet educators who are full of amazing pieces of wisdom. Let's call them the Blackbirds. They work hard. They are innovative, doing it for the benefit of the youngsters in their care, and it can be seen in how they tweet about their work. They talk about 'the school', 'the class' or 'the children'. They don't take the credit for work, instead praising the children who create the work. They often make a single announcement about the work a class / group has completed but that's it. If you blink, you'll have missed it. But maybe not for ever…
…because there is another group of educators who scour the tweetstream, look at the good practice that is taking place from others, and they collate it. They hoard it. They accumulate those examples of good practice and then - when the original idea has passed by - tweet about it themselves. Not a retweet of the original message, but a new, rephrased tweet. Sometimes they'll be gracious enough to mention who carried out the work in the first place, but all too often they'll bask in the glory of a rephrased tweet, taking the credit and applause. These are the Magpies.
A third group are not so coy about work they've done. These are the Crows. They'll tweet what they (note; they, not their pupils, or their school) have done. They'll re-tweet it, and re-tweet it again, and again, and keep on talking about their own work and reminding you of it until they are absolutely sure that everyone knows about what they have done. They thrive on the publicity it gives them, and will bask in the glory of their mentions. But this isn't enough, because they need a fourth group of users to help them.
The fourth group stays close together in a tight knit group, or 'flock', and will watch the messages from within their 'flock'. These are the Starlings, and will re-tweet almost everything from the benign through to the ridiculous from within their 'flock'. However, if you're not within their 'flock' of select tweeters you'll find they often ignore requests for help and advice from others. They'll happily comment on the tweets of others within their flock, but ignore those tweets from other users.
Don't believe it? Step back from Twitter for a little while and watch the tweets that appear.
Watch out for the magpies. Look for the crows. Observe the starlings in their flocks, and look for those blackbirds too who will post something just the once and then move on (that's the hard part).
After a while you'll begin to notice it too. The politics of Twitter is there. It's just not instantly noticable.
Images of the birds referred to are taken from the RSPB website.
