Twitter 2:the new voice of Freedom?

What a difference a week makes.
Just days ago, I deliberated about the usefulness, or lack of usefulness, of technology's newest gift (or curse, depending on how you look at it) to the world - twitter. While the useless aspects of Twitter seemed pretty plain, it also seemed as I looked into it that there was a growing number of people out there who were seeing it as more than simply a way to let people know you had lunch or what your favorite color is. In other words, amidst the mountains of complete airless nothingness, there seemed to be an hint that something good could come out of this seemingly unnecessary and time wasting technology. There are some out there pounding the Twitter drum with limited effect, so it seemed Twitter needed some ground shaking event that it could be applied too in order to make it's potential known.

Enter Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Up until this time, the Iranian president had wowed the world mostly with his denial of the holocaust and his desire to burn Israel to the ground. Throw in the semi-lucid ravings of a megalomaniac and threats with his active pursuit of nuclear weapons and you basically have what the entire world has always feared - a mad man with the bomb. Ahmadinejad apparently has the same effect on much of the Iranian population that he does on the rest of the world, because voters turned out in droves against him. Some say he has had to rig the election to stay in power and this has led to huge protests. This has led to a government crackdown, violence against protesters, and an attempt to cut off all information flowing to the outside world.

Enter Twitter - the new voice of world freedom, 140 characters at a time.

It seems that with the flow of official news and information stopped in and out of the country, protesters have turned to Twitter to both keep up on what is happening and to spread their message and the news to the rest of the world. This has become an international effort. The Iranian government became more aggressive in shutting down the official Twitter site and news agencies, so people improvised. Twitter has quickly become a major source of information for a situation that potentially has global ramifications.

What is the connection to education? I think it shows that even though we may be hesitant or even fearful of technology and change, we must remain open, even to things that at first glance may seem useless. Why? Because as I have said before, the new generation of students seem take in and process information differently. They are not tied to traditional methods or views and because they have lived their entire lives with these technologies see them as the tools of life. We attempt to see the usefulness of these things - they assume they are all useful and then proceed as if that is true. They have a tendency to rather naturally incorporate these things, finding uses we would have never seen or thought of.

Does all of this prove Twitter is an incredible new useful tool? No, at least not entirely, but again, it should make us realize there may be constructive uses for technology that are not apparent at first glance. The whole situation confirms in my mind that while we must never simply jump at anything or everything that comes along simply because it's new, we must remain open to the possibilities of everything and be willing to pull back and let students show us the way.