>> 23 – Outlook
DOWN 5 PLACES IN 2023
Twitter (now rebranded as X) is a place for social networking as well as for news and updates
Website: twitter.com
Cost: Free
Availability: Online
Rankings in the previous surveys:
| 2022: 13 | 2021: 8 | 2020: 9 | 2019: 4 | 2018: 4 | 2017: 5 | 2016: 3 | 2015: 1 |
| 2014: 1 | 2013: 1 | 2012: 1 | 2011: 1 | 2010: 1 | 2009: 1 | 2008: 11 | 2007: 43 |
Comments on Twitter in 2023
“Twitter is helpful to me for keeping in touch with my contacts and newly met people that work in similar capacities as myself. It also helps me keep a pulse of the actions of my clients and how best to support them in our regularly cadence calls. I am able to futureproof myself and upskill based on these interactions in twitter with such individuals.” Heather Miller, Customer Service Manager, US, 2023
“Accessing the world of thought leaders” Damien Woods, Chapter Lead, Learning (GM) Australia, 2023
“An online social media/ networking platform, it enables communication and connection to people all across the world.” Rumana Rafique, Assistant Professor, Bangladesh, 2023
“I was hesitating to keep this one on the list. The attitude of their new owner and the fack that Tweetdeck (the only way to filter out corporate BS and focus on the people you want to hear from) became a paying option have put me in serious doubt. Maybe the last year…” Jan Van Belle, Belgium
Previous comments on Twitter
“A powerful personal learning network. Throw in a questions and a myriad of answers will come back to you.” Patrick Brauweiler, Trainer and Consultant in Learning and Development, Germany, 2022
“Learning and engaging one conversation at a time, asynced, over tweets, content people shared, and events they host or participate in. Follow-up. Caring about the conversation and energy with people and getting to know weak ties and strong ties. I am retrieving bookmarks and using search to use tweets to turn into tasks or curated blog posts.” Rotana Ty, Learning & Community Catalyst, France, 2022
“Still one of the best places for me to access the thinking of smart people doing great things. As well as a great place for finding a community of people doing what you do. You never have to send a single tweet to get benefits from Twitter – but I think you’ll get even more if you do!” Mike Taylor, Learning Design & Technology Consultant, USA, 2022
“As much as I dislike the corporate clickery, there is a large network of educators in Twitter that is invaluable to my work” Geoff Cain, Instructional Designer, USA, 2022
“I have regular, timely access to high quality content from individuals & organizations I follow (I carefully prune my “connections” therefore it’s well-curated info. Research and ideas are shared far sooner than they would be in academic journals and other sources.” Karen Caldwell, University educator and consultant, Canada, 2022
“Following folks on twitter, even occasionally interacting with them, is a way to keep track of what’s happening, and what’s interesting.” Clark Quinn, USA, 2022
“I continue to benefit from a strong personal learning network (PLN), which for me is at its most vibrant on Twitter. Whether it’s for something as simple as getting some good tv/movie recommendations when I am under the weather, or for a deeper and more significant purpose of learning from those in the disability community, I find a tangible benefit with almost every visit. Yes, there are also major problems on social media platforms, including Twitter. But for me, the key has been all in who I follow and how I engage in community with others on Twitter.” Bonni Stachowiak, producer and host of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, USA, 2022
“Daily update on learning news” Alfred Remmits, Netherlands, 2021
“Twitter allows me to follow those people who contribute much to my learning, authors, scientists, artists, …” Peter Ueberfeldt, Consultant, Germany, 2021
“Learning and engaging one conversation at a time, asynced, over tweets, content people share, events they host or participate, follow-up. Caring on the conversation and energy between people. Getting to know weak ties and strong ties. Retrieving bookmarks and using the search to turn tweets into tasks or curated blog posts.” Rotana Ty, Learning Catalyst, France, 2021
“Twitter has gone down the list for me as I’ve noticed that there’s not many new and interesting conversations or they’ve moved onto different platforms.” Helen Blunden, Community Manager, Australia, 2021
“I continue to use Twitter in all of my classes as a supplemental communication channel. Both my Masters students and my doctoral students noted in the past year that Twitter gave them a sense of connection much like being in a classroom…and they appreciated the less formal aspect Twitter provided. The community aspect also surfaces when previous students rejoin class dialogue…thanks to our class hashtag.” Britt Watwood, Academic, USA, 2021
“I like Twitter because it provides tips, links and good L&D information from learning professionals (also in Education) from all over the world.” Academy Manager, Netherlands, 2021
“Still one of the best places for me to access the thinking of smart people doing great things. As well as a great place for finding a community of people doing what you do. You never have to send a single tweet to get benefits from Twitter – but I think you’ll get even more if you do!” Mike Taylor, Consultant, USA, 2021
“still my favourite networking site” Andrew Jacobs, L&D, UK, 2021
“On Episode 53 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, Peter Newbury explained his method for who to follow on Twitter in that he connects with people who are like him, along with people who are not like him. I have carried that advice with me since that conversation in 2015 and have benefitted richly from it.” Bonni Stachowiak, HE educator, USA, 2021
“Twitter has been a long-standing tool. Tracking other folks, participating in dialogs, and even asking questions, Twitter’s an ongoing contributor to my learning.” Clark Quinn, Author and Consultant, USA, 2021
“I work in marketing and Health professionals. For me it´s the first place where I find important information about my favourite themes. And also I can talk to the people using Twitter Spaces.” Eva Añón, Social Media Manager, Spain, 2021
“A good place for a range of opinions – some good, some crazy.” Shai Desai, Australia, 2021
“Excellent for industry updates Micro content Subject matter experts Conversations (2 ways communication) unlike all the tools above” Maha Khatib, UAE, 2021
“I use it for very specific personal interests (football and L&D), and I believe that is the best way to use it. It collects and connects people and content to stay up to date. It offers a good way to join the conversion.” Jos Berden, Blended Learning Professional, Netherlands, 2021
“I’ve been working alone at home since March 2020. I haven’t seen any of my colleagues face to face in that time, but I have built up a huge community of fellow learning designers thanks to Twitter. It has been a brilliant way to find out about new approaches and tools, as well as to boost my ego when my posts get liked or shared (I run a blog in my day job).” Olivia Rowland, UK, 2021
“Best tool for information discovery and keeping up with trends.” Education Advisor, New Zealand, 2020
“Twitter is still my social network of choice but during COVID I began to have a love-hate relationship with it. I noticed my feeds filled with hate, fear mongering and nastiness. Also people from my Personal Learning Network had since left Twitter, stopped using social media or stopped blogging, or sharing references that were interesting. To be fair, I did the same. The whole world was immersed into worry and anxiety. I had to make the choice to remove myself from social media (I didn’t like this idea), stop using Twitter (I hovered over the button to deactivate my account at one stage until I thought of all the friends I made on it); or refine my lists. I did the latter. I removed everyone on my Super List (My Professional Learning Network) who didn’t tweet anymore, hadn’t tweeted in months or years; or tweeted content that was considered to me as being marketing or promotion. Alternatively I unfollowed a whole heap of people and muted them. I revisited my key words to mute more words and this cleared up my feed considerably.” Helen Blunden, Community Manager, Australia, 2020
“Learning and engaging one conversation at a time, asynced, live over Twitter chats. Retrieving bookmarks and using search to use tweets to turn into task or blog posts.” Rotana Ty, Learning Catalyst. Internal Community Manager, France, 2020
“Although it has some disadvantages, when used with carefully selected connections and subjects, it still is a great tool.” Secondary school teacher, Netherlands, 2020
“Twitter keeps me informed and connected; I can find out what best practice colleagues are doing as they are doing it, and about who has made what available, and it has also been a great networking tool.” Aaron Johannes, Instructor / Consultant / Researcher, Canada, 2020
“Twitter is another important tool for finding, connecting, and learning along with other smart generous professionals. For me, it continues to be one of the best ways to connect with great people for conversations on relevant, professional topics.” Mike Taylor, USA, 2020
“Connecting with my personal learning network. Following areas of interest.” Elizabeth Robinson, CEO, Australia, 2020
“Short form; easily digested Easy to curate, weed through garbage Readily available all platforms” Tonya V Thomas, Principal/Chief Effectiveness Officer, USA, 2020
“Twitter is the place where I quickly and easily keep up with what’s happening in the world – and in particular what others are up to with their ideas and activities around workplace learning. It’s the first place I go to when I wake up in the morning. But I do prefer to use TweetDeck rather than the web interface – where I’ve set up different columns for my news feed, mentions, hashtags I follow, etc. This makes it much easier for me to see the overall picture of what’s happening in the moment.” Jane Hart, 2020
“Twitter is a regular feature of how I see what people are pointing to, as well as pointing to things I’ve found as well. Chats there are fun, too. Like Jane, Tweetdeck is my tool of course on my Mac. I have to use the Twitter client on iPad/iOS, since they’ve taken away Tweetdeck on the iPad (grr).” Clark Quinn, USA, 2020
“Next to my blog, Twitter is my best learning tool and allows me to stay connected to a diverse network. I use Tweetbot on Mac and iOS as it has no advertising or tracking and has a cleaner interface. With all of its flaws, Twitter can be a good platform for learning if you actively filter and mute.” Harold Jarche, Canada, 2020
“I wrote an article (in Portuguese, sorry!) called “Why twitter is a learning machine”. It’s a MAJOR part of my learning process. Usually I get there more interesting content/cases that I can digest” Conrado Schlochauer, Consultant/Speaker/Researcher, Brazil, 2020
“Curating my Twitter feed has proven to be invaluable for my professional development.” Audrey J Williams, Vice President, IT/CIO, USA, 2020
“Everything I need to know for my job as an expert in digital learning I can find here. As I also am personally interested in these topics I use them for personal self-development.” Kathrin Quilling, Digital Learning Specialist, Germany, 2020
“It was on the top of my list for 4 years. Not anymore. The conversation just isn’t growing. People are moving on” JD, LearnGeek, Canada, 2020
“Exposed to lots of differing viewpoints, which is really helpful to reduce my echo chamber. Feel like it can help keep me up-to-date in my field.” Elaine Carr, Instructional Design Manager, USA, 2020
