Although, I have only been using the site for about a week now, it is clear that a discussion on Twitter is much different from one on Blackboard or in class. For instance, in class everyone is present at the same time and all arguments and ideas are presented at once. Anybody can weigh in when they feel it is appropriate and debate is constantly flowing. Body language and emotions are also visible during in class discussions, which can help emphasize a point or make a statement stand out.
In contrast, a Blackboard discussion, although somewhat similar to a Twitter one, is much different. On Blackboard not everyone is present at once, as users log on and off. If you pose a question or statement, you may not necessarily receive feedback instantaneously, instead you may have to wait for someone to sign on, read it, and reply. Not only that, but emotions cannot be displayed over the Internet, even though some may argue that writing in CAPS or using emoticons is a sufficient substitute, I have to disagree. =)
Lastly is a Twitter discussion. This is very similar to one on Blackboard, but the one major difference is that the site only allows you to write Tweets up to 140 characters. Although this may sound like a lot, it actually is not. 140 characters comes out to be about one decent sized sentence and it took me a few minutes to post a Tweet on an article I read. I wanted to start the discussion and had a lot to say on the matter, but had to condense all of my thoughts into one concise sentence. Useful tricks I used were to abbreviate words and use less punctuation and commas. Hopefully as time goes by having a discussion on Twitter will become easier with practice.
I would have to say, arguing with someone while writing in CAPS is basically showing that you have nothing to back it up except capitalizing your letters. I guess that would have to do with younger people.
ReplyDeleteTwitter's character limit seriously need to be gone! I have to rewrite my post several times in order to fit the limit.