I have a question for which I need some help.
I have a twitter account drsamoore. I am planning to use twitter for a lot of the communication for my class. Let’s call this class BA001. I see at least a couple of options for handling these messages in twitter.
- I could have students follow my account, and follow my student accounts. For all messages sent out by me or students related to the class, we could add the #ba001 hash tag. This would keep all of my communications in one place (so as to not create some type of multiple personality disorder) but I am also aware that I have a variety of different people who follow me (many of whom are not students). These people would probably not appreciate getting all of the communications that I send out related to the class.
- I could create an account in twitter ba001. I could then have students follow this account, and this account could follow the student accounts. They could append @ba001 to any public message about the class or they could begin any private with @ba011. If I thought the answer to the private message was of interest to all the students, I could simply send out a message from the @ba001 account. This approach would usefully segregate my messages (from the point of view of many of my followers, I’m guessing) but it would cause me to have to think about which part of me was sending the message.
I really don’t know what to think. Is this a common dilemma that I am facing? If so, how do people handle this? I would love to hear your thoughts about this.