I had to do it. I am all about trying to stay on top of recent trends in education, but I have never liked Twitter. I have been a member for a few weeks, slowly easing my way into things, and I still don’t like it. Reading my homepage is a mess of random sentences from people I don’t know who have been retweeted by even more people who I don’t know but think are kind of cool. It is a lot of jibberish to parse through, and I am not so sure that the effort is worth it for me.
I know that it is this style of interaction that can really spur innovation, however I am completely overloaded with the sheer volume of jumbled letters and links that scroll down my screen. This is an important personal practice for many people, so I know that it is important for me to keep up with it. But seriously, right now it makes me feel anxious.
Any tips and tricks for getting over Twitter-phobia? Help me see Twitter for all of it’s professional possibility. Any awesome stories of how Twitter rocked your world? I’m talking to you #SI643 cohorts.
Miss Masura 
I agree with you about the retweeting. It’s very disconcerting to see people you know you don’t follow appear under their own names in your feed just because someone you do follow has retweeted them. I wish the person who passed it along was more prominent in the interaction.
Also, I’m not sure I can help you over your Twitter-phobia or give you a story about how Twitter has rocked my world, but I can tell you that using Tweetdeck has helped me create a filter to sift through some of the nonsense.
I agree with both of you. I think that hootsuite is a great platform to use to at least post your tweets although it does not help at all for overload on the viewing end. I also think that perhaps limiting how many people you follow could also help.
Yeah, I think it’s all about finding the right community. Something I haven’t accomplished yet!