What the 'H' is a tweet?!

In the past couple days my twitter account has been going crazy with new 'tweets' from both friends, family, magazines, and celebrities. Rainn Wilson (Dwight from "The Office" just tweeted "Ever since I was little I've always been good at urinating." Thanks Rainn and Twitter, I definitely couldn't have gone on with my life not knowing that tidbit of information! And I can honestly say that I will never miss another funny moment of Ellen again thanks to her hourly updates. After using it for about three weeks, I personally have felt like I have gained little from it and still find no use or entertainment from it. At least with other social networking sites there is more to look at then constant "What are you doing at this very second" updates. Although at the time I find it useless, I can see that there might be positive upsides to using Twitter. Although I have utilized it there are professionals on twitter that can possibly have more to say then letting the world in on that you just went to Starbucks. I do find it to be a drawback that you are limited in what you say to 140 letters. So really, how insightful can you be in 140 letters? I think that there are other tools that I could make use of my time then see what peers, colleagues, or professionals have to say in 140 letters or less. Using twitter in a classroom, to me, can serve only a few purposes. First and foremost, it will most likely get used as a social tool which will most likely end up getting students in trouble. It is like trying to make facebook or myspace into an academic tool...it probably isn't going to work out. However, since our days as a non-technological society in the classroom are numbered and coming to a quick end then I think that one way we could use twitter as a academic tool is a a connection ground for teachers, students, and parents. If every student, teacher, and parents had one it would be pretty easy to let everyone know about events going on in the class and in the school. But it also could serve as a great tool to let parents know what homework their children have coming up as well as tests/exams. It is a meeting ground for everyone. I think that this could be extremely beneficial but then you quickly are putting yourself in a position to assure you know where that 'line' is and that it doesn't get crossed. If I haven't made it too clear, I don't like twitter and find little to no use for it!