Education and Web Technology

We've finally caved and joined Twitter.

After hearing and hearing and hearing about it we finally decided that we should join the bandwagon, create and account and start "tweeting" (hey, all the cool kids are doing it!). What surprised me the most though was the creative ways that teachers and professors in both k-12 and higher ed are using the various services.

Some classes are using it to collaborate with students across the country, professors use them to facilitate online discussion for projects or answer student questions... it goes on and on. This is fantastic- and I think so incredibly useful. The best part of it is that it doesn't cost the schools anything to use, other than the upfront cost of the computer and whatever the internet service costs are- both of which I'm fairly sure the schools have anyway.

I've also seen some college admissions departments use it to broadcast open houses, deadlines, etc which I think is absoultely brilliant. What an easy way for students to keep up with the college and feel connected to it. I know it's not in person, but any more it seems that more and more socializing is taking place on the web (how many kids spend hours and hours and hours on Facebook, or XBox Live?) so why not connect to students that way with a continual feed of information? It seems pretty logical at this point.

Are you using any of these tools in a creative way? Is your school utilizing any of these websites to connect to students, or is a particular teacher/professor? I would love to hear about more ways that these sites are being used!