I am someone who believes in lifelong learning. I believe in trying new things and that being a beginner helps keep us young, engaged and humble. I’m all for learning a new language or taking up a new instrument, but up until a few days ago I drew the line at Twitter.
I am by no means a Luddite, but whenever the subject of Twitter would come up I would get annoyed, sputtering things like “kids these days” and “narcissism” and “I don’t get it.” And what is the story with those hash tags (#) that precede everything? I’m not sure why, but something about starting a Twitter account seemed akin to wearing a mini skirt on the wrong side of 40. Wouldn’t it seem like I was trying too hard? Shouldn’t I leave it to the kids and just stick with Facebook where my contemporaries and I belong?
Well a couple of days ago, as the communications coordinator of the Adult School, I needed to take the plunge. The 80 year old Adult School is now on Twitter @SOMAS80. It turns out that Twitter is a great way to get and share news, read insightful stories on subjects that matter to you and learn about things happening right around the corner. You have the power to include or exclude anything coming into your personalized feed.
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On May 15 when WNYC’s Brian Lehrer came to the Adult School to speak on today’s media, he spoke about the value of being an active media consumer -- that we can use social media to stay well informed and gain insight into our civic responsibilities. To that end, the Adult School will use Twitter as a vehicle to share news not only about our own events and classes, but also to track current issues in education, public education policy, communication and the arts and why lifelong learning matters to each and every one of us.
Follow our feed at SOMAS@SOMAS80.
