At first, I was reluctant to add lots of followers to my Twitter account, but now I accept almost all worthy followers.
What's a worthy follower? To me it's someone who chooses an avatar that's a picture or symbol of their work/life and who adds a meaningful description that lets me know who they are and what they do.
I try to have a diversified following because I like to hear from many voices from all over the world. That's one aspect of Twitter I really enjoy--the polyphonic attribute: many voices and many points of view.
I know that some followers look worthy, and in truth are disguised, but that comes with the global share that Twitter offers. I also know that there's lots of marketing going on via Twitter so I accept that too--it's a marketplace of sorts, a kind of Main Street or Route 9 (my home town's shopping district) of social media.
The only followers I block are those that are obscene, violent, or spammers. One way to determine if a follower is a spammer is to open up his/her account and see what they've tweeted--if their tweets are all ads, offers to increase your followers, or "same speak" then you know it's not a real person or a person with value for your Twitter focus.
Twitter is a good medium for quick conversations about topics of broad interest, or a place to look for trends about specific topics, current events, or emergency situations. You have to treat Twitter as a trending medium, and then back up those trends with deeper research and other venues in order to find the factual information.
Who do you accept as followers on Twitter and why? Similarly who do you follow? Twitter is one amazing medium in today's world, one that will serve educators well if used with understanding, focus, and the knowledge that it is one social media medium that works well in conjunction with other efforts and venues.
