Microblogging and Learning

I am sitting at the “140 Characters or Less: Microblogging in Learning” session at DevLearn 08. Discussing the use of Twitter and I started to dig up some websites… If you just google “twitter” or “microblogging + learning” you will find tons of info out there…

Of course Twitter is the first one that comes to everyone’s mind. And there is a VAST (I mean: VAST!) array of third party applications for Twitter users (many resources listed here by category). More Twitter apps.

But there are several others trying to focus on different niches such as k12 Education (Edmodo), corporate and other environments (Presently, Yammer, SocialCast, etc.)…

Many advocate that Twitter is a great way to get to know others, to express oneself in a brief manner (140 characters limit), to find news before they are even broadcast on TV, etc.  But o course, how do we use Twitter in learning contexts? Here is a list of blogs about the use of Twitter for learning:

http://adifference.blogspot.com/2007/07/twitter-ephemeral-learning-tool.html

http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/2008/09/twitter-learning-professionals.html

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/marcia-conner/learn-all-levels/latest-learning-fast-edu-twittering

http://melaniemcbride.net/2008/02/10/classroom20-twitter-delicious-and-participatory-learning/

Using Twitter in education.

Using Twitter in corporate.

Lessons museums can learn from Twitter.

If you are like me, you don’t want to post your Facebook status and then do the SAME thing on Twitter. You also prefer to post status updates on Facebook via the Facebook iPhone app, not the other way around… well, here is a solution that works from Facebook to Twitter: fb2twitter.

Directory of learning professionals on Twitter: http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/socialmedia/edutwitter.html

Brandon Hall articles tagged with “twitter“

And, of course, there are the self-hosted clones that you can run behind your firewall… a short list here.

Just for fun: TwittEarth

Twistory – turn your tweets into a diary…

TwitterCamp – visualizing tweets

I was impressed by how the DevLearn 08 organizers were using the TwitterCamp application to gather tweets (Twitter messages and updates posted by the conference attendees) in one appealing visual interface.

Here is a link to the application which was created by Daniel Dura for ApolloCamp 07 and is being open sourced. The visual interface of the application can be customized to your needs, which is what DevLearn organizers did.

This is a great way of getting an audience to interact, for instance, in a real-time manner, where all their impressions are registered in s central and visual location.

The application can also be easily installed on any local machine that has the (free) Adobe Air plugin installed. 

I see this being used also as a simple audience response system or interactive story telling…

Twitter Tags

I have just found out how useful Twitter tags can be. I have for a while been a skeptic of the use of microblogging for Education and in general, for that matter, Although I am a believer in many aspects of social media (Web 2.0) and that it can in fact provide tools for the creation of authentic and collaborative learning environments and opportunities, the use of Twitter for irrelevant content such as “I am going shopping now” or “I need a new haircut” never impressed me. 

Many might already know that there has been a gas outage in the Atlanta area for a couple of weeks now. With my car’s tank almost empty I decided to Google “find gas Atlanta” (without quotation marks) and was surprised to find this link with search results to the #atlgas Twitter tag. It impressed me that people are using Twitter for effective sharing of useful information besides trivial status updates, forming a network of like interests. I simply added the name of my city after the tag and found a few local gas stations that had just gotten a fresh supply of gas. I immediately used Twitteriffic on my iPhone to send people an update with the Google map of the location that had gas.

I would like to ask my colleagues that read my blog to help me catalog tags that are being used on Twitter for topics such as Instructional Technology, Instructional Design, Instructional Design and Technology (IDT), learning 2.0, social media and learning, virtual worlds in education, virtual worlds in general, etc.

Please reply to this thread as we might find some interesting information like I did today.

Matt – Building a Web Application in 32 Hours

I have to admit that,typos aside, TechCrunch remains one of my favorite sources of information on technology, especially Web technologies. I suppose that unmerciful deadlines and the increasing speed of publication everyone ends up committing some spelling mistakes (I have noticed this especially in academic press). Well, let’s not get into that. TechCrunch and other tech blogs are still a good source of information if you want to stay informed on the latest technologies that can impact you somehow.

All of us that are involved with Instructional Design somehow (instructional designers, teachers, programmer, learners) can benefit from adopting or developing emerging technologies. At least playing with it…

Personal conversations with Thiagi, an expert in training and instructional design, reinforced even more my belief in quick but “quality” development.

Here is the most recent post from Ryan Carson, when invited to post on TechCrunch.com. In this post he discusses the process he and his colleagues from Carsonified Design underwent to design, develop and implement a simple Web application called Matt (a multi-account Twitter Tweeter) in 32 hours. The original post has valuable tips for quick application development such as:

1. The best boost you can give you or your team is to provide the time to be creative. Turning off your phones and email and just focusing on something new and exciting will do wonders for your energy level.
2. It could generate some amazing buzz around you and your company or products.
3. You’ll come back to your current projects with a new perspective and renewed energy.
4. It will push your team to learn new skills. For example, Will, our head of sponsor relationships, spent the whole week doing PR – something new for him.

Can we apply these principles (and others which Ryan’s team experimented with) when developing learning technologies and applications? Have you had a similar experience Let’s share it here.

PS.: you can find a video tour of “Matt” on their main page. If you look for “Matt Carsonified” on Youtube, you will find some videos they created throughout their “Matt 1 week”.