I’m on Twitter!

27th June 2007

posted in web 2.0 |

Behold, the power of a cohesive, persuasive group to exert peer pressure and influence others to change their behavior… No, I’m not talking about any type of self-destructive behavior… I’m admitting that thanks to the instruction and encouragement of John Pederson and many other edubloggers in the edublogger lounge at NECC, I’m now twittering!

I first read and heard about twitter from Tim Wilson before the TCEA conference in February this year, but my thought was… “So?” I wasn’t sure I wanted others to know where I was and/or what I was doing all the time. And I’m still not convinced I want to be twittering all the time, but… It is ironic that when I was the director of distance learning for the Texas Tech College of Education, twitter is EXACTLY the sort of web application to which I wanted to have access. I was always leaving sticky notes on my office door to let people know where I was in the building (or sometimes out of the building) if they were looking for me. This was just a courtesy thing, it wasn’t required, but it was often helpful so people could really find me f2f.

So… I can REALLY see the value of twitter at an event like NECC, when you’re wanting to keep track of where people are, and connect in real time f2f with people. When you’re in different locations, twitter is more like a novelty I’m guessing… extra information that could be fun to read and know, but might not actually change your day. Of course I suppose it depends what people twitter, whether or not it changes your day… I can see using twitter to find out who on my twitter friends list is available for an ad-hoc desktop videoconference, and like other innovative technologies I’m sure creativity can, is and will be applied to invent new uses for it.

If you want a quick and reasonably good overview of Twitter and what it does, in addition to visiting their main website you can check out the NPR story from May 21, 2007, titled “What Are You Doing? Twitter Offers a Megaphone.”

Tim Wilson, btw, has migrated from the “regular” twitter to Jaiku. I don’t even know what Jaiku is yet. “YET” is the operative word in the previous sentence. I’m sure I’ll be learning more today at NECC at the edublogger lounge! I’m off!

Technorati Tags: twitter, web2.0

On this day..

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 27th, 2007 at 6:08 am and is filed under web 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

1 On June 27th, 2007, Andy Rush said:

Welcome to Twitter. We at U. of Mary Washington have seen the value at both our conference, Faculty Academy, and in the workplace. The instructional technologists are collocated in one office space but we have colleagues in British Columbia, Calgary, Arizona that we Twitter with on a regular basis. It’s like having them in the office with us. I have an account at Jaiku as well, and the conversation isn’t there (even though they may be better in some ways).

We used a system at our conference called TwitterCamp that was a Adobe Flex app that ran on an LCD screen, and in real time would update all the “tweets” from participants.

Also, a very recent development from Dave Winer, of RSS and podcast fame, is the Twittergram idea - Audio entries in the Twitter space. Even though Twitter seems somewhat quirky, it’s a good place to be - for now

2 On June 27th, 2007, Michelle said:

Wes,
I have been hearing more and more of Twitter, but I can’t wrap my head around an applicable use for k-12 teachers or students. Any ideas?

By the way, I enjoyed your presentation yesterday afternoon. Similar to the Rotary speech you had podcasted, I guess. (Just listened to that yesterday. I can’t seem to keep up with all your posts and podcasts - but I’m so glad you are such an avid poster! Keep up the good work.)

3 On June 27th, 2007, Mrs. Durff said:

Twitter is good - Jaiku is better - Twitku is best!
http://twitku.com/

4 On June 28th, 2007, Andrew said:

We’ll be ready for you over at Jaiku when you’ve got time to try us out - please feel free to hit me up if you have any questions

[disclaimer - I work for Jaiku]

5 On June 28th, 2007, luca said:

Why don’t you try Hictu? It’s similar to jaiku and twitter, but you can make audio and video posts there, something unique
Check it out: http://www.hictu.com