Worker\’s Playtime!

I just read a great post by Melanie McBride about Twitter, del.icio.us, and participatory learning. I recommend reading it if your curious about a how one professor took the plunge and began ‘doing’ engagement technology. Read her post - she has a few stories from the trenches including an interview with one of her students.

I cross-posted this on the KSC Academic Affairs blog 2/4/08:

Twitter is a microblogging tool that lets you post brief updates about your everyday thoughts and activities to the web, cell phone, or instant messenger. The messages are limited to 140 characters, so they lean toward pithy, haiku-like utterances. The fringe appeal is now becoming mainstream and is being adopted by both business and education. So what’s being discussed and what’s the appeal of a 140 character post?

I clicked my way over to Twitter and read a litany of *tweets including: “just 8 a gyro for the 1st time - yum”, “Considering moving to Europe”, “Just kicked off the NH bus tour in Hanover. Great crowd!” (this one was from former candidate John Edwards). When read individually the posts can teeter on the banal but the real power comes when you find people of like interests to follow. It’s the social benefits that allow you to network with like minded people. Imagine being able to follow what people like Howard Rheingold are thinking and doing. I was curious so I sifted through some of the lite tweets and found a few gems that captured my interest:

“Any student savvy enough to check my blogs can find out. I’ll use Twitter in class later in the semester/quarter.”

” First time I used Twitter in a class, it sent them into shock. When they need to perform coherently some multitaskers aren’t so adept.”

” Students used projected twitter as parallel channel during class discussion — through this class for a loop. Maybe not others?”

And finally I uncovered the biggest pearl of all :

“syllabus: http://tinyurl.com/yuyrzg“

Rheingold had added a link to his Comm 217: “Digital Journalism” syllabus. Not only was I able to get a glimpse of what his thoughts were as he introduced Twitter to his students but I was able to understand the context in which he was using social networking tools as a means to introduce digital age Journalism.

“…By the end of the course, you should have a clear sense of the various ways journalists have taken up digital media and a sense of how you might use those media yourself. You should also gain a broad understanding of the ways in which recent social and economic developments have changed both the practices of journalists and the nature of the publics with whom they communicate. The role of the journalist in the public sphere is emphasized — journalism is unique among the professions in its responsibility to provide the information and context necessary for free people to govern themselves. You will actively blog, wiki, RSS, tag, Twitter, flickr, create mashups and podcasts….”

Rheingold certainly isn’t the first professor to try Twitter in the classroom. In fact the 1/28/08 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education had an interesting article about David Parry of UT Dallas and his use of Twitter. More revealing however were the number of comments left by enthusiastic adopters and the cynics.

So to complete the metaphor: Blogs are to dinner conversation as Twitter is to a rowdy party: great entertainment, nuggets of thought provoking conversation and lots of comments that have you scratching your head.

*(a response to “what are you doing?”; Twitter’s perpetual question)

I’m always interested in learning what others say about what the ‘best’ technology tools are for teaching and learning. It depends on who you ask and what their reference point is but it seems that these days, unlike 2001 where the tool of choice was a laptop (still a great tool but we’ve really moved beyond that), people are really taking notice of del.icio.us. If you don’t know what del.icio.us is other then it’s a kind of apple, then you might want to pay attention because it and other social applications like it are really taking a hold of the web and have the potential to transform the way we teach.

Del.icio.us allows you to save and tag web sites with words that are meaningful to you (think of tagging as a way a librarian might catalog material). The best part about social bookmarking sites is that you are in control of how site URL’s are organized and labeled (i.e. tagged). But it gets better: the real power comes with your ability to see and share your del.icio.us tags with others. In other words if I were to save a web site URL using del.icio.us I would see that “X” number of other people also saved the same URL…and I would have access to see what other sites they have saved! This is the Social piece of bookmarking that makes content more visible and more meaningful.

The Common Craft Show does a great job of explaining social bookmarking phenomena and some of its lingo.

But really, don’t take my word for it try it our yourself.

JENNY