All The Young (Edu)Punks

Well, it’s not week 6 anymore, it is in fact week 7. I have to say I was skeptical coming in to using Twitter, not believing it to be very useful at all. In fact, I’ll have to conclude that it is useful – just not in a work sense for me. I don’t think I’ll get much out of Twitter for work – except a link here and there to new websites, maybe a few days before Ed Tech Weekly gets to them (which reminds me, need to listen to that soon). In connectivist terms I’m strengthening some connections as well as gaining a bit of depth behind the ideas that people have put forth.

With all that said, I like it, despite the almost constant barrage of marketing (which is like real life, I suppose), it’s a fun diversion from work, or to tap into some other level of work-related thought. So my conclusions? Well, useful informal tool – that could have some learning application (you could run a daily message from a Twitter account to broaden vocabulary, or to clarify jargon). I would be interested to see if students would feel that it was an infringement of their personal space, creepy treehouse syndrome if you will, seeing as Twitter can be a one-way subscription – the account broadcasting can be a generic non-receptive node.

Really interesting article in the Guardian (which I found out about through a twitter post by Guardian Tech) that shows several levels of usage – one that seems to be common is to promote a business or product. It’s interesting at some levels because business, marketing and advertising has been looking for the perfect 15 second soundbite to sell a product. The same sort of thing happens with RSS feeds, about 150 characters are scrolling by on my desktop widget….

Another side to using Twitter is that you can follow your favourite celebrity (although whether or not it’s actually them is another story). A few NBA stars, like Shaq and Chris Bosh, are using Twitter – of course both are fellas with a good sense of humor… so maybe that’s telling.

So, as the pattern of adoption settles in (rabid initial use, followed by less use as one tries to conceptualize how and why to use, which will lead into either disuse or adoption and continued use), I’ve maintained my ability to use twitter at least once a day. I don’t post everyday. As I’ve said before I’m more of a reflective learner/user, I need to be able to think about what the purpose of the tool is or the reason for using it. I’m still not sure why I’m using it, but I do get why other people are using it.

One of the uses that others use Twitter, is to share information – I do not tend to forward these on to my “followers” because most of them are connected already to the source. It’s interesting to see my RSS feeds drop a new tidbit of information, then my Twitter account update with a new tweet with that information as well. Seems that I’m following the same sort of sources as my friends on Twitter.

I suspect that at some point in the near future, the next big social app/web 3.0 thing will be the convergence of your multiple digital selves being able to be managed in one spot. Your Twitter feeds, RSS feeds, blog posts, real life friends, online friends, colleagues and maybe your learning environments all become one. They won’t necessarily interact, though. For instance, my e-learning circle could be separated from my punk rock record collecting circle, so that people from one circle aren’t able to browse my entire life, just the parts from which they came – unless I allow it. Facebook already does this (and Livejournal did this ages ago) by allowing people to be put into groups and based on which group you’re in dictates what access you have. I suppose that takes away from the voyeur aspect of social networking sites – the ability to get a sense of the person you’re looking at.

So my experiment continues. I try to log in to my twitter account once a day at least, which is not the optimal method of using twitter I’m sure, but it’s what I can do. Usually, I do it at work, I mean I do work in e-learning services right? It’s work yeah?

Some quick observations – brilliant way to spread a website virally. In fact I can see that niche being filled nicely. It was kinda cool to be able to respond to some people who I respect and get a response back. Sort of a quick phone call or instant message (coincidentally, two other things I don’t really like doing – talking on the phone or using IM software like ICQ or AIM). Twitter seems far more interactive. Alec Couros posts his student’s work to his twitter account, I go check some of them out, comment and leave a link here. Web connections happening quite organically. No wonder marketers have jumped on board quick.

One downfall is the lack of context. Unless one posts several tweets one after the other in quick succession, then there’s not much context to draw from an individual posting. I always love the why and how, maybe that’s why I’ve always thought about the career choices I’ve made and will make. So I can see the allure of a quick posting that may not need much elaboration – sort of the thing that my RSS feed gives one is a good tweets.

I’m actually enjoying the interaction so far. We’ll see if I continue to enjoy it, or will it become cumbersome?

OK, I decided to give twitter another go, now that I know some people that use it (and use it regularly). You can follow me @dietsociety. I did sign up for it a year or so ago – I’m not sure the initial reason why – maybe to investigate the usefulness of it (or even what it was).

I’ve found that lots of edutech people use twitter – I’m getting the sense that it’s as a microblog type deal. It’s also being used by a lot of businesses that I frequent for records or Japanese ephemera or marketing that seems to update their brand, I mean, product lists with new products. I’ll keep it up for a month or two – tweeting about what I’m doing at work mostly, and see how I feel about it. It certainly seems to be a little more useful than a year ago where I logged in and couldn’t find anyone interesting to follow (that doesn’t mean that they weren’t there, I didn’t necessarily know about them yet).

I’ve never been a huge fan of Twitter and as such, I don’t think too much about it. Although this entire morning I’ve run into several articles talking about it. One of the major reasons I don’t like Twitter is that it’s not deep. I like reading something that gives me context, something to mull over, thoughts to consider, links to other content and more. Twitter is less. And rightfully so, that’s the purpose of it.

Nevertheless, this article mentions Twitter and uses it as a comparison to blogging to see how social networking enacts power laws. It’s interesting, because it grabs everything under the Web 2.0 umbrella and while that’s maybe useful for an overview, it does a disservice to the entire thing. Web 2.0, like every complex structure is made up of differing parts, many times operating with different objectives, if any at all. I don’t think Twitter works like blogs at all (certainly they can, but for the most part don’t) and I don’t believe that social power structures in each system work the same.

The value of being followed is important, yes. It doesn’t mean that communication is enacted. I could be followed by several thousand others, it doesn’t mean that what I’m saying is understood or even further something that anyone would act upon. That requires real power. So when @BarackObama is followed by a hundred thousand…. that’s power and the cult of celebrity – would hundred thousand follow his blog? Or would a million watch his vlog? Oh wait, maybe they will – it’s called the State of The Nation address… Sure Web 2.0 has created it’s own celebrities, who in turn have influence and power, but really we’re not changing the power structure at all. While social networking is allowing people to connect more freely, real power acts as it has done for hundreds of years.

Clay Shirkey’s article about Power Laws, Weblogs and Inequality talks about this, especially well summed up in the concluding statements:

In between blogs-as-mainstream-media and blogs-as-dinner-conversation will be Blogging Classic, blogs published by one or a few people, for a moderately-sized audience, with whom the authors have a relatively engaged relationship. Because of the continuing growth of the weblog world, more blogs in the future will follow this pattern than today. However, these blogs will be in the minority for both traffic (dwarfed by the mainstream media blogs) and overall number of blogs (outnumbered by the conversational blogs.)

I see the value of Twitter as a method to deal with quick messages (the idea that a language teacher could use twitter to provide new vocabulary each day that student could subscribe to is interesting), I don’t see the power laws enacted with it. Perhaps that’s because the power of Twitter is in the instantaneous nature of it, the connection is gone in a second… the lasting impression is not always long lasting.