Sunday, December 14, 2008

From 100 to 600+ eLearning Twitter-ers

Wow!  I just saw a Gmail alert for Jane Hart's 600+ Learning Professionals on Twitter Didn't I just blog about 100+ eLearning Professionals to follow on TWITTER? Why yes...yes I did. (Or else that link back there wouldn't work.)  That was an incredible growth spurt!  Are there any of you left out there that still don't "get" twitter?  If so, you now have 600 tutors waiting to help you...sort of.

Are you having conversations and sharing on TWITTER yet? If not, 600+ learning professionals are chatting without you...right now!...from all over the world! They are sharing best-known-methods, case studies, tool selections, vendor likes/dislikes, and SO much more. Oh yea, and TWITTER is NOT a generational thing. So don't think that its just "those young techno-punks" out there twittering. NO! Most teens are still kickin' it old school with txtmsging. I have yet to find a kid twittering...but I plenty that still msg regularly.

I'm very interested in hearing stories about something you've learned via TWITTER. Or perhaps something that twitter pointed you too. OR how to actually use twitter or other microblogging tools to be productive.

I may be pushing it a little, but have you tried FriendFeed yet? I've just learned some cool new ways to use FF, and integrating twitter is only one of those ways. The funny thing is that most of the "high geeks" that I know don't actually "use" twitter. They use other tools that simply connect to Twitter. Those tools either push content to twitter, or pull content from twitter.

Perhaps the application holy grail of 2009 will be the one app to rule all APIs. I'm still waiting. And quite frankly I'm getting really tired of dealing with SO MANY! New Years Resolution: consolidate online workflow.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

For me Twitter is mainly a information feed (a way to keep up-to-date professionally)I like the "freshness" of the information floating around on twitter. The social part is for me both a bonus and a curse, sometimes people just use it for chatting (hello! there are IM:s for that =O) and then the "useful" information gets hidden in all the clutter. However connecting to the right people and having a conversation with those people can be more than fruitful. Solving a problem for example.
As for many services, one place to update, try switch-abit or hellotxt for example. Google and Facebook are opening up OpenId and the different Connects so we are sliding in the right direction. Nice focused ideas btw. keep up the good work.

Anonymous said...

Actually I'm glad it is now +600 plus people because every time one of these twitter lists comes out I get swamped by new followers. You should see what happens when people keep putting out their top 10 list of twitters :)

My belief is still that the most important part of twitter (as is blogging) is the conversations. That is where the learning happens and where you build up relationships while helping one another. Sure there are well knowns that use it to just push content but ultimately they are losing out in the end.

Regarding Friendfeed and Plurk - no I'm not using. Yes I'm probably missing out by not using but there is only so much you can handle.

So many amazing twitter stories don't know where to start :) But my need for a video converter for FLV from Ustream to WMV format is a good one. By asking my network I was able to quickly identify and find a new video converter that was able to do the job.

Anonymous said...

In eight month there are many stories, which I should post one day, but here is one that I value on a daily basis.

Development engaging and informational content is not always easy, loss of inspiration, desire for fresh ideas, new or alternative techniques, not to mention technical advancements in devices. Twitter is where I get valuable help in keeping up. I came upon an inspirational group of creative people, exceptional graphic artists, flash designers and web developers.

This group of 30 or so Twitters, inspire me. They also directed me to resources and/or techniques that I might have not thought to add to an instructional piece of work. They are a flood of motivation, inspiration, helpful links, great advice and helpful tips.

I recognize content is king, but why present content, in a professional and graphically pleasing presentation?

Scott Scheper said...

You may want to check out yonkly: http://yonkly.com

It's the first "create your own microblog" that integrates with Twitter.