the media window

This presentation by Vinnie Vrotny is titled Expanding Horizons Engaging Adult members of Your Community Through the Use of PLN’s , and it is a great overview of Twitter! If you haven’t set up an account to use this tool and aren’t sure what it’s all about, Vinnie gives a solid explanation of both. He gives clear direction on how to go about “following” people and encourages us to make sure we have our profile page filled out so that the person you choose to follow can decide from your profile whether he or she will follow you back. Basically this is how you grow your Twitter network, although another key component (especially to having people follow you) is to make sure you “twitter” something as well. So, as I said this is a really good solid intro to the “Twitterverse”.
Since this presentation was made, the development of Twitter as a PLN for many educators has grown tremendously. I think that most would agree that they have learned a lot from following the twitters of many of the other educators who send out useful information, links and reminders of countless other great pieces of information! I have also been aware of the growing pains of this PLN, as how people use Twitter has come under scrutiny by many educators and it has been the subject of many blog posts with ensuing comments. Being a quiet, observer type of person, my own personal experience with Twitter has had its ups and downs. I didn’t understand it at first, but once I knew how to follow some of the wonderful technology educators, I was hooked.  For awhile it was as if I was GLUED to my screen in order to read the information! Then, I made a few attempts to send out my own twitters and that was not always successful. So, I might respond when people ask for others to “say hi” to so and so, or I might post when I am listening to a live EdTech Talk show, or attending a good event in SL, but I tend to shy away from the requests for information on websites, or Web 2.0 tools now. I really appreciate the information I receive serendipitously from others, I try in a small way to contribute, and I don’t mind the noneducational twitters that come across. Fewer people follow me than I follow for those reasons I’m sure. But, as we are all in different places in terms of who we “know” and what we know regarding this wild Web 2.0 world I just hope that is taken into consideration by those whose opinions regarding these matters influence many others.

My final note on this is that Plurk is now coming into the PLN arena, but I cannot and will not look at that until I finish taking the K12Online 2007 graduate class! Now, the good news is that this is my last reflection for the class (those of us who did it wrote 21 reflections in all)! So, I may be looking at Plurk and all of the other cool new tools I saw in these presentations before I know it! WOOT!!!

Trackback URI | Comments RSS