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Sunday, November 1, 2009

a great video explaining the functions of twitter - worth watching:)

Hi all,

As my focus has been on twitter recently, I would like to share a video. Actually, I had posted an informative post on twitter but I think this video is better in terms of explaining the functions of twitter.

Please reply to this post by explaining how you use twitter.

Thanks for reading this post.


Twitter in Plain English from leelefever on Vimeo.

6 comments:

Unknown said...

absolutely worth watching video..
Twitter Rocks!!..

Here is a cool video of Google Story in just 2 mins:
http://bit.ly/1ZD5TM

Vanessa Vaile said...

The video is an excellent introduction to Twitter ~ I just added it the shared items on my RSS reader, which means it will show up on my main & mixed bag (eclectic would be an understatement) blog Mountainair Arts

I'm still experimenting with Twitter ~ no final conclusions yet on best practices and uses. Mostly, I twitter to share links on subjects that interest me, disseminate community information, promote/support causes and announce some (but not all) blog posts. A number of NM event / news / calendar sites are following me now, which promotes the community and local events as well as my own blogs. Adding a twitter profile widget to the sidebar on my main blog adds new blog content automatically.

Although following Sharon Betts and other ed-tweeters, I am not using Twitter for teaching. That does not mean I can't be interested in applications. I've always preferred the cross disciplinary approach.

Here are a few I've come across that I did not notice in your previous post and that you might find useful:

For online class discussion via twitter: Group Tweet

Another group app TweetWorks.

Document sharing: TwitDoc

Between doc, link, video and pic sharing, you should be able to deliver just about all of your course content via Twitter

In addition to @VanessaVaile for personal/ community microblogging, I also run @NewFacultyMajority for an adjunct/contingent/ precarious faculty coalition, New Faculty that I am involved with. Btw there is also a petition app for Twitter.

Nina Liakos said...

I've been on Twitter for over a year now, but I can't seem to remember to go there and update--and I never seem to have time to check out all the stuff people I'm following post--since they are mostly webheads, they almost always post URLs to check out. I never have time to follow up! I prefer Status Updates on Facebook, which tend to be less time-consuming to read.

BeyzaY said...

Hi Vanessa,

I like commoncraft videos as they are very simple so that people can grasp the basics of web 2.0 tools.Thanks for sharing it on your blog:)

Just like you,don't use twitter for teaching.Although, I thought the uses of twitter were very finite in the beginning,my ideas have changed a lot since then. Now twitter is a part of my daily routine! I use it o share links,learn new trends,keep myself up to date and share ideas.As a language teacher, I can definitely say that it has helped me a great deal. However,I really wonder how it can be done especially in EFL contexts where students need more practice than ESL students. I think there is potential for them to use them for pedagogical purposes as they already use social networking in their lives.Most of my students have facebook accounts and they update their status at least twice a day.

I have just started another blog on twitter with one of my colleagues interested in conducting research on the uses of twitter. We are planning to invite guest writers to contribute to the blog. I will be glad to send you an invitation.

I am following Sharon Betts and found some other useful links helpful to us intending to use twitter in language teaching. I am sure that the applications you provided in your comment will be very helpful in our twitter integration journey.

I do also agree with you in that blending teaching with different web 2.0 tools adds a variety to our classes and has the potential to conduct some research on.

I have also bookmarked some links using delicious. Please feel free to bookmark them.

Shall we try the applications first before we use them with our students?

Thanks for dropping by,leaving a comment&sharing ideas!

Best,

Vanessa Vaile said...

I'd be delighted to join your new blog. Thank you for the invitation.

That reminds me ~ while developing materials for the advanced writing class I'm starting, I recently came across a series of videos on essay writing. I have not had a chance to review them yet though.

I've been using twitter more too. @VanessaVaile is more efficient than email or blogging for sharing links and quick updates ~ as well as for keeping up to date. I have a twitter gadget on my primary community blog but also tweet blog updates.

I also think it has the potential to be more useful for student writing practice than you might suspect. Most writers (even NS) need to be able to write more concisely, and emerging writers, both NNS and NS, tend to wordiness in their writing. "Less is more" and making every word do a full days work can hard lessons for students trained on word count requirements. Twitter forces concision.

Vanessa Vaile said...

@ Nina ~ it takes time to get in the habit. Now that I have it, I find micro blogging on Twitter very different in content and purpose from Facebook status updates.

IMO no social media does everything well and there is no single way to use any of them. It takes experimentation to see which is best for your purposes as well as how to use it (which won't necessarily be the way others do).

Although sometimes excessive, building redundancy with multiple outlets also seems to be built into the system.