Twitter

Asking New Questions

/ Cole Camplese / 3 Comments

This morning as I was plowing through the post TLT Symposium haze I came across a track back to a couple of my posts last week over at my friend and colleague, Dr. Chris Brady’s site titled “Technology revolution or evolution.” I started to leave a comment at Chris’ blog, but thought I might work to extend the conversation a bit by offering a little bit more thought to my response. In so many ways I agree completely with what Chris is saying, but wanted to extend it just a bit.

While I don’t see any massive revolution on the horizon in the teaching space, I do see a continual refinement of our understanding of the affordances emerging (or emerged) technologies have on classroom practice. I don’t think web 2.0 is any more related to scholarship than the chalkboard when taken by itself. When I argue that new forms of scholarship are emerging, I am asking people to consider there are new opportunities to ask new types of questions that couldn’t be asked before. Take for example the “Texas Slavery Project” from the University of Richmond. When I got a chance to sit down and listen to the researchers behind it, they insisted that being able to visualize data in this environment caused them to ask questions they hadn’t considered before — that is, the technology was used to create new scholarship opportunities.

We’ve started working with quite a few humanities faculty here at ETS to let them do things with these tools that couldn’t be done before. If we dismiss the notion that these tools are somehow outside the boundaries of scholarship (and I do not believe Chris was saying that) we are not maximizing our new ability to attack new and interesting questions.

So back to the conversation around the Twitter use in the classroom that Scott McDonald and I stumbled upon … we are eager to investigate these same kinds of emergent questions in classrooms — the outcome of the Twitter use in class last year was shocking to me and without that experience I would not be able to question the value of backchannel conversations as enablers of learning. This is just a question that would not exist without the initial disruption. Is a revolution coming? Perhaps, but it will feel more like a glacier moving across the frozen tundra — a few centimeters at a time. But to me, that works because each step makes a big difference for a few students.

Thoughts from the Twittersphere

/ Cole Camplese / 7 Comments

Yesterday I spent some time at the College of Information Sciences and Technology’s Graduate Symposium listening to Dr. Abdur Chowdhury, Twitter’s Chief Scientist give a keynote talk. I’ve written about Twitter for a couple of years now, but what is so interesting about Twitter these days is what is going on behind the scenes. While they are a relatively new company, they are really working hard to make sense of the river of data that flows through the 140 character text box they offer. Abdur was the co-founder of Summize where they used analytics to discover trends across the web … when Twitter bought it he moved over to start decoding massive trends brought about by Twitter’s user base. Later in the day I was then on a panel with him talking about Twitter to those assembled it was very interesting to hear his perspective on things and to see how he is leading the way in making sense out of all of those Twitter messages.

As an aside, one of the questions that seems to occupy lots of cycles is about Twitter’s financial model. I could tell during the question and answer period yesterday it is something that gets the folks at Twitter a little frustrated. I recently read an article in Wired where they make the claim that Twitter can go for quite some time without worrying about that and I am betting they are figuring it out behind closed doors on their own time.

One thing he spent a lot of time on was how they can pull content from peoples’ tweets and find real news trends. He referenced Mumbai several times as an example of where Twitter was able to bring the terrorist attacks to our attention even before the news. We saw it a few weeks ago with the flight that landed in the Hudson … pictures and reports came from the Twittersphere before the news had any clue. This isn’t new for people who have been paying attention, but it was a good push for me to revisit the capabilities of Twitter Search. It seems like everyone is discovering the power Twitter has to offer.

Being on the panel reminded me of how interesting the Twitter experiment Scott McDonald and I did in the CI 597C course we taught last year. I got to talking with Abdur about it and the research we had planned to do … talking about it all has made me even more interested in using Twitter to better understand what is going on in my classroom. When I did a google search on how far back tweets go, I came across Twistory. It is a site that uses the API to pull out the exact time and content of any given user’s Twitter account. What is really cool is that you can then use Google Calendar to subscribe to the output to visualize the data.

Seeing Twitter Conversations

Seeing Twitter Conversations

Now this is where it gets really interesting to me … you can put anyone’s name into it and add their twitter stream to the calendar. This set off an ah-ah moment for me. What it means is that in a class you could easily visualize the backchannel conversation between and among students. Imagine how rich the data can be now looking at what happens in class — are students passing twitter notes, digging deeper into the conversation, exchanges resources, etc? This is the first time I’ve been able to create a tangible paper trail of the interactions happening behind the scenes. I can’t wait until Spring 2010 when Scott and I teach our Disruptive Technologies course. We met this morning at the coffee shop to start talking about how we would integrate this and we’ve decided that while we are focusing on our themes of community, identity, and design that we’ll ask students to do research into how the community is coming together and evolving by mining Twitter data in this form (or another). I can’t wait to see how it goes down and to explore other ways to use Twitter and its API.

Perfect Status

/ Cole Camplese / 11 Comments

It comes as no surprise that I like Twitter for lots of reasons … the primary reason for me is that it seems to solidify connections in close to real time. Facebook has surprised me in its ability to do something similar in the recent months. Both seem to be really interesting steps forward in the online conversation space. The one thing that both of them have going for them is a very powerful, “what are you doing right now” approach to status updates. This simple question pushes people to participate and to me it is the most powerful piece to coalescing community.

With that in mind I read a really good piece at the NY Times the yesterday called Being There, about the art of the status update. My favorite line from the whole thing was a simple statement about what a status update really is …

Spontaneous bursts of being

I really enjoyed the article and decided to conduct my own status update InstaPoll on my network to see what I got back. What I found was that people want to be drawn into a conversations via a status updates. Most are interested in the notion of engaging with those “around” them. That is really interesting to me … some people view the status update as shouting into an empty room, but what it looks like from my very informal and unscientific data gathering is that people crave engagement … they want to respond to where others are in the moment.

Seems to only make sense given our intense interest in not only providing constant updates, but our incessant need to know what people think in 140 characters or less. Some of the better responses to my question, “What makes a great Twitter/Facebook status update?” are below … if there is anything you might want to add to this conversation leave as a comment.

  • @colecamplese re: your survey. I think good status updates offer a chance to continue a conversation. personal/professional items are good.
  • @colecamplese asking a question everyone has wondered but never asked?
  • @colecamplese I think they are (should be) different… Tweets for more frequent (often mundane)…Facebook for daily/weekly “bigger stuff”?
  • @colecamplese Small, mundane little things that when taken out of context seem oddly amusing….and lots of punctuation.
  • @colecamplese whatever you feel in the moment.
  • @colecamplese NOT where I am or what I’m cooking. New blog post, new idea or concept, looking for discussion – yes
  • @colecamplese totally depends on the reader IMO. Interesting stuff to ME makes it a great post. (news, games, VW stuff, etc)
  • @colecamplese I totally agree with Bart. I love opinions, what peeps are doing, where they’re headed, etc.
  • @colecamplese something that makes me laugh
  • @colecamplese re instapoll Posts that helps me learn/think. Links to interesting stuff, plus reasons why I should click. News, questions
  • @colecamplese layers.
  • @colecamplese witty comment about common activity.
Instant Feedback

Instant Feedback

Twitter Responsiveness

/ Cole Camplese / Leave a comment

On Thursday I asked a really simple question on Twitter on a whim, “Quick Poll: What are the first 3 applications you fire up when you log in?” I got dozens of responses on both Twitter and Facebook … and it stunned me. This reminds me once again about what is right with Twitter for me personally — connectedness. To me the idea that I can shout a question into a 140 character text box and get something back from all sorts of people all over the place is a very interesting thought. There’s no need to take it any further … but I would love for you tell me why Twitter is important to you if care to share.

Get the Flash Player to see this player.

I took a little time to gather the results of the question (totally unscientific) below … note that I combined similar applications and tried to take into account things like gmail, google calendar, and other web-based productivity tools (that, as my Mother-in-Law reminded me, are applications). I also just lumped a bunch of stuff like Photoshop, Dreamweaver, etc into “Other” as there were a bunch of one-offs. The other thing to consider is that these are a percentage of the total responses — so while nearly every single person said a browser, they all almost all said email as well. So the chart is a bit misleading … I choose unwisely with that, but my data is at work and that’s life. BTW, my first launches are Mail, Safari, and Evernote (which no one else mentioned).

With about 60 responses accounted for.

With about 60 responses accounted for.

Community Question: Lifestreaming

/ Cole Camplese / 6 Comments

With the closing of several Google services I’ve been thinking about some of the content I (and a bunch of other people) publish across the social web. So much that I want to get some ideas about what many of you think about it all. If you step back and think about how many new people are joining and actively participating in social networks, one has to consider where we go from here. What do we do to protect the emergence of our meta identities — each crafted in small pieces across many networks. As a simple example, take a look at the emergence of Facebook with adults … according to a new report issued by the Pew Internet & American Life Project’s December 2008 tracking survey:

The share of adult internet users who have a profile on an online social network site has more than quadrupled in the past four years — from 8% in 2005 to 35% now.

That is a whole lot of people creating lots of real data about themselves and their relationships. Even if you don’t worry about closures or server meltdowns, consider the following from a post on Read Write Web:

The most obvious example of this loss of access to lifestream data? The inability to access anything beyond beyond page 162 on Twitter. No matter how many times you’ve posted, you cannot go back any further than 3240 tweets. So, every new public message you send removes one from your history. (To see this in action, simply add “?page=162” to the end of any Twitter user’s default URL.) Those who had seen Twitter as a journal of sorts for recording fleeting moments for posterity, suddenly found those moments just as fleeting online.

I’ve talked to lots of people who think that their Twitter streams belong to them. The reality is that we are trapping our thoughts, relationships, and content in someone else’s microblog. It has bothered me since we used Twitter in my CI 597C course — much of the course dialogue happened in the backchannel there and much of it is lost. Clearly this only one small example, but I am guessing you get the idea.

So I am curious about what kinds of strategies we should be considering as we continue down this path? I doubt the answer is to stop participating — the ship has left the port and it isn’t coming back in. What do we think?

Wall Streams

/ Cole Camplese / 7 Comments

When you get off the elevator on the second floor of the Rider Building you see a small plasma display hanging there that typically has a Twitter stream of ETS staff displayed on it. It is cool to see and I often notice people walking by and stopping to read what is visible. It gives an interesting view into some of the activity happening in and around our office.

If you’ve been to an education technology conference worth its weight then you have probably seen something similar — someone has set up a Twitter account so people can be followed by the event and their back channel stuff can be displayed live as people move around the event. Good enough and a smart way to get a crowd sourced idea of what is happening at the moment.

I’ve wanted something that goes beyond just the standard Twitter stream to use at our annual TLT Symposium, but haven’t wanted to take the time to build something that aggregates more of the social stuff together — Tweets, pictures, links, etc. This weekend I stumbled across a new feature by the folks at Brightkite … they call it The Wall. The Wall is a simple to setup tool that gives you a way to aggregate content posted to the Brightkite network into a very simple full screen view. It gives you the option of using the location of the event as the determining factor — which is nice, b/c once you check in with Brightkite that you are in a certain place, all your updates are counted … no need to use a hastag or anything else. You can also choose a search term which I admittedly didn’t try out (but plan to) as well as person stream. Take a look below to see what I mean …

Setting up the Wall.

Setting up the Wall.

Once it is setup, in my case, I choose to use a location — State College, PA. When I launched my Wall I was surprised to see activity talking about the Blogs at Penn State from someone I know, but who isn’t in my network. It was very cool. It even pulls in pictures posted to Brightkite from people checked in at that location. Have a look …

Full Screen View.

Full Screen View.

This will be a great addition to the Twitter stuff at any event, but the issue still exists of asking people to create a Brightkite account. I think you can join in via texting to the site … check out the Wall for 16801 and give it a try. But, now think of how cool it could be in a class where you have much more more control over the networks that your students post to. A Wall featuring updates in one spot would be very attractive to help bind community. I’d be interested in hearing other ways this could work. I am very attracted to the mash up of location, community, and content … I wonder if it works to drive additional context for a community?

Update: BTW, I have 15 invites for Brightkite. If you want one, just leave a comment.

Twitter Intranet Style

/ Cole Camplese / 3 Comments

I have been a long time user of Twitter for mass community connectedness. I started using it quite some time ago and while my use of the tool seems to ebb and flow, I do find it very useful on all sorts of levels. When I first started using it I was instantly struck by the power the tool could have to help my own work unit stay connected. So far it has served that purpose and a host of others — binding the PSU community, helping me stay connected to distant colleagues, and more. The one thing that always bothered me was the tool’s inability to let me focus Tweets to a group of people in a simple and native way.

Tonight as I was catching up on feeds I came across a new tool from the TechCrunch50 conference going on, Yammer. Yammer is a Twitter knock off with a few new twists. The first, and most important to me, is the notion that it is a private network open only to those in your organization with a valid @yourdomain.edu(com, biz, tv, etc) email address. What that means is that when you sign up you are signing up to participate in a network only made up of those within your organization. Along with it are a handful of enterprise-like features that make this an amazing little Intranet addition with the power of Twitter. I know people will jump at me and say this is a closed and walled garden, but take a little bit of time to investigate the product and then think about how powerful Twitter would be as part of an organizational email replacement strategy, dynamic directory, and a collaborative toolset that only you and your co-workers could access. I think there is potential.

Yammer. Intranet Style Twitter.

Yammer. Intranet Style Twitter.

I’d urge you to take a look at it by signing up or watching the quick overview video. There are features here that could be very useful. I actually invited a few people from ETS who I thought might like it (or hate it) … I’d just like some people to hang out with in there for a bit to learn more. Going in, I think it will be tough to make it work at PSU as there are a ton of people with @psu.edu email address, but who knows. I think it may be worth a look. Let me also say I don’t see this as a Twitter killer for me … my Twitter network has huge upside, I just see this as another way to get on top of constant organizational information needs. Take a peek and let me know what you think!

Weirdly Refreshing

/ Cole Camplese / 3 Comments

SavedSo yesterday all of a sudden my blog stopped accepting comments. All of my posts were set to comments closed. No idea how it happened, but it did. Was I hacked? Did the configuration somehow get blown up? Things seemed to be OK otherwise, but the idea that all of a sudden something like comments could just be turned off is very strange. This issue came at a time when I really didn’t have the cycles to really figure it out. When I started to investigate it I jumped on IM hoping to find someone to help … no one there. So instead of sending an email to my much smarter friends I tried asking twitter. As one would assume, it worked. Within a few minutes a former student of mine Twittered the solution. Amazing and wonderful! That kind of speed is new.

To me this is the story of web 2.0 that is emerging — the speed at which connected communities can influence change has become astonishing. Would I have gotten my answer without Ben’s Twitter help? Sure … much, much later. The idea that there is a network there to help at 11:00 PM is pretty amazing. This is a reason why the State College PD and PSU itself started Tweeting — they recognize that working within targeted, connected, and interested communities works.

If I pull back from this I can begin to see interesting opportunities in the teaching and learning world. For the most part, classes don’t emerge as communities unless something very special happens. Each semester is different and it is completely unplanned (but hoped for). One semester the thing just clicks and others not so much. The results from the last class I taught were in line with this — Twitter worked. If we tried it again it may or may not. What I am seeing though is that Twitter has the power to bind communities in ways that are weirdly refreshing to me. When groups of people decide to join and participate they are creating new opportunities to create shared experiences … that tells me they are going to create a shared awareness with each other. This creates a situation where people can quickly come to the aide of each other and create change very quickly. I see this on Facebook every now and then, but Twitter has taken over the title of community creator for me.

So thank you Twitter … more specifically, thank you Ben!