Tag Archives: Twitter

Twitter to the rescue!

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When you start a new academic year, things get extremely hectic. All the more if you are moving back into a new library!  So times like that you NEED good support from your local ISP Call Centre.

Late January saw me attempting to make the switch from ADSL to cable. After hours and hours of frustrating times on the phone, I finally vented my frustration on Twitter!

Twitter to the rescue!  I am amazed at what I have been part of  – the convergence of microblogging with service support from Bigpond!

I was encouraged by twitter colleague @mrsc2902 to follow @bigpondteam.  But even before I did, I had a reply to my agonised tweets from the bigpondteam.

I have never had such amazing and responsive service, as I had in the days that followed.  You try changing account details, or doing anything productive via a call centre. Even just navigating all those menus choices are a nightmare – then when you get connected – well that’s a whole new story! My story turned out to be the best experience I have ever had.

Suffice to say I have at least 18 DM in my collection – all rapid fire support for my problems.

Right, lets push this further – I fired off a few other queries last night about the actual plan I was on (yes, you guessed it, I wasn’t given any really useful advice). Hmm, no response by lunchtime – slower than before.  After another tweet for help, I was asked to provide a phone number and they actually called me direct to chat and answer and solve the remaining issues I had.

As I tweeted many times – awesome!

What is more amazing is this convergence of microblogging being used by an Australian company to monitor twitter chatter about their services, and their willingness to provide support at speeds way faster than anything I have ever encountered before. The two quotes below sums it up beautifully. The best service possible!

Cynical friend’s comment – ‘ah well, there are not that many people on twitter yet – so they will have plenty of time to help’.  Maybe!  What intrigued me was that it was happening at all.

Next post I promise will be more pedagogical – but for me getting my online access ramped up ready for this acadmic year was important :-)

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Fast Forward

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[vodpod id=Groupvideo.1928386&w=425&h=350&fv=file%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fvideo.xtranormal.com%2Fhighres%2Ff9ef2ec2-d935-11dd-8154-001b210acd5f_6.flv%26image%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Fvideo.xtranormal.com%2Fhighres%2Ff9ef2ec2-d935-11dd-8154-001b210acd5f_6_0.jpg%26enablejs%3Dtrue%26javascriptid%3Dmpl%26displayheight%3D216%26displaywidth%3D288%26height%3D246%26width%3D288%26showdigits%3Dtrue%26showicons%3Dtrue%26overstretch%3Dfalse%26shuffle%3Dfalse%26smoothing%3Dfalse%26thumbsinplaylist%3Dtrue%26showcase%3D%26playlistWidth%3D0]

more about “Fast Forward“, posted with vodpod

So lets see…my standard toolkit includes:  Wordpess, Gmail, Google calendar,  Google chat, and a host of other Google doc tools, Delicious, Nings galore, facebook, twitter, flickr, flickrCC, SnipThis, TwitThat, Feedly, Clip to Evernote, Tumblr, Kwout, Wikispaces, Wetpaint, Youtube and other video sites, and of course Vodpod to store my most important video finds, skype, Elluminate as well as WizIQ and Flashmeeting. Of course, there are raft of tools that are associated with virtual learning environments – a Second Life for me! That is not all, but that is already making my mind exhausted when I think of the shift in my ‘way of being’ – exhausted not for my self, but for the communication barrier that exists between me and so many of those that I work with.

More rumination….while I make a small movie from text!

What I am actually a bit worried about is that the pace of change has been so great, that the gap between the digitally adept and the digitally challenged is getting wider and wider, and perhaps will become too big a gap to bridge. I think I should settle for rumination, rather than worry, and let 2009 take care of itself :-)

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Librarian 2.0

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I had some Twitter fun on Grader tonight! Played with ‘education’ and got myself listed along with some VIPs. Checked out the Twitter Elite in Sydney – yep, seems I’m one! Other silly things too….all of which tell me that Twitter is still a pretty new tool. (Well I knew that didn’t I. The folks at my workshop today did not know what Twitter was, so no competition really).

So go and have a play if you like.

Meanwhile here is twitter-inspired ‘wave’ to Michael Stephens, of Tame the Web (and Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Dominican University in River Forest, Illinois). I remember when I became aware of Web 2.0 and then started blogging, because Michael became a key inspiration to me in my transformation into a 2.0 Librarian. Michael will be out in Australia again next year and I’m really looking forward to catching up with him and thanking him in person for the excellent learning journey.

Look what Twitter Gradr tells me has happened for “Librarian” :-)

Twitter Gradr for Librarian

Do you think that makes me a real Librarian 2.0!

Reflecting on my learning network

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Early Saturday evening I stopped to look back on the twitter responses to our “TWEET” during my workshop on RSS and Social Bookmarking…where we had a few other diversions too :-)

Thanks for the fun at the workshop! and for my wonderful network for responding to our “TWEET” to the learning universe….. WOW!

It’s makes me stop and reflect on how global connections are part of every educational conversation…these captured tweets say it all!

TWEETS in response to our callout

Twitter – a teaching and learning tool

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I’ve been collecting lots of posts about Twitter in my Del.ici.ous collection, all of them good reads providing information, ideas, or reflections on the ‘whys and wherefores’ of Twitter use.

No surprise then that I was alerted to Tom Barrett’s post Twitter – A Teacher and Learning Tool via Twitter.

In my experience, and in the short time that I have used it, Twitter has grown quickly to play a major part in the way that I interact with fellow colleagues and professionals from around the world. In my classroom and with the children I teach it has been an exciting tool to utilise and support learning.

Tom has written a brilliant post, that explains and elaborates on the function and scope of Twitter – and rather fantastically extends our horizons with ideas for integrating this micro-blogging tool into our teaching and learning activities.

GO and read the post! Go on! :-)

Twitter in plain English

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Here’s another of the very good Commoncraft videos – this time about Twitter.

Doesn’t in any way tell the story of the value of Twitter for educators – the simplicity of sharing and caring 24 hours a day!

A good way to introduce twitter nonetheless.

  • Understanding why we Twitter

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    This may be the first research study of Twitter – the Microblogging phenomenon…

    Why We Twitter: Understanding Microblogging Usage and Communities is part of the Proceedings of the Joint 9th WEBKDD and 1st SNA-KDD Workshop 2007 and available for download.

    Conclusions?

    The Popularity of Micro-blogging (i.e.Twitter) is due to the combined benefits of
    –Light-weight blogging
    –and the ability to share information in the social network.

    The Main user-intentions for using Twitter are
    –Information sharing
    –Information seeking
    –Friendship
    –Users generated content includes:Status updates, daily chatter, sharing links/News, etc.

    Posting Frequency vs. Number of Followers

  • x

    Participatory networking – an eye on Twitter and Jottit!

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    I’ve enjoyed my week at the NavCon2K7 conference, where I am pleased to see that we some workshops showing people how to engage in participatory networking – cool tools for cool news and professional interactions.

    It was a real buzz to find that Heyjude was being used as part of a demonstration workshop about setting up iGoogle. So nice to meet people who read and enjoy this blog, or share in the Heyjude del.icio.us network. It was great that Leigh showed folks how to get into Facebook – because it has already expanded the conversation spaces amongst my colleagues.

    But it’s what I learned from Lenva that excited me – a new strategy for ‘working’ a conference to share and collaborate! Here’s the story……

    Amongst other things, I used Twitter to tell my professional network a bit about what was going on at the conference. Because I mentioned Twitter in question time (posing a question to Leigh from the twitterati, as well as from myself) Lenva discovered me and we became ‘friends’.

    Lenva and I both posted links and comments to Twitter while Adam Lefstein was presenting his Keynote address. Lenva Shearing is a Principal who passionate about learning. Some of Lenva’s school team were attending the Ulearn conference in NewZealand at the same time – so the twitter conversation between them was showing up in my Twitter feed. She was actually participating in what was happening in NZ, while they were participating in what was happening in Sydney…….and I was becoming a bit of an observer. :-)

    But here’s the best tip of all. Lenva and other colleagues were taking notes (as lots of us were). The difference? Forget scribbling with a pen, writing a word document, or composing a blog post. Their notes were immediately shareable with each other via twitter or their blogs using Jottit.

    Check out Lenva Shearing and her notes from Adam Lefstein and others (which she posted up on Twitter almost as soon as sessions were over) and Allanah’s Note page which she was using to share her Ulearn conference experiences. Ewan McIntosh and Leigh Blackhall would be proud of them all! Right? Now if only I had been at the Ulearn conference amongst such a buzz.

    As for Lenva? – what a fantastic Principal – leading, doing, and engaging everyone – participatory networking bringing life to 21st century rhetoric.

    Image: Mon Oeil