Kevin Blissett: Out of the Cave » ning http://www.kevinblissett.com/blog Curriculum, Classroom Technology, Social Media, Leadership, China Wed, 16 Mar 2011 14:06:23 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Twitter for Informal Learning? http://www.kevinblissett.com/blog/2009/05/02/twitter-for-informal-learning/ http://www.kevinblissett.com/blog/2009/05/02/twitter-for-informal-learning/#comments Sat, 02 May 2009 05:20:30 +0000 admin http://www.kevinblissett.com/blog/?p=237 Tony Karrer investigates the Twitter phenomenon, particularly as it relates to learning and/or classroom application. I have to say, I’m finding it difficult to see how Twitter could be a major tool for learning in my classroom or personally, though it certainly can be a good tool for collaboration if used correctly. (As we cannot receive phone tweets here in China, this application is limited.) Yes, it can be one tool in the box, but I don’t think it’s a principal one.

I do most of my personal learning and information gathering in the following ways:

  • aggregating feeds of interest into my Google Reader
  • receiving news alerts of interest on educational and other topics into Google Reader
  • searching for articles of interest in Digg
  • Facebook–I get lots of good info from my friends, including video which is right on the page
  • blogging–this is by far my most professionally valuable activity as it compels me to do research, consider issues, and basically get it right
  • Ning groups

For personal and classroom collaboration, I recommend:

  • Ning–create your own customized classroom or school network. A one-stop shop for much of what you’ll want to do.
  • An online docs sharing network such as Google docs (not preferred due to formatting issues) or, better yet, Box.net
  • Twitter (if it’s fully functional)
  • Google suite of tools, including Google Docs, Google Sites, etc.
  • Email still works
  • Ustream for live presentations
  • Slideshare for slideshows
  • Class blogs for reflection and information
  • Class wikis for gathering and making sense of information

Thoughts?

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