Well, I don’t know if this is a reading or not, but I thought I would share it since it was one of those things I was “up to” last week: “Tweetagogy: Building Community in 140 Characters or Less” was a presentation by Liza Potts, Kathie Gossett, and Vincent Rhodes gave at the Association for Teachers of Technical Writing conference, which is held right before the CCCCs. And what’s even more cool is it’s a Prezi presentation, which is something I need to figure out, but that’s another story.
Now, I think these folks are way over-selling the usefulness of Twitter over other tools– Facebook or blogs, for example. But I see their point, and I think their data and their attempt at using Twitter is very interesting. I’m going to email the presenters and let them know I’ve posted it as a topic of discussion; we’ll see if they are interested in joining in.
I found this Prezi format to be really frustrating. I did not think that I was able to open this presentation, so I looked at the Prezi demo and found it fascinating, Then, I went back to this presentation and tried to get on–again, not believing I was succeeding, So, I went to the Prezi page and got onto another one: Greece. it worked fine and at least I believed I could see the intent of this type of presentation, Then, I went back to this one, and finally understood the conceptual basis of the presentation.
The problem for me was: where do I start? So, I never got much past the presentation format. I did read the various entries, but since they were not linear, I wasn’t sure which to click on first and where to go with it. I feel as if I would need to become expert at Prezi in order to view the presentation fully. As far as the information, it appears they have a lot of supporting data and they even point out where the data is lacking, so I cannot fault that, I would have rather seen the information either presented to me by someone, or in a more linear format.
I’ve never seen or heard of Prezi before but… totally sweet! It was a little weird at first. I clicked through it once just kind of playing, and then went back and read it and was able to navigate it much easier. But, I won’t spend too much time talking about the ap. But, I thought it was pretty cool.
The study was interesting. The most interesting numbers to me were the spread between instructor initiated tweets vs. response or student initiated tweets. Something like 15% were from the instructor vs 55% initiated or in response to other students. I would say that even in the most successful “community classrooms” the instructor does a lot more initiating and the students less responding/initiating. I starting to see the benefit of the 140 characters in facilitating more “authentic” discussions. I think it might more accurately represent the way we really have conversations and the way we wish class discussion would be as instructors.
Awesome. Prezi is great but the moving is kind of scary because it is not me moving the mouse or exactly choosing where I am about to go. It reminds me of a virtual roller coaster ride.
I like what you said at the bottom, Dave, “I think it might more accurately represent the way we really have conversations and the way we wish class discussion would be as instructors.”
I recall so many professors frustrated with the class because the students couldn’t figure out how to respond to the text on the spot.
I’ve had this problem. It’s a matter of choosing an approach to the text, not so much a lack of doing the work, for me. Sometimes I think it is difficult for students to understand their own readers perspective during the class time. Online, through these mediums, the student has more time to have the conversations that are really desired.
So they said what’s missing is the play during and after class time.
Well it’s covered in this class because there are all kinds of ways that we connect outside of the blog.
I found this hard to read and stay focused on. But that is not to say that others might be able to. I think that we as educators need to use as much of the technolgoy as we can and not put too much emphasis on one over the other. I like the one video of the Prof who used it as a discussion tool in her classroom. I dont know if i would do that all the time but it would be good for some classes. LIke with anything if you over use it then it is not usefull any more.
I thought this was great. It took me a second to catch on but after going through it , it had interesting information. Another motivating plus to get technology moving in the classroom as 21st English teachers. 140 characters is so limiting, that is why I had a hard time with Twitter. It teaches you to condense and really directly say what you mean. Great for students.