Thursday, October 21, 2010

To Tweet or not to Tweet, and #PLENK2010

 I am one of those holdouts who does not use twitter. Despite people assuring me that I would "get it" once I took the plunge, and despite listening to presentations on the use of twitter, I could not see the relevance to me or the pedagogical usefulness of it in my teaching. Thanks to a fellow participant in #PLENK2010, I found this video that finally explains why I perceive twitter the way I do and validates (to some extent) my feelings on the topic: http://tallblog.conted.ox.ac.uk/index.php/2009/10/14/visitors-residents-the-video/

The visitor vs resident analogy made by David White definitely appeals to me. I like it because it is not an either/or proposition and also because it does help me understand my own preferences for interacting with the technology. It is also takes account of the difference between professional/institutional and personal space on the internet. This is a distinction that I do try to maintain. Although I am on FB, this is mainly personal; a few colleagues who are also real friends, are also friends on FB, but that's because they are already in my personal life.

2 comments:

  1. Dear Veronica,

    I think you mean me with that fellow PLENKer.As self assigned learner I found the video a few month ago, and it helped me to understand myself and the attitude of others towards the NET,like a driver, when he learns that his partner in conversation has no driving licence.
    I wasn't comfortable with the digitial immigrant and native analogy; since I'm using more web 2.0 tools than most digital natives. Twitter, I'm not quite sure, whether I have to use in adult education. There are four more weeks to go in PLENK, will see...
    Eva

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  2. Hi Eva:

    Yes, I did mean you--and that video has now made the rounds of Athabasca University. I in turn posted it on The Wire (a similar idea to Twitter) but internal to AU. I know there is a certain irony about that. And when we had an internal conference on the weekend, I went to a presentation by George S. and Terry Anderson, and they thanked me for forwarding the video-))

    The general comment about Twitter was more for George's benefit--I took an online course with him earlier this year, where I seemed to gain some recognition as the Twitter hold out.

    Veronica

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