Mobile Technology in TAFE

Tonight’s insanity was motivated by Jeff Utecht’s post on Twitter as My RSS Reader especially when he says:

Lately I’ve been thinking about Twitter as an RSS reader. My Netvibes page has about 30 RSS feeds in it, but my Twitter account has over 700 people or feeds that I can learn from. What I have found recently is that I’m reading and following more links from Twitter than I am from my RSS reader.

Yes, I love Twitter (it’s well known) but I’ve been getting a touch frustrated by the number of Twitter friends that are doing exactly what Jeff highlights here. In many cases their RSS feeds aren’t being read; they’re totally relying on people to post the links in Twitter which if they’re not careful could ultimately limit their learning by getting sucked into group thinking.

Snagging URLs from Twitter

However I decided to keep an open mind and inspired by Jeff’s post work out how to effectively collect the links posted in Twitter. Off course I’d just read a post recently, in my Google Reader, which talked how snag the URLs in Twitter –Frank suggested TwitBox. And if I was going to road test a twitter application - I might as well also compare my Snitter with Twhirl that Jeff likes to use (for those new to Twitter these applications make it easier to use twitter than using Twitter’s web interface).

The insanity part — it wasn’t probably the best idea to run all three twitter applications at the same time.  Unfortunately whilst I could cope with running the three applications — it appears they couldn’t (think it was an issue with TwitBin and the other two).

Have to admit - Twhirl is really, really pretty and the colours are a nice change from Snitter (this is important to some of us) — and more importantly can be used for connecting multiple user accounts.

Twitbin definitely snags the URLs from your twitter followers; but to capture them all you would need to keep it running all the time (and Frank’s right– it’s ugly looking) plus it only snags the URLs, not the entire twit which provide you with the reason to want to check a link.

Tracking URLs Posted by Your Followers

I think there is merit in grabbing links from Twitter but we need an application that makes it time effective — like a TweetScan or Terraminds application that searches for URLs within your followers and delivers the entire twits.

Meanwhile I’ve been grabbing some excellent posts to read by tracking terms using both TweetScan & Terraminds and subscribing to the RSS feeds using Google Reader.

Personally I believe I take the whole 10 signs of Twitter Addiction to an entirely different level.  Perhaps the Twitter Addiction signs should also include:

• You’ve got more than one twitter account, doesn’t everyone?
• You run more than one desktop twitter application
• You track multiple terms in twitter using TweetScan and Terraminds

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What can I say?

Well apparently I said a lot more than people have come to expect from my mouth - as you can see from what’s been said in my twitter account!

While some of my followers were a tad offended by my tweets — some actually enjoyed these more than my normal ones plus some choose to follow me!

I’m comforted to know that I wasn’t alone in this - it was happening around the World - even Jeff Utecht and Leonard Low joined me.  Though it looks like my mouth was considerably naughtier than theirs.

Leonard even apologized.

Thankfully my mate Darren Draper came to the rescue, providing a link to the twitter blog post on what had happened.

Twitter was testing a new application server tonight that didn’t work right so they rolled it back. While many people saw the error page other people experienced a more dramatic error which had them accidentally updating other people’s Twitter. Apparently some reported every time they refreshed the page they had another twitter account.

This twitter appears to have enjoyed himself - saying “I posted as 150 different random people on Twitter. It was pretty amazing”.

Meanwhile I was totally oblivious to my twitter antics - which I discovered 2 hours later when I returned to my computer.  The hacking of our accounts was very short lived - stopped immediately Twitter realised the problem - but it did give me a massive panic attack at the thought of my online accounts being hacked.

Glad I use TweetScan tracking to alert me when people twitter my name.

I use TweetScan all the time to effectively manage conversations in Twitter that I want to track e.g. replies to my twitter name dswaters and any other variations people have used e.g. suewaters and tags like Edublogs.

With the number of people I follow I need TweetScan as my eyes and ears. By subscribing to the RSS feed for the tracking term using my feed reader I’m notified through Google Reader whenever anyone, anywhere, tweeters that term.

Unfortunately - DUH - I have had a bit of a delay in realising that TweetScan stopped scanning 36 hours ago and I wasn’t receiving the updates.

Not to fear! I just changed over to another twitter tracking tool - Terraminds - added these the RSS feeds for my terms to my Twitter folder in Google Reader and programming has now recommenced.

Here is how I subscribed to TweetScan using my Google Reader. You use the same procedure for Terraminds.

Here are some of my other tips for Getting More Out of Twitter.

FINAL THOUGHT

Proof - it is possible for me to quickly write a post, one handed, while drying my hair, with 2 kids fighting in the background, while drinking a glass of water!

If you aren’t tracking tag terms in twitter I strongly recommend you try it out.

The best blog posts, for me, are those that make me STOP, reflect, ponder and challenge my own viewpoints!

Take Claire Thompson “How to turn “Me Vision Into We Vision” post where she discusses the need to ensure we don’t limit our learning by getting sucked into group thinking — by restricting our blog reading and interactions to people who think the same way that we do.

There is Need For Some Repetition

My belief is you do need a balance; and there is a need for a certain amount of repetition since sometimes the same thing needs to be said several ways for you to pay attention.

Claire’s “How to turn “Me Vision Into We Vision” post is a classic example of this! The links she provided I had read! But I hadn’t paid enough attention. I had read David Warlick’s Ethan Zuckerman and The Internet is NOT FLAT… post and Michele Martin’s Living in a Blogging Box and How to Get Out of It. Meant to write a comment on Michele’s post as I was laughing soooo much about her FINALLY replacing NetVibes with Google Reader .

My Tips For Diversifying Blog Subscriptions and Interactions

There a quite a few effective ways that you can ensure your readings are more diversified without going into information overload with the minimal amount of work!

1. Google Reader

Google has linked Reader with Google Talk so now all your shared items will be visible to your friends from Google Talk, and vice versa. My friends all share radically different posts — all far removed from the types of posts I would normally read.

2. Tweetscan

I’m soooo in love with Tweetscan! So simple! And so great at providing excellent links. Enter the search term, add the RSS to your Feed Reader e.g. Google Reader and you are notified whenever anyone twitters anything using that search term.

3. Technorati Tags and Google Blog Search Tags

Subscribing to Technorati and Google Blog Search tags is a good way of finding posts on specific topics. I’ve found it a great way to locate new blogs but you do need to accept a certain amount of skimming reading to weed the good from the bad.

Be WARNED: Technorati doesn’t recognise e-learning or m-learning as a search term — it will grab posts that contain the word learning. Instead make sure you use elearning and mlearning. Read more about using Technorati here!

Technorati and Google Blog Search will give you different results for the same tag term — which is why I subscribe to both.

4. Google Alerts

Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic. Really simple to use. Search is wider than blog search as it also searches news sources and the web.

5. Twitter

Many people are now relying solely on twitter to provide them with links to articles worth reading; which I think is a shame as there is a definite risk of group thinking if you’re not careful especially if you have only like minded people within your network e.g. educators only. Personally I like a mixture in my twitter network; educators, non-profits, web designers, programmers.

6. Better Blog Community

My involvement with the 31 Day Blogging Project expanded my interaction with bloggers other than educators. The Better Blog Community was established as a result of this project and is an excellent way of finding/interacting with bloggers outside your niche area.

FINAL THOUGHT

It’s late! Got my first day back with students in the morning…. So will be in trouble if I don’t get some sleep.

Would love to hear your thoughts on balance — how do we achieve enough of the same but ensuring sufficient diversity without getting information overload? What works best for you?

UPDATE

Was so tired last night I gave this post the title “Tips for diversifying your blog subscriptions”. Then this morning changed it to “Tips for Minimising Group Thinking”. Now changed it back as people had already linked to the original title. ROFL as still really tired and can’t make up my mind on a good title - so please choose your own!

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Beth Kanter and Amy Gahran have been discussing their use of twitter has meant they are less inclined to social bookmark items using del.icio.us. While twitter offers immediate gratification and connection with people plus heads-up of latest news/resources it is less ideal for retrieval and sharing at later dates.

Beth thoughts are:

• If we add tags to Twitter we have a merge between object sharing and people sharing. What’s nice it is that with social booking sites like del.icio.us, it is difficult to know who has shared the item unless their account is appropriate marked. This combination of tagging and tweets gives you both.
• She is hoping that those nptechers on twitter might adopt using hashtags and share information this way however she can’t figure out how to subscribe to the RSS feed for #nptech at hashtags.

My thoughts, after spending considerable time previously investigating how to get more out of using twitter, would be to use TweetScan rather than hashtags. TweetScan locates all tweets, by any twitter user, that include the term you use (thanks Alan Levine for telling me about TweetScan). With TweetScan you can choose to:

1. Subscribe to the RSS feed for the tracking term using your feed reader
2. or join TweetScan and have the search results email to your daily or weekly. Via email can use up to 5 search terms.

I use TweetScan for tracking people’s replies to my twitter name dswaters and any other variations people have used e.g. suewaters. However TweetScan is just as useful for tags like nptech.

To work effectively with a group, you would need to ask all twitters to use the required tag term within their tweet and teach them how to effectively subscribe to the RSS feed.

FINAL THOUGHTS

This is my solution for Beth. Do you have a better recommendation for her? Or are there other Twitter tools that she should also consider using?

Regardless of whether you are into Twitter or not, most people will acknowledge it has been the killer application for 2007. For such a simple application, Twitter has many layers, and it was overwhelming me thankfully my readers helped me out yesterday to get my Twitter magic back.

Martin Weller highlighted that effective management of twitter lies with:

1. Processes i.e. how many people you choose to follow, how you choose who to follow and your purpose for using twitter
2. Technical i.e. the tools you use to manage twitter

Processes

It is really important to decide, when you are starting out with twitter, why and how you want to use it (for ideas read Chris Brogan’s Twitter Revisited post and Beth Kanter’s Twitter tips for Non Profits post). How many people you follow will be influenced to some extent by how you want to use twitter. Chris Brogan, who follows close to 2,500 people makes, an excellent point:

Don’t look at Twitter as a great conversation place, especially once you have a lot of friends. Look at it as an idea bank, a place to gather information or think of new things, or see what your friends are doing.

Most comments on my post by my readers indicated that they prefer to limit their numbers of followers and be selective on who they add.

Brian C. Smith said “he tries to limit who I follow to around 150 people based Gladwell’s Tipping Point The Magic Number 150 (research suggests an individual can only have genuine social relationships with 150 people. Groups larger than 150 are prone to fragmentation, and it is often best for the group’s health that it split) and the fact that I find it simply too hard to filter from too many folks”.

Howard tips are:

1. Rather than follow everyone in a network, select particular people in a network who are well connected with people/areas with which you are interested e.g. I choose not to follow everyone I think is important in education in the World but to pick the eyes out of the network choosing individuals who look interesting.
2. Selectively filtering followers e.g. selecting tweeters who extend my thinking and feeling versus those who just provide online bubble-wrap/filler

Alan Levine says “he fails to reciprocate on about 95% of the following notifications I get, and only nab the ones for people I know. Maybe every few months, I go in an prune the accounts where there have not been updates in a long time”.

Susan Morgan told me her “solution is to follow people who follow me AND tend to provide good resources instead of chatter. It’s fun to get to know people, but I didn’t have time to go back through pages of tweets each morning either. If it’s important, I’ll see it somewhere!” Check out Susan’s post for more information on how she uses twitter.

They all reminded me that I needed to make the shift to accepting that I will miss some of the conversation as Martin Weller said “like blog posts - you know you can’t read them all, but accept that you’ll get enough of the overall conversation”.

Technical

What tools, and how you use them, impacts greatly on how effectively you will interact with Twitter. This was part of my problem — I was not using the best tools for managing twitter how I wanted to i.e. maximising conversation and effectively accessing overnight twitters.

Snitter

Warlach suggested that Snitter would probably help and he was right. You will need to download and install both Adobe Air beta 3 and Snitter Alpha but it is definitely worth it. I have used Google Talk, Twitterific, Tweetbar, the Twitter web interface and Snitter is the absolute best of them (perhaps some may say too good because I have been very prolific on Twitter today). Thanks Warlach!

Bookmark Toolbar

John Pederson told me how to use the bookmark toolbar on Firefox and Safari for faster reading of overnight tweets. Excellent idea providing a quick and fast solution.

John said “set up a folder on that toolbar called “Twitter”. Inside that folder bookmark the twitter pages e.g. Twitter1 for home, then go one page “older” in Twitter and bookmark that, calling it “Twitter1″. Continue doing that until you get to “Twitter10″. Then when you want to quickly scan back through all pages go to the Twitter folder and click on open all in Tabs.

As John points out you can’t go back more than 10 pages by pressing on older at the bottom of your twitter page but if you ever want to go back further just type the page number in the URL (tip courtesy of Darren Draper) — interesting though you use to be able to use this to go back through your entire history but this is not possible at the moment.

Tracking Feature

Martin asks if hashtags may be useful however the tracking feature of Twitter may be the better option.

Twitter tracking works by setting it up so that anytime someone sends a tweet containing the keyword you want to track it is sent to your IM client.

So I have set up Twitter to notify me of messages to Google Talk and have switched all the people I follow to notify off (because these tweets are already being sent to Snitter). Then to track a term I click on Twitter in Google talk then type track and the term I want to track e.g. people often use suewaters instead of my twitter name dswaters.

Mobile Web

I use m.twitter.com to interface with twitter on my PDA.

FINAL THOUGHT

There is sooo much to twitter that I am bound to have missed tips. Here is a couple that didn’t fit in the above categories. Gigicolo comment that “I wonder if any programmer is trying to develop an application as I can listen (Yes LISTEN) the twitt while I am driving!” was a good one. Can’t support Kevin’s solution of new twitter accounts because I would lose mine.

Please feel free to provide further tips.

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Lately I am feeling like I have lost the Twitter love. Life was fine when I was only following 150 people but now past 200 I am finding it hard to ensure I don’t miss the important conversations.

Twitter is a very important source for the latest news within our networks — look at the impact on Michele’s quick post as a result of twitter. If you have not got into Twitter and are wondering what all the fuss is about I suggest you listen to this podcast or read the transcript of the podcast.

The trouble is there is a minefield of applications and ways you can use Twitter but not necessarily any quick tips on getting more out of using Twitter. Trust me — I have been looking for the solution to managing my twitter account more effectively with no luck.

SO I am hoping my readers will share their tips on getting more out of Twitter so we can all benefit. I want my Twitter magic back!

Here is where I am at so far:

Prefer Twitter Web Interface

I use Gtalk for twitter notifications but mainly read directly through my twitter web page. Have also added a Twitter gadget to my iGoogle homepage which is really cool except that is only shows the last 20 tweets.

Tried RSS into Google Reader

Overnight twittering is important to me because this is when a lot of important news is shared. Subscribing to my RSS feed using Google Reader is okay except it doesn’t feed through all tweets i.e. doesn’t include tweets from locked Twitter account.

So my solution has been to:

• Scroll back through my twitter pages which is a slow process
• Check my replies pages for any tweets directly specifically at me

HELP

So what are your thoughts? I don’t want to have to start limiting my followers, or removing followers.

What are your tips for using Twitter more effectively?

For those into twitter you will already know about the amazing conversations and sometimes it is just good plain fun to learn more about where other people live. Photo by phxpma.

So today when Kristin Hokanson twittered:

at almost $3 a gal cost almost $70 to fill tank…was REALLY running on fumes got me thinking tho…what’s gas cost these days where u r?

I just had to do some research — using Twitter off course!

Price of Petrol Here

We currently pay AUD142.50 cents per litre (US$4.73/gal) in Perth, Western Australia. Here petrol retailers are required to notify their next day’s retail price for each fuel type by 2pm to Fuel Watch. Price boards and bowser prices are changed by the retailer at 6am and remain unchanged for 24-hours. They incur large fines if they alter their fuel prices from what they submitted to Fuel Watch.

So here is what I have discovered for other parts of the World so far:

• cpbw $4.76/gal for cheapest low-grade in Canada
• Leah Jones I think it is over $3/gallon in Chicago, most expensive in country last I heard
• dmcordell in upstate NY gas is $3.19 to $3.29 per gallon; cheaper in New England states because their taxes are lower
• cogdog - national average in US is about $3.05/gal, quite variable- I paid last about $3.13.
• pjhiggins paying $3.39 for diesel. Anyone know of biodiesel dealer in Northern NJ?
• paulhami Petrol is $1.09 per litre where I live in Canada. That’s AUD$1.23/l, US$4.12/US gallon, AUD$4.66/gal
• LittleLaura Hi Sue, would love to see your petrol results, are we the most expensive here in the UK? Our garage is £1.06 per litre! which equals US$8.14/gal
• Skytrystsjoy Brisbane petrol AUD$1.18/l which equals US$3.93/gal
• lenva NZ petrol is $1.70 per litre which equals US$5.01/gal

Please note I used US dollars and gallons because Kristin started the discussion and I just followed up with more research. This is the currency calculator I used for the conversions.

What It All Means

So far the UK is the most expensive for petrol but New Zealanders, Canadians and Western Australians are paying considerably more for their petrol than Americans. We also argued that most British don’t travel far by car — I travel 70 km (44.4 miles) return to work.

FINAL THOUGHT

Okay not my normal sort of blog post but, like twitter, blogging doesn’t always have to be focused just on getting the work done. Also twitter conversations are lost if you don’t record them.

So what are petrol prices like where you live? Maybe we should compare prices of Big Mac meals next?

Back in August I wrote a post titled Is Twitter shifting blogging to a new phase? I have decided to take it back!!!! Not only is twitter totally shifting blogging into a new phase but it is also changing the nature of our conversations and is incredibly important for our personal learning.

If you are not using twitter and wondering why any one would like to know “What you are doing?” well while you are going this is a Web 2.0 tool I don’t need to know about there are amazing conversations happening in the twitter networks that are important!

So what astonishing events was I involved with today as a result of my twitter universe?

Well there was so many — here are a few just from this morning!

Social Software07 PD

Woke up early with my Thursday morning dose of Social Software in the Classroom Open PD session. Where I was transported into a classroom in Utah, USA which is being taught by Darren Draper and Robin Ellis (who is in Pennsylvania) and we were joined other educators around the World.

I have absolutely enjoyed attending these sessions — so many highlights but here are a few:

• Technology wise — how loved seeing Skype and Yugma (free online virtual classroom) used for delivering these sessions. Worked so well!
• Conversations — many of us are all in these sessions while doing our other commitments so we get an insight into each others lives. E.g. loved how Kristin was participating while braiding her daughter’s hair. While we were on a break her kids were asking me about my strange accents and if I see kangaroos in our city streets — answer yes! Although I did not mention that occasionally cars hit them on our freeway (might have been too much information for that age!)

navcon2k7

While in Darren’s social software session I quickly jumped into Leigh Blackall’s keynote address for Navcon2K (NSW, Australia) thanks to Judy O’Connell providing us with twitter updates on the presentation.

Apparently Leigh said “that we ‘caught him out’ - he was surprised” but Judy said “it was cool to see his reaction.” And how did we catch him out — well he asked for questions so Judy twittered it and I responded. He was spun out that global learners were trying to ‘listen in’ - and we had asked a question to him that fit with the keynote!!

Message to all presenters and conferences — we are using twitter and are live blogging!!!

• Organisers of Conferences – you must provide free wireless access or your attendees won’t be happy! And I would strongly recommend that you set up a conference twitter account to keep participants updated with latest news!
• Presenters be warned! You are no longer just presenting to the audience in the room you are now presenting to a global audience — yesterday Rachael Boyd invited me through Twitter into Ewan McIntosh’s key note for Ulearn using Skype.

Off to the Pub!

Finally with all the hard work from Darren’s session it was time for a drink so where else should I go but to a pub somewhere in USA with Will Richardson, Steve Dembo and David Jakes being broadcast live via uStream.

Like everyone else I was totally blown away by the quality of the live feed considering they were in a pub on wireless. Incredible! Would love to tell you about the amazing conversations but oops I was paying attention to how powerful uStream could be as a tool!

FINAL THOUGHTS

Today I gained so much from Twitter — and all this happen from my house in Western Australia — great conversations, saw great tools in action and participated in conferences virtually. Thanks to everyone in my twitter network for helping me with my personal learning! If you are in twitter and not using it much — I suggest you rethink it! There is a massive party going on and you don’t even realise it!

So what are your thoughts on twitter? Are you using it? And if you are, how has it changed your life?

1. twittervision, 2. Twitter Meta Moo! too far?, 3. Twitter via Blackberry, 4. Twitter Firefox Search Extension

While going through my comments history of my blog to select old time readers for Day 6: Email an old Timer reader of the Blogging Challenge I realised that social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook are shifting the nature of blogging to a whole new phase. Why - because many of the people whose blogs I read or who leave comments on my site are interacting with me in Twitter and/or Facebook; and they are doing the same with their readers.

This means I communicate with many of them, in some form, on a daily basis so to actually email an old time reader and thank them is ……?

I asked the Twitterers their thoughts on if blogging shifting to a new phase

Here are comments by different people:

• Twitter forms more connecting relationships as most times you get an instant reply and is more conducive to have a conversation rather than comments on a blog
• The first people I added to my Twitter account were people whose blogs I read; I comment on blogs to blog posts, twitter to twitter posts; more likely to check out blogs more closely than reading in reader after following the blogger on twitter
• Twitter has made me closer to people I’m friends with online (most met through blogging)
• To some extent the blogging relationship for me has changed as a result of twitter
• Sometimes I’ll push a link into twitter if I think it may interest my twitter friends who I don’t think subscribe to my blog. I blog less and I think my twitter friends do also now because of twitter. I try to comment directly on posts, rather than to the author via twitter if I think something is particularly good or worth commenting…but will you twitter to discuss third party’s posts…which may well have previously gone on my blog or theirs.
• There is more connection with twitter
• Not overall - not many twitterers compared to blog readers. But some are changing this and my tweet list is mainly my blog list! I think we are creating a change. Same question in 6 months will have a different answer
• People are becoming aware of my blog through twitter

How it has impact on me

Twitter and Facebook has created more connection with my readers and subscribers to my podcast but in doing so I feel that I have become less inclined to comment on their really good posts. It is like I am taking my friends for granted - and expected them to realise that I think they are fantastic. Sorry every one!!

Here is my explanation of why I am:

• hooked on Twitter
• loving Facebook

What are your thoughts?

BTW in case you are wondering if I have failed the Blogging challenge task - nope - have emailed a few old timer readers Remember to read Darren’s post on Day 6: Email an old Timer reader.

Do you believe blogging is entering a new phase? And if so, how will this impact on the different types of bloggers?