So why might I jump ship?

Identi.ca is the new microblogging kid on the block, and at first glance, it not only seems similar to Twitter, Pownce, Plurk, etc., it actually seems like it has less to offer.  No replies buttons or tabs, no search bar, just a steady stream of messages and the ability to ’subscribe’ to one another.

What entices me about Identi.ca is the fact that it’s open source.  While Twitter has been having trouble staying on its feet lately (it has been better of late, to be fair), I wonder how long it would take for Identi.ca users with some technical knowledge to diagnose and attack the underlying problems.  Seems like a good thing to have “more hands on deck.”  There’s more to be said about it, but Mike Bogle covered it in pretty good detail in his post and follow-up comment here.  With add-ons and other contributions from the Identi.ca community, I’m seeing the potential for Identi.ca to play Firefox to Twitter’s IE – highly customizable and community-based.

I also like Identi.ca’s commitment to the OpenMicroBlogging protocol.  Essentially, conversations could take place across services, so there’d be no need for a Twitter account, Plurk account, etc.  One protocol to rule them all, so to speak.  There is already a plethora of services for cross-posting to multiple services, but nothing to aggregate responses and facilitate discussion.

To me, the discussions and exchanges of ideas that take place on Twitter are by far its most important factor, and why I won’t be deleting my Twitter account anytime soon.  Identi.ca may evolve into something great, and I’ll definitely stick with it, unlike a lot of other microblogging services.  Without the people who make up my network, however, it won’t be of nearly as much value as Twitter, broken down and everything.  Ultimately, it’s the people, not the tools, that give the network its value.

In the meantime, I encourage folks to try out Identi.ca and see if it suits you.  I’m @damian613 on both Identi.ca and Twitter; feel free to subscribe, follow, or just read.

To put it succinctly, I think the two main roadblocks were 1) the technology at home and 2) student motivation. Many kids reported problems even being able to log in to Twitter from home, let alone send messages. I suggested they upgrade IE, I suggested they try Firefox if they were using IE (sorry, Bill), but all to no effect. Also, the students had to be motivated enough to log in and send messages, which very few of them were. In a class of 24, I think there were only 4 or 5 “regulars”, and when no one else was joining in, even they lost interest by about Thanksgiving or so.

Not one to learn lessons easily, I’m implementing the project again this semester, this time with my Honors Brit Lit juniors & seniors. While I can’t address their home technical issues, I hope that their intrinsic motivation will be a little higher than my sophomores’. Sure enough, just when I needed a little inspiration, The Chronicle of Higher Ed [via Twitter's blog] runs a story about David Parry, a UT-Dallas professor who used Twitter with his students to great success. The big payoff, according to the prof?

The immediacy of the messages helped the students feel like more of a community, Mr. Parry said in an interview Monday. “It was the single thing that changed the classroom dynamics more than anything I’ve ever done teaching,” he said.

Now where have I heard that before?

Further reading: Twitter article on Dave Parry’s blog, academHack.

Edit: He’s @academicdave on Twitter, if you want to see what he’s doing with his students.

If you are interested in using Twitter as an educational tool, I hope you’ll stay tuned and contribute thoughts and questions to the mix as this project evolves. I’ll be tagging all relevant posts as “Twitteracy Project” for your ease in following.

Realizing that the opening sentences of books are often an intriguing attention getters, twice a day, TwitterLit creator Debra Hamel, posts the first line of a book, without the author’s name or book title. Why? Well, according to Hamel, “Because it’s fun and quick daily literary teaser.” There is a link back to Amazon so you can see what book the line is from and all the posts are available for subscription via RSS, Twitter, and email. A great learning activity might be to have students make a list books with the most interesting opening lines.

I thought this was a neat idea, and an interesting application of what many are writing off as a complete timewaster. Even among our edublogopeers, the general consensus among those who are giving it a chance is, “There’s something there, but I’m not sure what it is.”

Let’s try to put some practice to the theory together. I’ll start here with some English/Social Studies-based ideas; you follow up in the comments.

1. Easy way of posting homework assignments without creating/maintaining a website. Even the most tech-phobic teachers can log in, type 5 Tweets with the week’s homework, and tell their students to go to twitter.com/mrsmcgillicutty. As easily editable as Tiddlywiki, only less involved, if such a thing is possible.

2. Students writing a wiki, or working on some other collaborative project outside of class? When mine do, one of the chief complaints is emails left unchecked or eaten by spam filters. I work in a regional district, so it’s not always easy or possible for students to physically get together to work on projects. Try having them all sign up for Twitter accounts and follow each other. They can conduct real-time multiple-user discussion in which all group members can participate. Those who are offline can catch up later in the History, or have messages sent to their cell phones.

3. Will Richardson recently wrote about RSS feeds as texts for students. What if we turned the information flow in the other direction and had teachers subscribe to a Twitter RSS feed of their students? Tonight’s homework: Tweet in the voice of Abraham Lincoln 5 minutes before delivering the Gettysburg Address. Summarize the relationship between Miss Bennett and Mr. Darcy in exactly 140 characters. Tweet your answer to this central question, and send @messages to at least two other people in the class. Eliminate the excess, get kids thinking critically about the meat of their message, and it’s all there for you in your feed aggregator.

4. Have students maintain a Twitter account for a week/month/unit/marking period. See who can create the most new social connections in that time, and at the end have them reflect on and share/compare their experiences on a class blog or wiki (or in person in small groups, if that’s how your school rolls).

5. “Follow” some major news organization like BBC, Sky, CNN, etc. with your students, and have your students select Tweeted stories to respond to (by your method of choice). Let your class double as Intro to RSS 101.

6. Set up an account and instruct students to “follow” you. When you’re online outside of school hours, Tweet a grammatically incorrect sentence or phrase. First student to Tweet back to you with the corrected phrase wins a small prize.

Standard disclaimer – when having students go online, especially in a social capacity, please also teach them about safe & responsible Internet use (I hope I’m preaching to the choir, but I feel obligated to mention it). Looking back, I’m not sure I like #4 anymore, but I’ll leave it up in hopes that someone can improve upon it.

So can math teachers use this tool? Tech educators, how will/do you use Twitter? Administrators! Is there a place for Twitter in your schools?