Learning Conversations

Twitter is another one of those viral phenomena in the internet-world. My colleague, Karyn, has been encouraging me to try it out. So here are my initial reactions (and they're not favourable):

What is Twitter?

When you get a Twitter account you're presented with a box where you have 140 characters in which to say what you're doing now.

Twitter: What are you doing now?

You can also add entries by phone or via a small number of instant messenger clients (not Skype or Microsoft IM unfortunately).

You can choose whether you want your entries to be open to the world, or just to people you allow to see them.

You can "follow" other people's entries. This means that they appear in your personal "timeline" - or list of entries. They can also be sent to your mobile phone as a text message.

Similarly, other people can choose to follow you and your entries.

What is Twitter for?

The main reason people seem to use Twitter is to increase their sense of connectedness to their network. Will Richardson has showed how he used it to rapidly get feedback from his followers (that sounds so cultish, but it's the term Twitter uses!)

What do I think?

I've only had 24 hours exposure to Twitter, but already I'm sorely tempted to delete my account. My mobile is full of text messages from one half of a conversation - most of which I'm not interested in anyway. Like a commenter on one of Stephen Downes posts, I would ask whether people really want to be that connected?

If I could guarantee that the people I follow will always write stuff that is useful to me then perhaps I'll reconsider my opinion. Until then, I think I'll stick with blogs - where at least, most of the time, people are writing interesting stuff. I just haven't got the time to maintain Twitter connections as well.

If you want to see an even more considered response, as to why Twitter and the like prevent us from doing, learning, creating, and becoming experts, see Kathy Sierra's post.

Reminder

Please don't forget my research survey. So far I've had nine responses (thanks guys!) - although only four OPML files. I would encourage you to take part, as I'm hoping this may have some influence on how large scale professional development programmes are designed in the future.

If you have taken part, please consider putting a link to the survey in a blog post or on a mailing list you are part of.

Many thanks