Software and internet analysis: Micro-blogging in education (March 2009)

At a glance

• Micro-blogging encourages users to regularly update their status in short (often 140-character) posts.
• Posts can be used to pose questions, seek views, find leads for research or publish information for other users.
• Tools can be used to aggregate posts on particular themes, while 'hashtags' signal posts that belong to a particular thread.
• Twitter is one of the most popular services, receiving much media attention, but it is also a very public and potentially insecure environment. Many learners need guidance on using such tools.
• Teachers can use micro-blogging tools for their own professional development, to further research, to engage learners or to receive feedback from learning activities.
• Many of the same advantages can be achieved through other tools, such as instant messaging, chat rooms and forums.

More than Twitter

The initial invitation of micro-blogging was for users to chronicle their daily lives in short 'status' updates: 'What are you doing now?' However, this has led to an explosion of interaction ranging from the trivial to the enlightening.

One of the most publicised services has been Twitter, but there are many others. Each message - or 'tweet' in Twitter terminology - is constrained, often to 140 characters. This has not proven as limiting as might be imagined, forcing users to condense thought, observations and questions into a brief but meaningful form. URL compression services, for example TinyURL and Bit.ly, can be used to shorten references to 25 characters or less, allowing users to point out web sites and make a comment within the defined limit.

Traffic to Twitter has increased 1000 per cent in the last year, putting it in the top 100 UK sites, and has drawn a lot of attention through celebrity endorsement from media favourites like Stephen Fry. Each person has their own Twitter identity, such as @StephenFry (who has over 200,000 'followers'), while topics can be formally tracked using 'hashtags', like the recent #uksnow.

Updates to micro-blogs can normally be posted through the service's own website, using a separate client, sending an SMS from a mobile phone or updating via an application installed on a mobile.

There are many services trying to compete in this market, with some specifically aimed at education.

Traditional blogging

There are several differences between 'traditional' blogging (covered in TechNews, September 2005) and micro-blogging:

• The length of a blog post permits more detailed description, gives space for reflection and encourages writers to embed links to referenced articles
• Micro-blogging forces users to be concise and convey a single, main point
• Comments can be added to most blog posts, drawing a contributory stream around a central text
• Micro-blogging is more fragmented, making it harder to follow a thread, but comments arrive rapidly and are more spontaneous
• Blogs leave a permanent record, whereas a separate application may be needed to capture the stream of micro-blog updates.

Education

Many educators are looking at ways to use micro-blogging in the classroom. Tom Barrett has posted a collaboratively-developed presentation with suggestions (currently 19) from teachers, such as compressing the plot of a story into 140 characters; following updates from NASA scientists; seeking instant points of view on a topic; and building on a sub-plot within a literary work studied, by tweeting in the 'voice' of two characters involved. This list gives something of the diversity of potential uses rather than a 'good classroom guide'.

A recent blog post from Ollie Bray shows how the immediacy of Twitter can be combined with Google Earth to bring an instant perspective on weather to a classroom in Scotland: a 'shout' was sent via Twitter asking users for their location and a picture of the weather, leading to plotting locations on Google Maps and a discussion on spatial differences.

Some micro-blogging services offer closed environments to businesses and educators, for example:

• Yammer - is a service that requires a 'business' email address to sign in, based on master accounts set up by that organisation.
• ShoutEm - allows anyone to create a community, which may be either public or closed.
• Edmodo - focuses on education communities, with teachers able to set up classes and other groups.

Nik Peachey has written about Plurk in language teaching. This tool describes itself as a 'social journal', so posts are arranged on a timeline and grouped into threads.

Real time feedback

Conference organisers are beginning to use micro-blogs as a tool for direct, real time feedback during keynotes. There is a danger that the stream of updates becomes the 'star attraction', but it can form a way for the audience to engage with the topic, to ask for clarification, to expand on the point or to supplement it with relevant internet links.

Ira Socol refers to this as the 'back channel' and argues that it is better to have it explicitly recognised rather than secreted behind seats as students whisper or text each other or, worse, drift off into unrelated online activities. While recognising that such feedback could be threatening to the teacher, he also considers the opportunities afforded to the more hesitant student, to the one who has trouble speaking good English, or to the reflective type who wants to consider an answer before contributing. The tool he used was Today's Meet.

Personal learning networks

Many educators are now stressing the importance of their personal learning networks (PLNs) - contact webs drawn from a range of offline gatherings and social tools - who act as peer mentors and information repositories related to that professional's work. Faced by a pedagogical, research or technical issue, a quick 'shout' brings back a set of immediate answers or starting points.

Micro-blogging can be used to create 'crowd-sourced' wisdom. While the crowd may not always be correct, it can often contribute to a process of knowledge co-construction, which may be formalised using other tools such as wikis.

Tools, add-ons, widgets

There is a range of add-on services and tools that can enhance or structure the output from micro-blogging services. The precise nature of these will depend on the application programming interface (API) exposed by each tool, but many are written to work with the Twitter API. Tools include (for Twitter):

• Desktop clients (such as Tweetdeck or Twhirl, both written using Adobe AIR).
• Picture and video publishing (for example TwitPic and Twiddeo).
• Aggregators and search tools (such as Twitterfall, Twitscoop or TweetVolume).

These tools add to the Twitter environment, but may demand log in details and could be prone to all kinds of unknown vulnerabilities through the way they have been coded.

Other messaging technologies

Micro-blogging has caught the popular imagination - or at least the media's attention - but does it offer anything new? The functions mentioned above could all be carried out using tools which are, arguably, more robust and secure.

Instant messaging (IM) carries well-known risks, but can be used for direct conversations in real time, while chat rooms can draw such discussions into a central location that can be moderated and logged. For asynchronous debate, forums offer threaded conversations with embedded archives.

These tools are often provided as features of virtual learning environments (VLEs) and learning platforms (LPs), allowing teachers to experiment with these approaches using applications already available in school or college.

Security and other issues

Recently, a new Twitter user caused a stir: @OHHDL purported to be a Twitter feed from the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, but proved to be an impersonator. Such instances may cause some to distrust the environment, but they also open up discussion around identity and authenticity.

Teachers must be wary that the Twitter 'stream' (in particular) is a public environment with few controls, leading to increasing levels of spam tweets and a recent (apparently harmless) 'Don't Click' clickjacking attack. Blogger DigMo suggests ten e-safety tips, which generally accord with the e-safety advice given to young people.

The future of micro-blogging

This article has concentrated on text-based services but others, such as Seesmic and 12seconds, offer similar features for video updates. The short comment also forms the basis of reviews and reflection in Blippr and Blip.fm, both of which could be carefully used in an educational context.      

Most of the companies running micro-blogging services are recent start-ups that have yet to prove their long term viability. It is likely that popular services will endure and will increase levels of security, offering more embedded tools for grouping and threading conversations. In common with many social technologies, micro-blogging tools are subject to a degree of 'fashion' which may place them in the category of 'un-cool' in the minds of young people within a couple of years, but educators can use these tools in a controlled manner to engage students now.

References

Twitter
http://twitter.com

TinyURL
http://tinyurl.com

Bit.ly
http://bit.ly

Twitter traffic up 1,000 percent
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=109807

Twitter enters the UK Top 100 sites
http://uk.techcrunch.com/2009/02/10/twitter-enters-the-uk-top-100-sites

Nineteen interesting ways to use Twitter in the classroom
http://docs.google.com/Present?docid=dhn2vcv5_118cfb8msf8

Using Twitter and Google Earth in the classroom to make the most of the weather!
http://olliebray.typepad.com/olliebraycom/2009/02/using-twitter-and-google-earth-to-make-the-most-of-the-weather.html

Yammer
http://www.yammer.com

Shoutem
http://shoutem.com

Edmodo
http://www.edmodo.com

Microblogging for EFL with Plurk
http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/2008/07/microblogging-for-efl-with-plurk.html

Plurk
http://www.plurk.com –

Bringing the 'back channel' forward
http://speedchange.blogspot.com/2008/11/bringing-back-channel-forward.html

Today's Meet
http://todaysmeet.com

Tweetdeck
http://www.tweetdeck.com

Twhirl
http://www.twhirl.org

TwitPic
http://twitpic.com

Twiddeo
http://beta.twiddeo.com

Twitterfall
http://twitterfall.com

Twitscoop
http://www.twitscoop.com

TweetVolume
http://www.tweetvolume.com

Twitter security: There's still a lot of work to do
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10162649-2.html

Ten E-Safety Tips for Twitter
http://www.digmo.co.uk/edu/ten-e-safety-tips-for-twitter

Seesmic
http://seesmic.com

12seconds
http://12seconds.tv

Blippr
http://www.blippr.com

Blip.fm
http://blip.fm