Tweetdeck seems to be the default client for serious twitterers but I’ve always found it a bit, well, ‘busy’. I’ve got Tweetie installed on my Mac at home and it’s got a much cleaner interface that I find preferable to Tweetdeck’s ‘Clapham-Junction-at-rush-hour’ style.

There are some really good web-based ‘clients’ though that offer a better user experience of Twitter and that are particularly helpful if you’ve multiple accounts or following a number of hashtagged conversations.

Here they are then, my top 5 with thanks to @teachlearn, @AJCann and @mojo_girl

1. Brizzly
   http://brizzly.com/
   
2. TwitIQ
   http://twitiq.com/
   
3. HootSuite
   http://hootsuite.com/
   
4. Seesmic
   http://seesmic.com/app/

5. TweetFunnel
   http://www.tweetfunnel.com

Amelia is another friendly and outgoing student who’s very different in attitude to technology to Jenny. She’s a technology user but the range is more restricted.

Here are the highlights of our interview:

1. Attitude to Twitter pre-module

I had an account, but I … generally, I didn’t ever really use it. I followed quite a few people, sort of celebrities and stuff but wasn’t .. I didn’t check it every day. I wasn’t .. I was more interested. […] I wasn’t a user but I did have an account so I was very aware of it.

Me: Who did you follow?
Amelia: This is going to be embarrassing … McFly, Rob Brydon, Stephen Fry.

It was nobody I knew, I must have just heard about it on the radio or just aware of it.
I think it was probably Radio 1, they did quite a big Twitter thing. […] I was quite interested in it.
None of my friends were on it.
On who introduced her to Twitter:

It was nobody I knew, I must have just heard about it on the radio or just aware of it.

I think it was probably Radio 1, they did quite a big Twitter thing. […] I was quite interested in it.

None of my friends were on it.

2. Attitude to/use of Facebook

The first time I can remember Facebook is my friend who was at university at the time, she was like ‘oh it’s for university people’ because when it first came out it was just purely for university students. Because she had it, I went and got it, now we’ve all got it and that’s how we communicate.

If I’ve got a spare five minutes and I’m on my laptop then I’ll check it. But it’s not an important part of my day like I know it is to a lot of people.

3. Use of Twitter on the module

Starting the module, I was quite interested to see how it would work. I started, I did use it and then it sort of dropped off my radar just ‘cos I wasn’t using it everyday or whatever.

‘Cos I’m not really friends with the people on my course necessarily. That’s not why I didn’t follow them, I dunno, I just didn’t … again it didn’t pick up on my radar. If I was checking it, I’d see it on the el3668 thing so I’d see it all anyway.

For my project, I’ve actually created a Twitter account for Juliet Capulet, so I’m doing that which Erica said you’d love. […]  Juliet has a Twitter account! [...] I’ve planned them all out and so yeah, they’re going out every day.

I love the idea of Twitter but I guess it’s [i.e. not using it] almost entirely because my close friends and family don’t use it. My close friends that I don’t see very often, we’ve got a thread on Facebook, that’s how we communicate. So we don’t need that [Twitter] I guess.

On not completing the mid-module feedback activity:

4. Use of technology in general

Me: Did you you StudySpace (Blackboard)?
Amelia: Yeah. Not necessarily for message boards and things like that but I use it, I go on it three or four times a week just to check, you know updates on modules and stuff. But mostly for information rather than giving.

My second interview and Jenny’s 10 minutes early and wondering whether to go into the Picton Room (a staff and postgraduate space) or continue hovering at the door. I’m amazed at how punctual and friendly the student volunteers I’ve seen so far are.

Once settled at a table with our lattes in front of us, Jenny’s no longer nervous but, like Roz before her, another poised and confident young woman in her early twenties. I thought I’d learnt from my first interview and later attempt at transcribing it, how to be a better interviewer but Jenny’s use of technology is so interesting I find the session became more of a conversation than an interview. On one level this is a good thing but it’s been difficult to transcribe. Anyway, these are the highlights:
1. Attitude to Twitter pre-module

2. Attitude to/use of Facebook

3. Use of Twitter on the module

4. Use of technology in general

Roz (name changed to preserve anonymity) is 20, female and my first interviewee.

She breezes into the Picton Room, the staff refectory where the interviews are taking place, with a cup of tea. Roz is confident and articulate although the process of transcribing her has made her seem so much less so.

Here are the highlights of our semi-structured interview:

1. Attitude to Twitter pre-module

I’ve actually got a Twitter account, I set up a different one for the module … um … but I never used it, all I did was follow celebrities. When Katie [Price] and Peter [Andre] were splitting up it was quite handy ‘cos I could see what was going on.

I’ve had it for about … probably May, May time I think I set it it up and I then I probably used it for about two weeks but I never was updating everything I did.

One of my best friends, she’d actually set it up, her one first, and she’d done the same as me, Katie [Price] and Peter [Andre] were about her only friends.

For celebrity stalking maybe but not really so much, not a lot of my friends had used it for kind of what they were doing so to speak.

[Roz follows: Katie Price. Peter Andre, Phillip Schofield, Jonathan Ross, Stephen Fry amongst others]

2. Attitude to/use of Facebook

Nowadays when you go out, photos are a really big thing, and especially amongst the students, you know if someone takes a picture, it’ll be like having them up, like, the next day and I think that’s why Facebook comes in so handy. On Twitter, you can’t really do that, it’s just literally … I think the status thing is in Facebook, you still have that element that you can write what you’re up to, what you’re doing – that’s all Twitter’s got about it.

A lot of my friends say they do the same; they’ll go and do their work, their coursework, but before they can even do anything they check, it’s like a routine: you check your emails and you check your Facebook. You get distracted for about an hour and then you start doing your work. But you always leave Facebook on in the corner just in case someone might want to get in contact with you.

I was one of the last out of my friends to join Facebook, everyone was on it and it was when I was leaving sixth form, everyone had put their sixth form pictures up and I was like, ‘give me the pictures’ and they were like ‘get on Facebook’. And I was like ‘ok’ [sighs]. I’ve only been on it about three years.

I was one of the last to join and I was pushed to get on it ‘cos I was the odd man out. … You got to go with the crowd.

3. Use of Twitter on the module

I actually thought I tweeted a lot less and I felt really bad because she [the module leader] set us kind of stuff to do every week and then sometimes she’d send us an email to remind us and I’d think ‘oh, I’ve got to do that’ and then I’d just usually forget.

I was probably a bit keener and I did my picture and everything as well … I suppose life took over a bit.

Because I don’t go on Twitter a lot, I didn’t become second nature to me just to go on it; it was something I had to think about.

I think it [Facebook] would have worked a whole lot better; I think you would have had tweeting every day … well, not tweeting, facebooking every day, … um … commenting everyday.

If you’d used Facebook there would have been a huger response and people would have messaged each other and there would be a lot more going on.

With Twitter I did think it helped in some respects that you knew where everyone was at. It was quite nice we came into one of the lectures the other week and someone said ‘oh my gosh you’ve nearly finished, you’ve got your thesis statement’ which was quite nice.

Yeah, it did seem to be some people who were like ‘I don’t know how to use it’ and almost ‘I’m not going to use it’.

4. Use of technology in general

Usually I’ll be on there [Facebook] quite often. I’ve just got myself a BlackBerry. Now all my Facebook things come through to me straight away. I’m on it quite a lot during the day. I’ve got my 21st birthday coming up so I’ve organised my birthday party on there; you can just invite people …

I looked into getting something where I could get my emails and my Facebook on there.

My internet’s gone down at home but because I can get the internet now on my phone I can now get all my emails from work and from uni just straight away.

A lot of people my age tend to use Facebook.

Before Facebook it was Bebo and MySpace. MySpace is still quite popular but with music kind of people, but definitely Bebo for the younger teens it seems to be that’s where it is and then you grow …

Back in the day, it was MSN for us,then it was Bebo and MySpace and then Facebook appeared.

Hashtags are a powerful tool that allow Twitter users to track what other people (especially people they are not following) are reporting or thinking about a particular topic or event. Hashtags were initially not an officially supported Twitter service. Rather, they emerged as a way of pulling otherwise unconnected twitterers together around a shared topic that Twitter users adopted on their own.

It is not possible to follow hashtags through the main Twitter site since a hashtag is not an account but a character string – e.g. #altc2009 – inserted into a tweet. However, hashtags are something that you can use the Twitter search tool to locate and, once located, users can then subscribe to tweets using a particular hashtag via the ‘RSS feed for this query’. Desktop clients, like Tweetdeck (http://tweetdeck.com/beta/) and browser-based alternatives like TwitIQ (http://www.twitiq.com/) are available to facilitate a simpler user experience of viewing hashtags. The use of agreed hashtags in tweets is now common practice in conferences internationally in order to enable ‘backchannel’ interactions amongst participants and is increasingly being used in teaching and learning.

For our Twitter pilot projects, we tended to use the module code – e.g. #el3668 – as the hashtag.

I’ve blogged about how much I like TwitIQ before.Now I’ve come across another web-based tool that improves the user experience of Twitter. It’s called Brizzly

What I like about it – well there’s lots of plus points – is that it displays YouTube and other linked to media below the tweet. Here’s a screen shot:

A tragi-comedy in four acts?

It’s the start of week 3, and it’s still rather a mixed picture of Twitter uptake. Three of the four projects have begun with a fourth starting shortly.

One, on Shakespeare and Popular Culture has started really strongly: 17 out of the 18 students enrolled on this final-year double-weighted module have a Twitter account and there are indications of engagement:

• sharing resources (e.g. “Awsome version of Hamlet by McLars feat. Brett from the Donnas & Gabe CobraStarship”)
• sending social messages to one another (e.g. “Heya, my lovely! Looking forward to the lecture tommorow? ”)
• replying to the tutor-set Twitter-based activities (e.g. “Angelo does not love Isabella, his prophessed love is just lustful impulse”)

I think there are also signs that the students understand the playful nature of Twitter. One of them has the following as their avatar:

student avatar
(face obscured to preserve anonymity)

On the other two pilots, there is a degree of student reluctance or resistance to using Twitter. One module with over 90 students enrolled has only 25 set up a Twitter account; another with over 200 students has seen only 7 create accounts (admittedly it’s less than a week).

I hadn’t fully grasped the possible resistance to Twitter and/or a new technology from students. There have also been very strong anti-Twitter comments from a couple of students (e.g. “resents that he has to get Twitter as he kind of agrees with Cameron’s ‘too many Tweets make a twat.’ ” ).

I received an email today from a student on one of the four Twitter pilots. I won’t, for reasons of confidentiality, publish the original email or my full reply but here are some highlights:

1) Using a social networking site for an educational forum is a bad idea
There’s currently no evidence to support this claim. On the contrary, there is emerging academic research – see references for a small sample – on the value of third-party social media to learning as replacement or adjunct to institutionally supported software (e.g. Blackboard).

2) It’s unprofessional to use social media for collaborative learning
Increasingly, universities – including elite institutions like the University of Edinburgh – are using a range of externally hosted web services – Twitter, blogs, wikis, Facebook – to support formal learning activities, some individual but mainly collaborative. While I would accept that in some contexts confidentiality is essential – e.g. on a healthcare or education module that requires reflection on work placement activities – I would also challenge the degree to which all learning activities should take place within the ‘walled gardens’ of institutionally controlled digital environments. A recent MSc module at the University of Florida (Callis et al. 2009), for example, required students to edit public Wikipedia pages as part of their assessed activities. I won’t bore you with recent HE debates about “the borderless university” or the need for universities to have more “porous perimeters” but would just say that going a bit more public is a growing trend.

3) Institutional technology infrastructure should be up to date and not need external resources
See above comments but also technology is moving very rapidly – more rapidly than most institutions can cope with. To take advantage of new trends it’s often necessary to explore third-party tools. Twitter is an excellent example of this because it sits at the intersection of three growing trends in technology use: 1) mobile, 2) microcontent and 3) social networking. There is currently no institutional service that offers anything comparable to Twitter. If we can’t go outside of centrally supported systems, we restrict our ability to explore new paths and to innovate. And that, surely, is the opposite of what a university is about?

What would colleagues, with an interest in web 2.0/social media add?

References (sample)

Callis, K.L. et al. (2009). Improving Wikipedia: educational opportunity and professional responsibility. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 24(4): 177-179

Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007). The benefits of Facebook “friends:” Social capital and college students’ use of online social network sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4), article 1. http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue4/ellison.html

Madge C, Meek J, Wellens J and Hooley T (2009) Facebook, social integration and informal learning at university: It is more for socialising and talking to friends about work than for actually doing work’. Learning, Media and Technology, 34(2): 141-155.

Selwyn N (2009) Faceworking: exploring students’ education-related use of Facebook. Learning, Media and Technology, 34(2): 157-174

The Twitter Experiment – UT Dallas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WPVWDkF7U8

I wonder if Twitter’s main strength is the way it enables what I’m going to call “ambient collegiality”.

This idea is partially based on Leisa Reichelt’s notion of “ambient intimacy”:

Ambient intimacy is about being able to keep in touch with people with a level of regularity and intimacy that you wouldn’t usually have access to, because time and space conspire to make it impossible. Flickr lets me see what friends are eating for lunch, how they’ve redecorated their bedroom, their latest haircut. Twitter tells me when they’re hungry, what technology is currently frustrating them, who they’re having drinks with tonight. (Reichelt 2007)

More recently, Guy Merchant has contested the view that Twitter’s function is only phatic and coined the phrase “ambient sociablity”:

Ambience seems to catch the sense of lightweight contact that typifies microblogging, and sociability leaves it open to both the level of friendship and the sort of exchanges that are transacted. (Merchant 2009)

In the context of my use of Twitter for professional networking, I like the idea of “ambient collegiality”: being able to know what my peers are reading, writing about, reflecting on in nearly-now, almost real-time. Sharing conference calls for papers, invitations for project funding, jobs, new bits of cool software, relevant news etc..

It’s a distributed senior common room . Without coffee.

References

Merchant, G. (2009). Ambient sociability. My Vedana. Retrieved May 20, 2009, from http://myvedana.blogspot.com/2009/05/ambient-sociability.html

Reichelt, L. (2007). Ambient Intimacy. Disambiguity. Retrieved October 8 2009, from http://www.disambiguity.com/ambient-intimacy/