For all you EHHPers who are watching I just wanted to let you know that the Nov issue of Tech Info Newsletter is here! I know, I know you’ve all been waiting for it. Now you can read it by the fire on Thanksgiving day 
This month’s topics are micro-blogging and online timelines. Check it out at http://benignim.people.cofc.edu/Site/TechInfo_11_2008.html
I was talking to Jared Smith the other day about my blog when he informed me that blogging was “soooo 2006.” He says the new thing is microblogging. What the heck! I just found a decent use for blogging and now I have to try microblogging??! I am familiar with Twitter (a common microblogging tool) but when I first tried it about a year ago I wasn’t impressed so I met with Jared and did some research on my own and here’s what I found…
What is microblogging? – it’s basically writing in short 140 character bursts (often called “tweets”) that can be sent/read online or from a cell phone…any cell phone with texting not just smartphones. Here’s the catch though, unlike in texting it is frowned upon if you send multiple tweets back to back. This means you have to summarize what you want to say, including any links, in 140 characters! From what I understand this 140 char. limit is so that it is compatible with SMS (texting). The most well-known microblogging application is Twitter. However, like any web 2.0 app there are tons more out there.
What are the benefits of microblogging or twittering? – So far, from what I can tell, there are two primary benefits to this technology. First, the info can be sent and received via a SMS text message. This gets your information out to those who subscribe, very quickly. They can then write back quickly so you can get immediate feedback. Second, since there are only 140 characters it really eliminates the fluff from a post.
How can you use it in a genuine way in academia? This is the burning question. At first glance I thought Twitter was just a place where people told other people what they ate for lunch and when they brushed their teeth. This, to me, was not worth my time. However, Jared has helped me see this in a whole new light. Twitter, and I’m sure other microblogging applications, has a large population of informational posters. These are folks who are writing about news, current events, conferences, politics, etc. and are documenting things as they happen. Using the Twitter search engine you can scan all the tweets by specific words or categories (a.k.a hash tags) which can help you learn about things as they happen. I found several good articles on how to use Twitter in your classroom to connect with students, get real-time feedback from students and stay abreast of current events. There was also an article about a teacher that had his class write a collective story using Twitter. It builds class community and it’s a viable platform for metacognition. Check out these article/posts for more ideas:
Twitter for Academia, academhack, Tech Tools for Academics, David Parry
Educators Test the Limits of Twitter Microblogging Tool, edweek.org, Katie Ash
An Interview with Dave Parry, Chronicle of Higher Education, video by Jeffery Young
7 Things You Should Know About Twitter (pdf), Educause Connect
Twitter – Web 2.0 Tools in Education
So as you know I was at the Educause Conference last week and from the things I saw and the sessions I attended, Cloud Computing seems to be the 2008 buzzword. So I went on a quest to discover exactly what the term meant and, as with many things on the internet, I found varying definitions. InfoWorld published an article that grouped cloud computing into several different categories. Of these, however, only one seems to apply to the end user like you and me, Software as a Service (SaaS). This is the definition that I usually associate with the term. It’s when you deliver a single application through a browser to thousands of users. The most common example of this would probably be Google Apps. This is a word processing application that many people can use at once and it does not reside on your computer.
The benefit of these cloud computing applications is that you can work on your applications and files from anywhere, not just from your computer. Many of these applications will also work from your smartphone as well. In addition, if your computer crashes you won’t have any downtime or data loss because your applications and files are stored on servers accessible from the internet.
There are a few perceived downsides to cloud computing. The first could be security, especially if you are putting student information or grades online. As a school or university you need to be certain that the information you are storing is safe and secure. Normally this is done by putting information on school controlled computers behind a firewall. This is not always guaranteed with cloud applications/servers. Before you use these applications be knowledgeable about what you’re storing and the security guarantees offered by the company.
The second potential problem could be support. In a school/university environment most users rely on their local IT staff to support their applications. When using cloud apps that are not hosted by your school/university your local IT support may not be able to help you when things are not operating well. You will need to be comfortable going to user groups for support.
Hope this clears things up…at least a bit.
