Comments on: twitter vs. pownce vs. whatever is next

By: micala

micala — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:08:35 +0000

It makes perfect sense, Cole. My job at Penn State is to constantly learn/try/experiment with these new sorts of tools to figure out what might be useful to us and why – so I absolutely agree with you.

I do wonder though, if some people defend their ‘tools’ in the ways we’ve seen because it’s becoming more and more difficult to do exactly what we’re doing and keep trying new things and be ‘everywhere’ to learn what truly is our best option and see what we can learn from a new technology. I think it almost hints at the idea you were talking about in your blog post. I wonder if people are tired of ‘recreating’ themselves on every different site and wouldn’t be more willing to grow, learn, and experiment if the tool was the focus and not the recreation of the identity, and pulling people along with you for the exploration.

By: Cole

Cole — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:02:24 +0000

So I am also working to deal with the new sense of arrogance in the edublogging space I have been seeing lately — that whole perspective is very disconcerting to me. In my mind the idea behind our role as educational technologists is to explore and discover new tools that can help people shift and shape the kinds of things they are doing in and out of their classrooms. One thing that blows my mind is that people who I look to for guidance in this space are almost lost in their use of specific tools — almost forgetting one of our primary responsibilities is around the notion of discoverability of new and engaging opportunities. If we don’t participate in new environments how in the world are we supposed to inspire new users to think of novel ways to attack challenges. If I get hung up on one thing for too long it means I am ignoring new potential.

Maybe it is just me, but the pownce v twitter experience you are describing (I think I am the someone who asked people to join) has me more focused on the core ideals of my professional space — exploring to explore … not getting married to a single approach and working to be constantly thinking about how can we be part of the solution and not just another voice in a holy war protecting a single tool (perspective, approach, whatever). Does that make any sense?

By: micala

micala — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 15:05:28 +0000

Hi Biff..
I completely agree with what you’re saying here. With so many (understatement) social networking sites/tools to choose from it really does come down to what’s better for what you want to do, and what is everyone else using.
Although it’s nice to live in this dream world thinking that everyone would use the same thing, it’s certainly not going to happen anytime soon so we need to do exactly what you’re saying here. Play around, see what you like, and then figure out how it might work for you.

By: Biff

Biff — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 14:55:24 +0000

Hey Shannon,

That’s a question I’ve asked myself a lot over the last year while we’ve been developing Naked. And, now that I’m demo-ing it for people in private beta, a lot of people ask me “Why should I use this and not that.”

The answer for me personally is that you shouldn’t. What we should be doing is realising what certain things are good for, what their use really is to us. The value of that use will then determine where that tool sits in our lives.

In my experience Myspace was social and it is now the place to go and stream tracks (or entire albums in exclusive cases).

Facebook took over from Myspace as being social, but then became more a place to get in touch wiht my past rather than share my present, or arrange my future.

Twitter, like you say, is a great way of listening in. It’s kind of like text radio. There was an earthquake in England last week and Twitter said it before the BBC did.

Pownce didn’t stick for me…but I might go and check it out again, see what’s been happening.

But yeah, I think we decide what’s best by trial and error…with a good helping of instinct.

~biff~