Position: Writer
Location: Anywhere

Description: Are you involved in the world of educational technology? Studying or teaching online? Developing elearning strategies for your institution and putting together blended learning curricula? Or perhaps you’re training people on how to make the most of a particular technology and writing up online learning materials? And don’t think I’ve forgotten about all you learning management system/virtual learning environment administrators! If you fall into any or all of these categories, (or one that I’ve missed) and you’re interested in writing about your colorful experiences, then you’ve come to the right place!

Virtually Scholastic is opening its digital doors to guest contributors who know how to wrap timely messages in witty packages. This is a perfect opportunity for writers interested in expanding their readership and amplifying their virtual voice. It’s also a wonderful chance for those of you who’ve been thinking about starting a blog but who aren’t really sure whether to make the investment just yet. Virtually Scholastic has been around since 2008 and has cultivated a loyal following from places around the world like the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, Italy, the Philippines, India, Spain, China and Russia.

If you know how to speak to a global community of practitioners (or aren’t exactly sure what that really means but would still like to have a go), then here are the steps to follow:

1. Read through some of the content at http://www.virtuallyscholastic.com to get a feel for the tone and the nature of the material.
2. Write what you propose to be the next post to be published on the site. Make it timely, fill it with interesting links, and remember to include a poignant message. Also remember to include one image along with source to accompany your writing.
3. Email your article to contact {at} virtuallyscholastic {dot} com along with a brief introduction to yourself and your work.

Guest contributors will be asked to write between one to two articles a month. Biographies of contributors will be featured on the site once three pieces have been published. Writers will also be expected to monitor discussions of their posts once comments start coming in, as well as to post occasional commentary to other VS posts.

I look forward to reading your work!

Mashable has been singing the praises of location-based apps spinning their case toward bottom-line hungry small business owners. Benefits like the ability to draw customers to your location and to create incentives that build a loyal following are being highlighted in the discussion as ways of helping entrepreneurs see the potentials of geolocation technology. I apologize if I’m pointing to the obvious, but my question is, ‘Have you lost your minds’?

Have we suddenly gotten over our hang-up of Big Brother watching us? You’re quite intent on keeping your browsing history private when you don’t want anyone knowing where you’re clicking. The notion of someone tracking your physical location bothers you less than someone knowing where you click? I understand how cell phone companies can justify providing services allowing account holders to ‘see’ where each one of their additional phones are at any given time as a way of enhancing parental controls, but are we sure we want to go down this road?

Loopt has been around for a while, so the concept of suping up our trendy, high-tech phones with the ability to tell us when we’re a few blocks away from our ex in an effort to avoid acting like a mature adult is no new thing. However, when the location-based technology market starts to bloom in all its invasive glory, one has to wonder where the demand is coming from for these developers to see enough lucrative opportunities to want to get in the game. Have you not reached the point yet where information overload is almost unmanageable and it’s come time to prune your way back to human interaction? Do you really want the general public to know where you are all the time? Evidently you do, because even Facebook is on board.

Are you happy now? Your dream of being able to notify everyone in your network of where you are has finally come true.  Your ‘network’ – that group of people you haven’t spoken to since you shared glue sticks in grade school but who you’ve perhaps nonetheless poked once or twice, or maybe, if you were feeling particularly generous, you may have even thrown a sheep his or her way.

You can even tag people who are with you!

Hold on, let me get this straight. Even when I’m having an actual face-to-face conversation with someone, you want me to pull out my ‘smart’ phone and make sure that my status and location are updated? Why? So as not to inconvenience all of my devoted followers? Come on! Aren’t we making the paparazzi’s lives a little too easy?

And what about the soon-to-be massive lists of external entities grabbing hold of your information (which may now also include satellite images of your backyard, what time you checked in at your gynecologist’s office and how cruel gravity was to you at your last Weight Watchers weigh-in)?

For right now, though, only a few apps have been selected to push information back into Places. Initially, Gowalla, Foursquare, Booyah (creators of MyTown and Nightclub City) and Yelp will integrate with Facebook Places. ~Source

From an educational perspective, there may be some ways to take advantage of this type of technology. For a multi-location based approach to teaching, such as the one adopted by THINK Global School, I suppose it might be interesting for parents, teachers and chaperons to know where students are throughout their years of studying abroad. I guess you could also try to make the case that it would be a good way for students to figure out how to read maps and learn some geography by getting used to seeing where all of their fellow classmates are munching their sandies and learning their Mandarin on any given day. But the question shouldn’t really be, ‘Can we think up a way to use this technology?’, should it?

Ok, granted when an application of a technology is so novel that it necessitates a change in the way to communication/operate/connect, etc., then perhaps we do have to approach a review of its potential benefits from a slightly crazed ‘inventor’ mind-set in which we think outside of the outer perimeters of the outside of the conventional box.

I suppose you could always design a business marketing class assignment around geolocation technologies asking students to develop creative ways of generating sales in specific industries by using any one of the smart phone apps out there. Some ideas that come to mind are thinking of how the restaurant industry can benefit, or perhaps the travel sector, and questioning the relationship between location-based technologies and the ever-present community rating models like Yelp and Tripadvisor, and more recently Hunch.com. Then again, that might be construed as condoning this type of technology, and to be honest, it comforts me to convince myself that it’s only a fad.

I guess if we look at the bright side, at least playing this type of ‘video’ game gets you out of the house.

What does ‘open’ mean in the context of education? Many have shared their opinions on what they think ‘open’ represents, but that’s not really the point, is it? I mean, sharing our views may contribute to the discussion, it may open some eyes and maybe even change a few perspectives, but it hasn’t led us to the answer yet. Does that mean no one really knows the answer? Merrily skipping a little further down this stream of thought, I wonder, if no one really has the answer, there’s no reason for me not to share my point of view too. What’s the worst that could happen – I look silly, unaware, perhaps a touch confused? However I look, everyone else is varying shades of the same color, so here’s me jumping into the debate.

To this humble student of life, ‘open’ education means accessible education. If it weren’t for openness, I wouldn’t be picking up my masters degree in a few weeks, I wouldn’t be singing the potential benefits of technology to whomever will listen, and I most certainly wouldn’t have had the pleasure of collaborating with brilliant minds from all over the world, all interested in pursuing their passion to explore how technology can impact the way they learn and teach.

‘Open’ doesn’t necessarily mean free, but it definitely means affordable – at least to the consumer. Case in point: I am still paying off my undergraduate loans, but I closed the account that funded my masters quite a few months ago. ‘Open’ may not necessarily represent the cheapest option for the institution, but once all that front-end heavy investment has been made, it most certainly has the potential to represent the most efficient, scalable and transferable option. Perhaps if I had waited just a few years, I could have accessed my graduate course materials for free on iTunes U where the OU ranks in the top 5 most downloaded sources in this fruity academic database. That wouldn’t make me eligible to receive my coveted competitive ammunition (a.k.a. my degree certificate), but that doesn’t mean I still wouldn’t be smarter for it.

To technologists, ‘open’ has a lot to do with trying to figure out how to avoid reinventing the wheel. For legal teams, it’s predominantly about how to navigate the slippery slopes of copyright laws. To academics…well, that one is a bit difficult for me to answer. You see, I’ve spent many years working on the ‘other side’ of the academic profession. I was a part of university administration, which essentially means that I was not ‘one of them’. However, I did have the privilege of working with many of ‘them’ (to at least attempt) to expand their awareness of what educational technology could mean to them and to broaden their understanding of ways in which ed tech could be incorporated into their worlds if they decided to give it a chance. So you see, all I can do is tell you how I perceive the way academics interpret ‘open’.

There is one school of thought that shuns the concept of digitizing any intellectual materials that it undoubtedly took these brilliant minds centuries to cultivate. These ‘inner two-year-olds’ barely feel comfortable releasing 8th generation photocopies of PowerPoint presentations to their well-paying students (6 per page so as to ensure maximum note-taking real estate). The idea of adapting their materials to fit an electronic learning environment suitable to enrich the lives of an exponentially larger group of eager beavers is simply out of the question. Why? Good question.

The other school of thought, the one with which I had much more of a pleasure working, accepts the notion that perhaps there may be some benefit to learning new ways of communicating. They concede that there may in fact be some truth that changing the way we communicate might better enable the current generation of teachers to convey information to their audiences in inspirational ways. As you can see, the title of ‘information sharer’ fits this Generation 2.0 of teacher much better than the ‘sages on dusty stages’ that precede them. Think of it like an iPhone versus a telegram – both get a message across, but the quality of the message, the way we go about receiving it and how we choose to interact with it are very different. Students may be sitting in lecture halls, texting and doing their very best to provide evidence of just how many twits there are in the crowd, but in this unfortunately common act of ignorance, they’re also sending a very valuable albeit crudely packaged message to their leaders and guides: we use technology to get our messages across, why aren’t you?

I realize I’m generalizing, but at this stage of the debate about openness, it’s difficult to deny that we haven’t yet come close to finding a middle ground. But why look at technology through bitter colored glasses smeared with resistance? After all, technology is as much a vehicle of information transfer as paper is. The difference is that whereas paper can be viewed as the byproduct of massacred forests, the Internet (for to use the term technology would be much too gnarly a maze to navigate in the context of this discussion) could just as easily be seen as a voracious devourer of our privacy. The production of paper is contaminating our planet. The Internet is home to evil predators. Producing paper pollutes our water supplies. Surfing the electronic waves of the Internet is dangerous because ‘they’re watching you’.

Is it at all clear how ridiculous the argument against anything can become whenever we refuse to bend our perceptions just enough to see things a little differently? Paper has also been an invaluable tool facilitating communication through generations. Some of the most important decisions made on the planet have been recorded on paper. Art, history and love have been created on paper. As for the Internet, it has provided access to medical care in some of the most remote places on this planet, given the opportunity for children to learn in areas where traditional schools don’t exist, and facilitated the cultivation of countless communities of like-minded individuals seeking ways to connect and contribute value to society.

And what about teachers teaching teachers? Isn’t it possible that there are new instructors out there, just entering into the world of knowledge sharing, who would greatly appreciate a benchmark approach to course development? Wouldn’t having access to some of the most renown higher education institutions’ courses (Yale and MIT come to mind) have the potential to add value to the educational offerings provided by any countries at all interested and able to access and make subsequent use of the information, regardless of whether it’s to inject new lifeblood into university, high school or even elementary school curricula?

All I’m saying is…try being open. The middle ground isn’t that far away.

Have you ever been out to dinner with a group of people and experienced the ‘iPhone Moment’? It’s the moment when a question is posed by someone and once the alpha members of the group realize that they’re not able to come to a quick consensus on an answer, everyone automatically pulls out their iPhones and starts dislocating themselves from the physical world in an effort to plug the relevant node into the appropriate information socket in order to suck out the exact notion required to put everyone at ease that the crisis has been averted and the correct factoid has been successfully isolated. And thus, the iPhone saves the day. Everyone is happy. Everyone looks relaxed again. Everyone can unclench and comfortably move on to the next topic of conversation…that is, if you can still call this morphed social phenomenon a conversation.

I’ve noticed that unless you choose not to pull out your iPhone during the iPhone Moment, you won’t be privy to the cultural nuance taking place. (And yes, in this context, I’m going to make a generalization that you have an iPhone, but if that really offends you, pick your tool of choice and move on with the story). I like to have my phone with me when I go out. It makes me feel safe to know I can make a call if I find myself in an emergency situation. It comforts the admittedly anti-social side of me that sometimes wishes she was invisible so that she could mercifully escape from a social event unnoticed, but since we’re still dealing with the limitations of invisibility technology, having an iPhone is the next best thing – even if it is just to update my status on Facebook (and hope that no one else in the room who happens to be in my network notices). But having observed this scenario numerous times (as depressing as that is), I have noticed that those pulling out their pocket rockets seem to be so intoxicated with the idea of having information instantly accessible at their fingertips that the lack of social awareness manages to escape them. Suddenly it’s ok to ignore their surroundings while silently tapping their screens as they progress on their labyrinthian journey of hyperlinks leading to the golden chalice of knowledge, wisdom and all things technology. But does technology have a place at a dinner party?

Why am I asking myself this question (particularly since I’m still quite a fan of the iPhone and enjoy the lifestyle improvements its bestowed upon me despite the occasional collision into the over-technified social gathering)? Well, it’s partly because I’m wondering where we’re headed as a civilization if we revert to telephones to communicate with people who are sitting right in front of us. And perhaps it’s also partly because I’m trying to understand the nature in which we acquire or accumulate or access information (depending on your school of thought) in the first place and what we do with it when its served its purpose. And that really begs the question of how we view information in the first place if we simply see it as a piece of disposable data. What happened to enriching our own personal lexicons, taking the time to listen to fascinating stories told by masters of the literary world (both revered and emerging), learning new things about the ecosystem in which we live and then melding all that information into an exchange with other like-minded individuals who are all present and aware and engaged (as well as engaging)? And maybe I’m also asking myself this question because of something I read today.

Larry Sanger, one of the founders of Wikipedia, wrote a paper published by Educause entitled, ‘Individual Knowledge in the Internet Age‘ in which he stands on quite an intriguing philosophical platform as he examines the impact that the relationship between education and the Internet is having on society and the individual. Does memorization have a place in a world where we can create an iPhone Moment whenever we want? Are we cultivating the next generation of independent and novel thinkers or very expensively trained parrots?

But he goes much deeper than just an exploration of the residual effects of increasingly easier access to information. He broaches the topic of individual vs. collaborative learning. Is one better than the other? Communities of practice are popping up faster then mushrooms in the dark, damp forests of Northern California. Pedagogies are celebrating the virtues of students learning from one another and teaching each other in group contexts. Everyone is being encouraged to learn in a social context…but when does deep contemplation take place? Where do we find the silence in which information can germinate, intermingle with our existing knowledge structures and eventually contribute to a rich perceptive worth sharing? How do we support the creation of new knowledge (and by new knowledge, I don’t mean opinion on top of commentary and sprinkled with a dash of guesswork)? In a world in which organizations put pressure on their top researchers to find a fast answer to an immediate issue, how do we make the time to think about the long-term solution?

And then we get to the topic of ‘boring old books’ – are they outdated forms of irrelevant information that are simply doing an injustice to the world population of trees, or is there value in a book? To try to answer that question for myself, I’m going to look back to my recent graduate studies. I studied online, I studied independently, and I was encouraged to study in groups. Out of all the ways that I studied, I didn’t manage to study from books. That is a horrifying realization, albeit a general one (for yes, there were times when I studied from books, but the point is that I was by no means spending my days surrounded by towering shelves of books in one of those….what are they called….museums…..no…..shrines……no…..ah, yes! Libraries!). I remember receiving my very first course package and opening up a box full of books. I was so excited. I couldn’t wait to start reading them. I still can’t. They sit largely unopened in the part of my personal library dedicated to all things elearning. I’m sure I’ll get to them one day, after all, free time is an inevitability at some point in one’s life…right!?

I’m not suggesting that I have the answers, but I do admit to liking the questions, which, if I go by Sanger’s reasoning, means that I’ve at least grasped a bit of knowledge to know some of the questions to ask, and that’s nice to know. Technology is a tool, but we are the instrument. Let’s not forget that.

So it’s been a while. I have to admit that ulterior motives have propelled me back into the blogosphere. I’m returning to VS not because I’ve been particularly moved by an ed tech article or because I’ve come across a funky new technology I wanted to show you.  To be quite honest, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my short stint away from anything and everything related to online learning. You see…

I finished my Masters in Online and Distance Education in December ’09, and from the moment I submitted my final piece of work, there was a part of me that knew I needed to take some time to recover. Perhaps that’s a common response felt by many a grad student, but the way in which I’ve been repelled from all things technology (even my shiny new iPhone at a certain point, or the untouched iPod shuffle that’s been sitting on my desk in its original box for over a month now) was quite surprising to me. After all, one thing I’ve learned about myself throughout this process has been that I have a natural tendency to seek out new technologies, determine in what ways they work within an educational context, experiment with new applications, and join emerging groups excited to share their common interests in the field.

Maybe it was a case of me just overdosing on technology, but funnily enough, I didn’t suffer from the often paired imbalance of information overload. In fact, I’ve been deliriously delighted diving into books – the real PAPER kind! – ever since I officially parted ways with my student self and reentered into the adult world. I’ve even succumbed to redecorating my workspace in an effort to reflect my internal desire to reconnect with the less virtual literary world with which I think I might remember briefly engaging back in high school for a day or two.

I’ve unapologetically started piling books onto my revamped workspace – not elearning books, not research books, not even learning and teaching books – but the kind of books that you want to fall asleep reading at night and reopen in the morning as you take your first sip of steaming caffeinated goodness. My home office is now adorned with candles propped up on rounded glass plates, next to a crystal hourglass that’s been sitting in its original gift box somewhere in the back of my closet for long enough that I can’t remember when I got it in the first place. The coffee mugs are still there (for what an empty cerebral world it would be without them!) but no more do I have to burrow myself in piles of file folders stuffed with printouts of assessment criteria for upcoming assignments.

So back to those ulterior motives. They relate to this adult world I speak of, so often associated with mountainous career paths to climb and saturated weekly calendars to survive. It’s time to enter into the working world again, and for many of us instructional designers, our blogs are our calling cards – even more important in many ways then our CVs. So, I welcome this New Year, albeit slightly late, with this first post of twenty ten. Getting back in the game as it were… But now that I think of it, perhaps I did read something recently that’s sparked this train of thought…

I received a mailing a few days ago from my Alma Mater inviting me to join its graduate association. The group’s slogan is “In my end is my beginning” – a sentiment that so brilliantly encompasses my current state. I suppose you could say that I feel accomplished, but coupled with a presumably organic sense of achievement is this bittersweet taste of being back at square one again, and no matter how many coffees I gulp down, the bitter taste doesn’t seem to be going away. Maybe it’s got something to do with the unemployment rate or with the economy, or with the general uncertainty of the times.

In any case, regardless of my recent momentary shun of all things technology or of my desire to temporarily disengage from the virtuality of so many of the worlds we live in these days, I have continued to do one very important thing through this whole process. I’ve been determined to remember that many of my experiences as a student in the world of educational technology are most probably also experiences that other online students have shared. And now I find myself holding these thick tomes of lessons learned and knowledge gained close to me as I begin to look around for a new place to put them down so that I can share them with others.

I think that in the end, the most cherished lesson I take away with me from graduate school is of how important it is to be as observant, tolerant and open minded as we can be when we are students because that is the best way to ensure that we are heard when it is our time to teach.

Strange question? Well, perhaps at first glance, but when you think about it, technology can easily become a part of so many aspects of our lives. Whether you have committed to studying online on a full-time basis, or you’re wondering if maybe a part-time option is more manageable for you, there are many many options from which to choose!

Something that I noticed after I got comfortable in my ‘online learning hat’ was that the ‘online’ or ‘e’-learning or ‘technical’ part of my learning experience very quickly melted into the other parts of the process. Soon, I began to see it as my customized, border-less and self-empowering learning experience minus the ‘e’. As time went on, it became less important to isolate the ‘online’ part because the technology became one of the many important aspects of my learning experience.

So that brings me back to the holidays! I know that not everyone celebrates at the same time, and not all of us share the same traditions, and there’s certainly quite a lot of travel that takes place during this time of the year, so I think it’s safe to say that not all of us celebrate in the same place either! But, what I’m really interested in talking about here with you, is how (or even whether) you’ve incorporated technology into your holiday traditions. To start us off, I’ll share a story…

I was hiking in Big Basin Redwoods State Park yesterday with a couple of friends. One of them asked me if I had any ideas about organizing a dinner or some sort of party for our social group. I started thinking about it, slept on it over night, and then inspiration hit once the alarm went off this morning! With coffee in hand, I began sifting through all my cookbooks, and put together a menu for a potluck dinner. Then, I started thinking about how to give people access to the menu and the recipes and, a little while later, I came up with an e-vite as well as a dinner menu plus all the recipes! How? Technology! Yes!

Now, I know that a paper and pencil would have worked too, or even making photocopies and mailing them out would have gotten the message across. But I think that technology represents the option to do things differently. I’ll even go a step further and say that one of the most important things that technology allows us to do is to communicate differently. That’s what online learning represents to me – a different way for teachers to get their messages across to students, and an alternative way for students to receive those ideas and form educated opinions about them for themselves. And if you consider how unique and multifaceted each of our perspectives are as we look around in this world and try to make sense of it, we can use all the alternatives we can get!

For some of you, it might still be too early to talk about the holidays, while for others, you’re already planning guest lists and wrapping gifts. I’d like to share my little dinner invite with you, as well as the menu items and recipes. If you’re inspired, you’re more than welcome to use them to create your own events. Or maybe…they’ll inspire you to think about others way that you can use technology to make your holiday season more festive and enjoyable!

I’m involved in a great initiative that I wanted to share with VS readers. Core4Women is a collaborative online community hosted in Ning that brings together women who are open to sharing their experiences with online and distance learning with other women who might be considering jumping into the elearning pool themselves. As a mentor, I share my experiences and expertise with this community in order to broaden awareness of the nature and potential benefits of online learning.

One of the ways that mentors can support women in this community is by engaging in email exchanges and live text chats with community members, as well as contributing to discussions we have on the site. We also host informative web conferences via Elluminate during which mentors introduce topics of interest to the group and both mentors and the members seeking advice can come, watch, learn and contribute.

In the spirit of exploring creative ways of using technology to further engage us in our efforts to develop this community, I’ve created a couple VoiceThreads. If you’re interested in becoming part of this great initiative (with members now spanning the globe!), you’re welcome to sign up. And, if you’re really feeling adventurous, you’re more than welcome to add a thread to either of the discussions below!

Once upon a time, there was a photographer who traveled the globe, snapping stills of the magic that takes place in the backdrop of our busy lives. She had a son who she brought with her to more countries than I can name off the top of my head. In the process, she gave him the opportunity to learn from a world of no borders, a world of multi-cultures, a place where the differences represent the similarities and where nature organically translates the everyday into things for which to be truly grateful.

When it came time to pick a school where her son could continue his education in a more formal setting, she realized that formality came with limitation. The physical walls that so often compose a classroom represented restrictions and limitations that were not present in the global classes her son had the privileged of attending thus far. So…the wheels started turning…and THINK Global School began.

The world’s first global high school. 12 trimesters in 12 countries. Technology that connects students with teachers with mentors with the world. It’s an honor and a privilege to be part of a movement that will empower the incredibly fortunate young minds who will embark upon a path of education that truly represents the global mind to which we all contribute each and every time we click our mouse, google a word, post a blog entry, or even watch a video. THINK Global School is the best example I’ve seen of expanding the concept of education to create a new school of limitless possibility.

Have a look for yourself, and see what you think.

The Chronicle just wrote a piece about Northern Virginia Community College and how the school has incorporated online teaching into its emergency plan (i.e. teach online when natural disaster strikes).

It’s great that this institution is setting a minimum level at which teachers are required to be trained in the use of some technologies, and even greater that training is being provided. However, if the motivation is to get courses online fast in case a disaster strikes sooner rather than later, it makes me wonder how thoroughly sound pedagogical principles are being considered. If they aren’t high on the agenda, then what we have here is an all too common scenario in which face-to-face courses are just being ‘transferred online’. Translation: weekly PowerPoint presentations, a few handouts, some links and maybe a room change announcement are all that students are going to get out of their virtual learning experience.

I’m just not grasping the logic here. Why do we have to have an emergency before we start considering the benefits of online learning? I suppose that one good thing to come out of this type of practice is that it’s getting people to rethink the way that they can deliver their courses, but who is to say that an Internet connection or even a power source will be accessible in a natural disaster?!

I suppose that sometimes…it takes the perception of necessity to get us to embrace change…or, at least to start thinking about how that embrace would look.

A couple of months ago, we were encouraged to start using Twitter in one of my masters-level online courses. I was debating whether or not to follow the media hype, give in and sign up for a Twitter account, but then a thought dawned on me:

‘What’s the difference between Tweets and Facebook status updates?’

I’m a regular Facebook user (it hasn’t started getting on my nerves yet). I update my status a few times each week and rather enjoy reading the updates of those in my network. So I didn’t really understand what added value a Twitter account would give me.

While in the throws of this heated debate with myself (oh yes! heated I say!), I posted a message in my tutor group’s discussion forum asking my fellow classmates whether they saw a difference in these two forms of microblogging?

Days went by, status updates updated, and yet no one responded to my message in FirstClass. So, I let it go and moved on to the next week’s tasks, deciding not to become a Tweeter after all.

It’s just a few weeks ’til the end of my MA, and as I find myself contemplating how I’ll structure my FINAL project (!!!), my mind seems to be wandering back to that lonely question.

This time though, instead of looking for answers among my kind, I head to Google, which in turn leads me to Gavin Purcell’s blog post in which he attempts to answer this very question! Instead of posting a message in a restricted-access discussion forum that’s hardly been used lately since I have a feeling that we’re all slowly but surely being sucked dry by all the course work (not to mention life!), Purcell went right to the source. He relied on his Twitter network for answers and posted a Tweet with the very question that’s been on my mind for weeks.

In his blog entry, he made note of some answers his Tweet generated. Just for a virtual moment, I’d like to take a look at a few of them, break them down and reflect on whether they help me figure this one out. However before I start, I feel inclined to state that this ‘breaking down’ process is totally based on my perspective in an effort for me to make sense of my understanding of these two technologies. It’s by no means a way to criticize any of the Tweeters. If you have a different viewpoint to share, you’re more than welcome to add a comment below .

@techdiva66 twitter is short, character-limited updates & facebook gives you more options for communicating as well as games & apps

Two things about this answer:

(1) Emphasizing the character limitations of Twitter makes it sound like Facebook status updates are verbosely cumbersome (i.e. long), which is really not true at all. Personally, I haven’t seen many over 20-25 words with most ranging between 2 and 10 words.

(2) We’re just talking about status updates vs. tweets here – not debating the similarities of the two platforms.

@jpurnell twitter is lower-stakes status updates

Why lower-stakes?

@brew7vwp on twitter you talk to strangers you like, on facebook you talk to friends you barely remember

Interesting…this, I think, could be true, depending on your networking strategies. I actually ‘like’ the people in my Facebook network (what up homies!?!) although I am sometimes put in a awkward position to keep it that way. So, this one doesn’t quite apply to me but I can see how it could be relevant to others. Moving on…

@victordlt Twitter is Facebook in KISS mode (Keep it Simple Stupid). More Simple and Faster.

How long do these people take to post status updates and who do they think reads them!? I suppose if my Facebook network was composed of work colleagues and I was trying to professionally brand myself through the updates (…isn’t that what LinkedIn is for…?), then ok, I can maybe see how it might be stressful to post an update. But I’ve never really associated updating my status as a difficult or time consuming activity. Am I missing something here…?

@calindrome Twitter is a cocktail party; Facebook is recess.

…k…I had to think about this one for a while.

Cocktail party: frivolous, cheeky, unpredictable.
Recess: break time (with the intention to get right back to work), catching up with those you know.

Yeah, ok, this makes a lot of sense. But how would this answer help justify Twitter as an educational technology tool?

@Goose Facebook is Twitter for people with Internet agoraphobia.

…taking that to mean that Twitter supports a more open network structure…ok…worth noting…

@JD_Southard Facebook is so 2008. Twitter is a social networking experiment in real time connecting people thru a limited # of characters

I have to be honest with you…I actually like words so this one doesn’t sell me on Twitter… Nor is the 2008 reference that convincing since I’m trying to play devil’s advocate with new and emerging technologies in order not to fall into the habit of adopting technologies for the sake of technology.

@ahachmi twitter is where you can vent your mood, sure fbook does the same, but in Twitter it is nothing but the venting of thoughts.

So…why would anyone choose to be witness to venting? And if Twitter is the vent, then what is Facebook? The vaccuum? The Swiffer Duster?

@MyNameisRazzle Facebook Status without the Facebook.

Which brings me back to my original question – is there any value added in having accounts with both?

After going through this little self-imposed reflective activity, I think I’ve come away with more questions than answers. I’ve clarified some important things for myself though: Twitter = open network structure & cocktails vs. recess. Personal networking strategies may also play an important role in the dynamics of these two platforms but clarifying the intentions of the users and knowing one’s audience might be helpful here. But maybe it’s too soon to make any judgments seeing how quickly things are changing.

I should get back to work now, but before I go, I wanted to leave you with a little side note: as I was drafting this post, I updated my Facebook status, asking my network what they thought was the difference between Tweets and updates. Perhaps it’s because it’s the middle of a week day and everyone is hard at work, but I didn’t get any replies.