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This article was useful to me because I have recently started to use Twitter in my own classroom as a way to get information out to other teachers as well as a tool for me to find other resources. The questions that this article presented for me are how many teachers out there use Twitter? I am constantly trying to find data to support my use, just in case the principal gets a nasty email or phone call about it. I have had nothing but positive thoughts from parents on the use of Twitter, but that could change is the wrong person found out. I have actually became a little more at ease since reading this article. I now have a good resource to finding other links on Twitter and this is something that I can show my principal to support the use of Twitter.

Keefe, This article was useful because it demystified the Personal Learning Network (PLN) usefulness for educational purposes. Some of the questions that the article prompted for me was how to utilize Twitter. I especially enjoyed reading about how Twitter was used for professional research networking. I feel that short tweets can lead to ground breaking theories that have not been presented on the internet. I also noted that there were 38 blog posts for this article. Thanks for sharing your insights. Brenda Janot

I just learned two valuable lessons…one write your work outside of the textboxes and save it because your computer may freeze and you'll lose your work…how many times have I told my online students this, yet I did the same mistake?! Secondly, develop a system of finding the same resource over again. Perhaps save it in your favorites or copy and paste the link somewhere… I spent 15 minutes trying to refind my resource. Grrr. Back to the purpose of this post...This video link provided a summary of how teachers can use a PLN such as Twitter to "stream" information for use in their classrooms. You can take what you like or let the information float by knowing that more information always comes down the stream. It provides a simple visual example of using PLN. Much of the information contained in the video has already been stated throughout our Diigo group, but I chose it because I liked how it summarized PLNs. I actually used my newly established Twitter account to find this resource. I typed "Personal Learning Networks" into the search field , scanned through the posts that were in English, found one with "teachers" in the title, which is my interest and reviewed the resource posted. I liked the resource and felt I should share it with my Boise peers. From this point, I can read further into the topic by clicking on related links or I can explore the person's profile that provided the link to get to know the source. However, I chose to take the information and move on in the interest of time. Perfect!

I love this video! I posted an article about Twitter before I watched this video, now I have even more information I can bring back to my principal to support the use of Twitter. Thanks for posting this!

I like the link. I like how descriptive it is, and it gives an interesting introduction. In my last class, (522) I did a web cast presentation on how to use twitter effectively for teaching purposes. This video validates a lot of my research on the use of twitter in education. There are so many cool social media outlets, I wonder what the next "biggest thing" will be? The presenter's English accent threw me at first, but then I envied his brogue.

I somewhat facetiously posted in my class introduction that I would not be "tweetered". I felt it only fair that I should begin my study on a topic for which I have distrust. This article did present an interesting and creative use of Twitter. The applicationn provided the means to accurately record data by having subjects record actions in real time (by tweeting). This gives the observer more accurate information, as there is no need for the subject to recall and reconstruct occurrences from memory. This research was directed toward a broader end of understanding the role of informal learning, the authors called these "learnscapes" as opposed to classroom learning. The lingering impression for me is the creativity in which technology is being applied in support of the redefinition and understanding of learning. It's why I believe this is actually one of the most interesting times to be an educator.

Timothy, glad to see you start your study with Twitter :) I agree with you- this is an interesting application of Twitter for educational purposes. I can also see some possible spin offs that could be used in my institutional setting. We have students who are off campus all over the world during their last term of chiropractic school. Perhaps they could Twitter about what patient conditions they treat each day and post links to where they found information supporting evidence-based practice for those conditions.

I thought this was an interesting example of how to use the "list" functionality of Twitter to create a professional learning community for people interested in virtual worlds. Note they recommend Hootsuite and Tweetdeck for organizing your Twitter account. I use both of these and find they help.

I've used a similar web service called Qwitter (http://useqwitter.com/). It requires you to create an account but you can set it up to email you when you lose a follower and you can even identify what your last tweet was before someone quit following you.

Qwitter? lol I also found TweetReach http://tweetreach.com/ and thought it gave some interesting data on the extent of your outreach.

Knowing the right hashtags can be like knowing a secret password that lets you explore other people's PLNs, while also getting your own content out and in front of some extra eyeballs. I'd never heard of most of these teacher-related hashtags so these should be a useful way to expand a PLN.

Automatically post stuff from one social network to others.

This excellent article examined the manner in which students of the 18th century enlightenment constructed a virtual reconstruction of various discussion venues in 18th century London. Having completed such a project allowed the students to gain insight into the manner in which social networking has been with us for quite some time and has been responsible for revolutionary associations. The authors suggest that the current climate of social networks may stimulate a similar dynamism in that the previous coffee shops, chocolate shops, pubs and taverns where great ideas were exchanged are now being replaced by chatrooms, Wikis and social websites, such as Facebook or Twitter.

This is a page that a teacher used to map out his own personal PLN. It's apparent why he named his site "Shambles" and I'm always a bit wary of any self-professed "gurus" but the fact that this guy took the time and effort to map out his full digital footprint and then publicly share it is pretty incredible. His network includes most of the usual suspects as well as a lot of resources and sites that I've never heard of. There's even an entire subsection based entirely around Second Life.

I actually follow Shambles on twitter. His website isn't elegant, but he's well known in the SL community as someone who uses his website as a resource aggregator. He is also one of the organizers of the Second Life College Fair.