It’s always interesting to see how something you’ve written (see ‘Digital Media Trends 2.0‘) looks once it has been re-edited and published, and this dropped through the door today. The text for the accompanying article can be found on the Evangelical Alliance website. After the Digital Symposium at Durham, many of the names in this article are familiar. Have a read and see how Christians are using the digital space.

“Professors who wish to engage students during large lectures face an uphill battle. Not only is it a logistical impossibility for 200+ students to actively participate in a 90 minute lecture, but the downward sloping cone-shape of a lecture hall induces a one-to-many conversation. This problem is compounded by the recent budget cuts that have squeezed ever more students into each room.

Fortunately, educators (including myself) have found that Twitter is an effective way to broaden participation in lecture. Additionally, the ubiquity of laptops and smartphones have made the integration of Twitter a virtually bureaucracy-free endeavor. This post describes the two main benefits professors find when using Twitter in lecture.”

Read full article on Mashable.

The podcast will be available once JISC have optimised it, but in the meantime, enjoy the Slideshare. Love to hear comments on which tools you would use. Had around 20 on the webinar, and I know several people who couldn’t make the time and are waiting for the podcast!

Author: Adam Brown, Somewhat Functional
Originally Published in Sorted Magazine

What are you doing? Its one of the first things we often ask friends and family. Even if the answer is just mowing the lawn or cooking dinner, it makes us feel connected to each others lives. Most of the time, our day to day lives are hidden from people who care. Sure, there are emails, and blogs, and of course text messages but often they just doesn’t get the job done; after all you wouldn’t send an email to a friend, telling them you were having coffee would you? What about the people who want to know about the little things that go on in your life, how do you keep them up to date with your daily goings on. Thanks to Twitter you can. Twitter makes it possible to share small bite sized updates about your life online, and follow the updates of people that matter to you via the web.

Twitter makes it possible to follow the lives of your friends and colleagues quickly and easily, many major news outlets like the BBC, CNN and Sky news post breaking news to their Twitter pages. Many Twitter users come from interesting backgrounds, their profiles reflect this, interesting web links and information is just waiting to be found out. Overtime you start to build up a view of your friends outside blogs and emails, after all real life is what happens in between these. With Twitter people start to build a picture of real life.

“How do I get started?” I hear you ask! Is easy! Sign up at www.twitter.com, and search for friends, simply by entering your email address. Twitter will then search your address book, looking for people in your list with twitter accounts. Once you have found some friends, just click “Follow”! Its that simple! Soon you will see their updates on your twitter page. Within hours you will soon see those little things that make life colourful, really stand out. Writing an update is easy, you can do it via the web at twitter.com, download add-on’s your browser, use instant messaging or even text messages. It really is that simple.

I’m sure the big question you are asking is am I safe? In a word yes. Twitter alerts you via email when ever anyone starts to follow your updates, you can then go to you Twitter page, and find out who they are, if you don’t want them to follow you, just click “block”. For added security you can make your stream private, that way only people you approve can follow your updates. If at any point you want to remove your account, Twitter also provides a Delete account function.

The big question is, would I recommend it? Over all I would, Twitter is the first thing in a long time that I have been truly excited about on the Internet. In this world of fast moving, smooth taking people, Twitter shows you the lighter side of life, after all wouldn’t it be nice to know when a friends going for lunch?

Be sure to follow us on twitter! Follow Sorted Magazine, and get the latest updates!

Further to this posting, I have downloaded a few more Genesis WordPress Child themes, still playing… not TOO long before a nice shiny site though!

An interesting experiment in using Twitter with a class of 50 history students. The best comment on the YouTube video: “Education isn’t a product/service like milk or car repair. What you are paying for is the opportunity to apprentice with someone who knows a lot more than you. What you get out of it depends upon what you put into it.”

From Flowtown. Brought to my attention by Tony Watkins.

“Filippone, “We found out that about 80 % of this generation will look at your website before they ever look into the foyer of your church.”

Social media, i.e.. Facebook, Twitter, You Tube, blogging etc. .has exploded, looking at the numbers. Facebook alone claims 400 million members, Twitter is expected to go over 26 million adults this year.”

A 16 year old says: “”I use it to communicate with everyone, I look up things. it’s just my way of life.”"

Read full article, and thanks to Pete Phillips for putting me onto this story.

Dr Bex Lewis, Blended Learning Fellow and Lecturer in History and Media Studies, University of Winchester

Content

Time is short, money is short. There’s a lot of change going on in the world, methods of communication are changing… which do we invest time or money in?

• What is Twitter? How do you use it?
• What are the ‘conventions’ of Twitter?
• What are some of the Twitter tools, third party apps, and how can Twitter lists help?
• How can Twitter help with your academic profile?
• How might Twitter help in the classroom?

Speaker

Dr Bex Lewis is Blended Learning Fellow and Lecturer in History and Media Studies at the University of Winchester. Her academic specialism is Second World War propaganda posters, which she regards as the precursor of Twitter in some ways!

Date: 1 March 2010 (1:00pm)
Venue: Online

Full information: here.

When Facebook recently added friend lists, I believed that this meant that you could post information only to specific audiences, but that wasn’t the aim – it was for you, as a viewer, to read information from specific users (so you can remain ‘friends’ with people who you don’t necessarily want to see in your feed).

Mashable, however, has given a great guide re a new ability that Facebook have now added – the ability to make each individual post or status update visible only to the people you want. Mashable demonstrates how to use that feature in tandem with friends lists to get the most out of Facebook without worrying about stepping on any toes or sharing information with an unwanted audience.

Read full story. Thanks to @CanDoCanBe for bringing it to my attention.