Microblogging in the Classroom (Part 2)

Twitter is already being used in academia. I think we could easily adapt some of those uses for the corporate training room.

ChitChat: Students may continue the conversations outside of class using Twitter. This is especially important when the class is spread out via elearning. The students have a shared experience - your classroom. This conversation and experience now continue outside, the same as with a wiki, yet with less effort.

Connection with VIPs: You can follow the big names. For instance, when it comes to Web 2.0, I follow Geoff Livingston, Chris Brogan, Brian Solis, and Jason Falls, amongst others. What is often surprising to me is when they follow me back. Twitter flattens the org chart. Your CEO can twitter and in the process, chat with employees that also Twitter. Suddenly, everyone is just a Twitterer. It's a great way to learn from the experts or access the executive tier.

Question and Answer: Twitter can provide instant feedback. It's great for question and answer. Recently, Geoff Livingston was guest lecturing at University of Maryland. He asked Twitter - what advice would you give students for graduation? He received tons of responses, live, which were shared with his students instantly. Another Twitterer once demonstrated the power of instant feedback by asking Twitterers to call him on his cell phone while he was giving a presentation. The constant flow of calls was  so much he had to beg folks to stop calling him. His point was well proven. This can also be used with GroupTweet to pick a specific distribution list for your question tweets.

Twitter Tracking: I actually have a few issues with this one. I don't use Twitter on my phone very much. I set up phone notifications for a few folks for one month, and it was too much. Not being 22 or younger, I don't like getting constant text messages. Maybe I just need an unlimited texting plan. So now I just get Direct Messages only via text. Twitter Tracking is a cool feature that needs to be expanded to the Web. Currently, you can send Track Instructional Design (for example) to Twitter via SMS and you will recieve an update whenever someone tweets using the phrase "instructional design." You get the update via your phone. The concept of tracking, however, is fantastic. Want to know what's up with the latest iPhone update? Track iPhone. To turn it off, simply send "Untrack iPhone" via SMS. A nifty web-optimized replacement tool for Twitter Tracking is TweetScan.
For education, Twitter Tracking (even through TweetScan) could be used to track instances of language use, specific conferences, and so forth.

Note Taking/Sharing: You can ping specific tweets/thoughts as Notes using TwitterNotes. You can then share the notes with the world - or with your class.