Our twittering comes to an end – it has been used in the first two weeks of the course as a platform to discuss (in 140 character snippets) the course readings and to comment on the film festival clips.

So what’s the verdict?
First it’s been a deep learning curve – prior to this I have been an very casual user of Twitter but I now know how to put hasthags/RTs or @s in my message, to bring relevance to the posted message and to include tinyURLs.
I’m using TweetDeck and am able to add/move columns and it’s all very easy.

But is it fun? Not really!  Is it user-friendly – No.  Is it a relevant study tool – not necessarily.
I’ll explain:
a) using TweetDeck forces you to move between your browser and TweetDeck all the time – annoying; also if you have more then 4 hashtag columns unless you have a wide-screen monitor you are continuously scrolling horizontally.
b) as a communication medium Twitter competes with more traditional tools based around Forums/DBs which have a sound track record. The 140 character limit could in theory also be imposed on those messages. The hashtags is easily replaced by different threads. If the search function in a DB works then it’s also easier to find individual messages than on Twitter.
The only real advantage of Twitter is that you can contribute from a mobile phone so from a frequent travellers point of view this is a clear bonus. But how many distance learners are on the move all the time?

c) as to the users it is noticeable that not more than half the class did tweet, with only about half a dozen being frequent twitters; it would be interesting to note whether the others would be more active on a different platform.

Another interesting observation was posted on Twitter itself namely that the average age of the Twitter user is around their mid thirties (data 2008)- not too dissimilar of what of what has been reported about SL demographies.

Thus both these tools are not at all Digital Native apps but instead their use seems to be driven by IT-savvy early adopters many of which are working in Education.

It therefore appears to be educational madness to base an entire module on communication tools such as Twittorials as described in Andy’s blog. Reminds me of a presentation at ALT-C of an exasperated  academic of an unnamed institution who was forced to use  SL-tutorials as a replacement for classroom-based tutorials based on the fact that the institution had invested heavily in the velopment of an University SL island – absolute bonkers.

Well at least Jen and Sian have been prudent enough to use Twitter only in an experimental fashion and for that it’s been a sound experience.
It’s good to have choice and Twitter is only one of many different and equally good tools – and btw I did like the Wallwisher app.