Image Credit: purple_feather by wiccked on Flickr
Some family trips bring...well...a little too much family. Like the trip when everyone has to share a room because you're staying only one night and no one sleeps a whole lot? You know those trips. Well, it all started with that kind of family trip. Early one morning, stepping out of what would soon feel like the communal shower, I heard my cell phone rumble on the counter. Toweling off it rumbled again...and again...and then again. "Mom, your cell phone is going crazy. Can't you please turn it off," my college-hunting junior exclaimed. "Seriously, mom. What is up with you and your phone," the younger, quite annoyed little sister added. And, then, my husband turned the corner in time to add his two cents: "Oh. Just ignore it. It is just someone tickling your mom."
And so my family was introduced to Twitter.
I've long since turned off those notifications, and I've given up on converting my family. But, with nearly 2000 updates and some 250 following and 400 followers I guess you could say I'm still enjoying the tickling. And, that's about what Twitter boils down to-a tickle. It may be an idea, a quote, a link, an inside joke or a little collegial bantering. It is not a wiz-bang learning tool or a complete filter. But, in the scrolling 140 character bits I connect and some of my learning pathways are forged.
During the month of March several educators and I have decided to have a little extra fun in the tickle chamber. It started out as a back-of-the-napkin brainstorm over nasty Canadian scotch with @dkuropatwa and @datruss at BLC this past summer. How could we share with our educator friends the value of Twitter to build a meaningful network? And how might we have a little fun doing it? An idea was born. We'd agree to spend a month this spring re-tweeting favorite tweets with a special tag and encouraging others to join us. Now with the help of @budtheteacher, @lizbdavis, @suewaters, and @hhg--and many of you who've agreed to help announce this--we are pleased to announce:
#Gr8Tweets for the Month of March
During the month of March we'll be re-tweeting some of the favorite tweets we find each day, and we hope you will as well. The plan is simple: Just mark your tweets with a #gr8t or @gr8t and we'll collect all the gr8tweets via RSS on the gr8tweets wiki. Here you'll find the most recent gr8tweets as well as a link to all the gr8tweets collected throughout the month. You'll also find some resource links to help you understand Twitter as well as a Google form to add your name, Twitter ID, and interests to the growing spreadsheet of educators.
To get you started I took a quick snapshot of my recent Twitter favorites. Take a look, and then get ready... we hope come Sunday you'll begin sharing yours. #gr8t!
Can I repost old favourites? I've been saving up for 2 years.
Posted by: Dean Shareski | February 25, 2009 at 07:14 PM
Absolutely!
Posted by: Laura | February 25, 2009 at 07:21 PM
Laura, Great blog post. I can't wait for this project, saw it yesterday on Twitter and got to your blog post from @snbeach on Twitter. It will get me to start adding more favorites (I forget I can do that!)
Who is that handsome man at the bottom of your screen capture. Is his tweet your favorite because of the Duke mention or Sixty?
Actually, I couldn't remember that site last week and now I do!
Thanks again, see you in the ACC tourney.....
Posted by: Mark Carls | February 26, 2009 at 09:16 AM
Now listen hear my Bourbon-drinking Southerner, we were in Boston and so the Scotch was not the nasty Canadian kind, or was it your Canadian friends you were referring to? ;-)
I don't know if remember this or not, but we met because I invited my twitter friends to join a live feed on Ustream of Alan November's pre-conference and Dean @Shareski recognized you across the room and asked me to say 'hi'... and now here we are working on a project together. It has been great working with you on this and I'm excited about the opportunity to celebrate the power of Twitter to connect a growing community of lifelong learners.
Posted by: David Truss | February 28, 2009 at 02:30 AM
@Mark Dookie That's all I got to say about i--except the banter did help me recall Stixy.
@Dave You've got one heck of a memory for a guy who never sleeps! I'm enjoying our little project as well. Just remind me that I should not try to keep up with you. What? I relish my sleep ;)
Posted by: Laura | February 28, 2009 at 07:49 AM
Blogs are good for every one where we get lots of information for any topics nice job keep it up !!!
Posted by: writing up dissertation | June 03, 2009 at 02:54 AM