Micro+Blogs

Mircoblogging is a miniature blog. Often in websites, character space is limited in a mircoblog. Mircoblogging is a phenomonen that has recently taken the world by storm. Spurred on by Twitter, a social media networking website in which users create accounts and offer up "tweets," a 140-character post, many have joined the twitterverse to share their thoughts with the world. Something that sets Twitter apart from other social networking sites is that users of Twitter have the opportunity to "follow" people. This gives "normal" people the opportunity to follow celebrities and hear the thoughts that are popping up into their heads at any given moment.

Twitter, accessible by [|www.twitter.com], is the largest of any mircroblogging site, with an estimated 11 million users and growing. Microblogs serve a variety of purposes, ranging from the simple, "this is what is going in my head," to advertisements and commercials, to very short features, to keeping poeple informed.

Though Twitter may be the most common mircoblog, there are other forms out there. Yammer is another popular option though its uses differ from that of Twitter's. Yammer ([|www.yammer.com]) is another social networking sit, though it is primarily private, used for communications between organizations, members of organizations, and between members of preset organizations. Unlike Twitter, in which anyone can join any organization, Yammer is limits who can join certain networks by e-mail. An estimated 3 million users have a Yammer account.

Edmodo ([|www.edmodo.net]) is another socail networking site though its purpose is for teachers and students. Though it is compared more to FaceBook than Twitter, Edmodo is an online forum in which students can view their grades, ask questions with their peers, and view comments that their teacher has made for them. Edomodo is also a private website that ensures that only certain students and teachers can join certain groups.

Obviously given the sheer numbers of social media websites that are available, teachers should be willing to take these mediums into their classroom. However, it is a very slippery slope when teachers are engaging in social media online with their students outside of class. I believe that they can be useful tools. Twitter can be a useful tool for teachers to update their students on assignments, projects, day-to-day curriculum. Of all the mircoblogging websites, I believe that Edmodo could be the most useful. It provides students with teacher feedback, allows the students to view grades, look at the syllabus, ask questions of the teacher and their peers.

Devon Tuck

Two other microblogging sites are StatusNet and Socialtext. These are both sites that mostly deal with businesses. StatusNet is a free social network for businesses. According to[| status.net], "StatusNet's private and secure Enterprise Social Network enables your teams to collaborate, share insights, solve problems and build relationships in real time." Companies can set up private networks for their businesses, and employees then keep track of what they are working on so that companies can collaborate and groups working on projects can stay up to date on what's going on. It cuts down on the need for face-to-face or conference call meetings when group members do not physical work together.

I think the idea behind StatusNet would be really cool in high school classes. It would make communicating on group projects a lot easier. However, the same effect can be achieved on Facebook groups. Most high schoolers have a Facebook page, and teachers could encourage students to set up a Facebook group for the purpose of collaborating on group projects.  [|Socialtext.com] is a lot like StatusNet. However, where StatusNet is more of a true microblog, built on "statuses" and keeping up through short blurbs, Socialtext is founded more on profiles and looks more like a social network. It is also for businesses, but Socialtext works more on an interbusiness basis as opposed to the intrabusiness nature of StatusNet. It is good for networking between companies, but it does still work well for group collaboration within businesses.

One really cool feature of Socialtext is Socialtext 360. This is a "visual matching engine" that puts all of a user's interests and talents into a visual image that can be matched to other user's images for compatibility. This is to see which coworkers would work best together on group projects to be most creative and most efficient. This idea is also really cool for the classroom. Teachers could use something like this to match groups up for projects, or students could rate themselves, their interests and talents, and then judge each other to think through who would work best together.

Overall, different features of different microblogging sites carry ideas behind them that would be useful in the classroom. Some sites, like the ones for businesses, may not actually be used in the classroom, but it is good to learn about them to apply the ideas behing them. Obviously twitter or Edmodo would be good in the classroom, and teachers should utilize the sites students are already hooked on, like Facebook.

Ana Tanner

Microblogging sites that I found are Tumblr, Mysay, Hictu, Frazr, and IRateMyDay.

__ __ is a very clean, slick micro-blogging platform. Its focus is on simplicity and elegance. Users can share a variety of things, including text, photos, quotes, links, chats, or even videos. http://www.tumblr.com

__ __ is what it says. Instead of text updates, users call MySay and //say// how they are doing today. Then, friends or family can listen via phone, e-mail, or the web. http://www.mysay.com/

__ __ is a service for video microbloggers. A webcam and a mouse-click are all that is needed to create a videopost. This streamlined solution saves time and effort for traditional bloggers. http://www.hictu.com/ .

__ __ is also very similar to Twitter. The main difference is one of language. Frazr is focused primarily on the French and German markets. http://frazr.com/

allows you the ability to rate your day on a scale of 'Worst' to 'Great'. Users can also provide a short text update to accompany the rating. http://www.iratemyday.com/

-Monica Field