"You Can Call Me Al" is probably my second favorite Paul Simon song ("Kodachrome" just barely beats it) and I've listened to it enough that this lyric stuck out for the quote of the week. What brought it to mind was Vanessa's paper about the use of Twitter at conferences. Once I read the abstract I made the prediction that Twitter would only be a distraction, and the paper does reach that conclusion at least partially.
I agree with Vanessa that backchannel communication is important during a conference so that colleagues can discuss the proceedings in an informal context. The flaw in using Twitter for this purpose is the ready availability. Conference-goers end up Tweeting while learning, thus splitting their attention, versus writing notes for sharing later in a chat room or forum. I was especially intrigued by the research supporting a lack of actual communication between Tweeters which brings the use of Twitter as a backchannel resource further into question.
On the plus side, now I know that Twapperkeeper exists. I just love typing Twapperkeeper.
Sadly, Twapperkeeper died. Twitter got restrictive with the API, and there it went. The tech that ran it, however, got absorbed by Hootsuite (another great name) which is what I currently use for archiving tweets. However, I have to be proactive -- can't just search and find archives that others have requested as you could with Twapperkeeper.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting!! I would agree, I think using a backchannel communication allows others to express their thoughts. Also, it gives a way for those who may not have contributed to the conversation a way to get their thoughts to the forefront. As Dr. Dennen and you mentioned that keeping track of them would be important for any back channel communication.
ReplyDeleteI think a counter point to the split attention could be fought with the idea that tweeting during a conference can enhance learning by being able to connect it to your life in that moment and get a more complete understanding? What do you think? I know in classrooms they are talking about making sure that the students are actively engaged in the conversation, I think this is a great way to do it in a conference setting.