Twittering birds and headless dogs

An old friend of mine, Carol Daunt (Brisbane, Australia) has single handedly turned me on to Plurk. Plurk, despite its silly name, is a microblogging tool that is at once both jolly good fun and strangely addictive. It got me thinking - as I clumsily divided my time between Twitter and Plurk - about the potential learning and teaching affordances of the two tools. How do they differ and how can we leverage (if we should even attempt to) these tools into pedagogy. I also implied the question about splitting time between the two, because as everyone knows, men aren't allowed to be multi-taskers! - it simply isn't credible to at least half of the population. As these social networking microblogging tools grow in popularity and users build up huge followings which make them even harder to cut loose from - how can we harness their power for better communication, collaboration and smarter learning?

So I posted this question on my Twitter stream - "Anyone using either Twitter or Plurk with students for real learning/teaching? Or are they inappropriate tools for those kind of purposes?"

Drew Buddie (The Digital Maverick from Rickmansworth, England) was first to respond within a few seconds. He reported that he had used Twitter to show his students the power of social networking in an instantaneous way - with live answer coming back from his Twitter followers. As I have done the same thing with my students recently, and also during a workshop in Austria last month, I agree that this is a powerful demonstration. Kim Gaskins (Cambridge, Massahusetts: USA) felt that the choice was clear - some of the online discussion groups she had experienced were 'a mess' and Twitter did seem a lot cleaner. This was due to the ability for users to folow specific people, choose what to respond to, guided by clearly defined icons so that they could identify who is who on a preserved feed. Ann Steckel (California State University Chico, USA) said that some of the nursing faculty there use Twitter with their students to enablen them to connect when they are working asynchronously, and that the tool is incorporated into BlackBoard.

It was brought to my attention by Michelle A Hoyle (London, England) that A J Cann (Leicester, England) is using a combination of Twitter and Friendfeed with his students with some success. Michelle herself believes that Plurk is a better collaborative tool because it is threaded and these threads can be bookmarked/archived. I admit it does seem to be more difficult to follow particular threads on Twitter, particularly when you are following 151,475 Twitterers like some people do. She advises using Tweetdeck which allows you to define groups of people and easily follow threads of Tweets. Without this kind of bolt-on tool, the signal to noise ration can be impossible to cut through. Jose Picardo (Nottingham, Ehgland) has used Edmodo.com to rationalise use of Jaiku, Twitter and Plurk.

James McConville (Vancouver, Canada) tried out Plurk after reading my tweets and declared that it seemed addictive. This is an issue I think can be attributed to the immediacy (the synchronous chat boxes) and also the 'Karma' feature which makes Plurk almost game like.

So this was an interesting conversation with about a dozen people from all over the globe, in just a few minutes. It has yielded some interesting ideas, some of which I intend to follow up on when I get a break from all the marking I am doing at the moment. If anyone else out there has any comments, views or tips on using either of these two tools, or anything related to them, please comment below. See you on Plurk. Or Twitter. Or if you are able to multi-task .... both. (I may faint).

Multi-me

You can never have too many social networking connections, I reckon. So besides all my Flickring (4 accounts), Twittering, Plurking and Facebooking, and my occasional Slidesharing, Wikiing, Ninging and Elgging, I have also joined the International Edublogger Directory (check out their blog). It won't improve the dubious quality of my blog posts, nor will it make me smarter or better looking. But it might just provide me with some extra connections out there in the blogosphere, and as Cormier and others have made abundantly clear - it's not about nodes, it's the connections that are important.

So I am member 425 on the International Edublogger community now. That's my number and there are 424 others who joined before me and whom I can connect with now, however tenuously.

Got me thinking about personal identity though.... I'm known as Timbuckteeth on most of my virtual spaces (no, not telling), and Loudli Singh (the gangly and strangely silent Asian) in Second Life who just like me, steadfastly refuses to dance. But my personal identity remains largely unchanged, I think. I'm still rooted to the here and now, and still embodied for as long as this human frame I inhabit continues to pulse and breathe away. Yet my digital footprint continues to grow on the web, as do the personal footprints of many others. And with this gradual incursion comes a certain expectation - to continue to inform (and entertain) one's growing audience of casual observers and more interested 'followers' who drop in to see what I am doing and what I am saying about my life, my work, my research, my triumphs .... even my disasters. I am more than a number you see - I am also a series of digital artefacts, a set of tagged photographs, a random collection of videos others have put together and posted up onto Youtube. I am also a series of comments and tags in other people's spaces and a hierarchical sequence of search engine responses on Google. And of course most importantly, I am me - a father, son, husband, brother, friend.

There is a picture of me on my professional website - it was taken at the ALT-C Gala dinner in Leeds this year. I call it 'Multi-me' because the picture shows digital images on cameras held up against my real-world image. That's how I feel sometimes - spread between all the digital environments I visit and the real world I inhabit consistently, even when I don't feel I am totally here. This is member No. 425, going off to get some lunch....

Summit to look forward to

I'm flying off to Barcelona in a few weeks - I have been invited to attend the Open EduTech Summit at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya by Professor Albert Sangra, whom I last met when we both presented keynote speeches at the Polish Virtual Universities Conference in Warsaw, back in June. UoC have booked me in for three nights at the Hotel Catedral, 5 minutes from las Ramblas and the Cathedral, Gaudie's unfinished masterpiece. I'm going to be talking about best practice in Web 2.0 for education at the event - the blurb runs like this:

"A small group of around 30 open, educational and technology experts will get together to share best practices, as the basis for discussions to help identify future education and technology needs and trends for next-generation educational and learning environments. The meeting’s main objective is to build a community by bridging communities (technology, pedagogy, policy) and provide an opportunity for collective collaboration. Some of the sessions will be videotaped and shared with the community. The Open EdTech meeting will also generate a white paper that targets the big challenges discussed during the meeting. The Open EdTech meeting aims to become an annual meeting, hosted by one the meeting’s participants, to ensure that continuity is brought to the discussions".

These are lofty ambitions indeed, and I feel flattered to have been invited to attend as one of the 35 or so e-learning 'experts'. A look down the list of others invited reveals some very big names, and then there is little old me in amongst them, feeling like a chihuahua in with all the Rottweilers. It will be interesting rubbing shoulders with the likes of Sugata Mitra (Newcastle University), Neil Selwyn (University of London), Mark Bullen (British Columbia), and Vijay Kumar (MIT) and I am certain I will learn a lot from them. These blog pages will be the first to know...

A little bit of culture

I am really pleased that I was able to finish off the final editing and proof reading for the new book 'Connected Minds, Emerging Cultures' which has now gone to press. A whole host of people have contributed toward the 17 chapters in the volume. The publishers, Information Age, who are based in the USA, Greenwich, Connecticut, are already publicising it on their website, and I have seen some of the cover artwork, so publication is imminent. Here's the blurb (wot I wrote meself):

As the title indicates, this book highlights the shifting and emergent features that represent life online, specifically in and around the territory of e-learning. Cybercultures in themselves are complex conglomerations of ideas, philosophies, concepts, and theories, some of which are fiercely contradictory. As a construct, "cyberculture" is a result of sustained attempts by diverse groups of people to make sense of multifarious activities, linguistic codes, and practices in complicated and ever-changing settings. It is an impossibly convoluted field. Any valid understanding of cyberculture can only be gained from living within it, and as Bell suggests, it is "made up of people, machines and stories in everyday life." Although this book contains a mix of perspectives, as the chapters progress, readers should detect some common threads. Technology-mediated activities are featured throughout, each evoking its particular cultural nuances and, as Derrick de Kerckhove (1997) has eloquently argued, technology acts as the skin of culture. All the authors are passionate about their subjects, every one engages critically with his or her topics, and each is fully committed to the belief that e-learning is a vitally important component in the future of education. All of the authors believe that digital learning environments will contribute massively to the success of the information society we now inhabit. Each is intent on exploration of the touchstone of "any time, any place" learning where temporal and spatial contexts cease to become barriers to learning, and where the boundaries are blurring between the formal and informal.

And here's a taste of the contents:

Foreword, Howard Rheingold. Introduction, Steve Wheeler. PART I: DIGITAL SUBCULTURES. Learning in Collaborative Spaces: Encouraging a Culture of Sharing, Steve Wheeler. Mobile Subcultures, John Traxler. Podcasting: A Listening Culture, Palitha Edirisingha. The Emergence of Ubiquitous and Pervasive Learning Cultures, Mark A. M. Kramer. PART II: ROLES AND IDENTITIES. Identity in Cyberspace, Hugh Miller and Jill Arnold. Digital Tribes, Virtual Clans, Steve Wheeler. Gaming and the Network Generation, Nicola Whitton. Creating an Online Course Generational Community, Leon James. The Social Impact of Personal Learning Environments, Graham Attwell. PART III: CYBER PERSPECTIVES. Emerging Online Practices: An Endo-Aesthetic Approach to E-tutoring and E-learning, Viv Tucker. Cyberculture and Poststructural Approaches, Ken Gale. Cyborg Theory and Learning, Vasi van Deventer. Transfer Through Learning Flexibility and Hypertextuality, Gorg Mallia. PART IV: NARRATIVES AND CASE STUDIES. Cybercrime in Society, Steven Furnell. Language Evolution in Txting Environments, Tim Shortis. The Cultural Impact of E-learning and Intranets on Corporate Employees, David Guralnick and Deb Larson. Imagined Worlds, Emerging Cultures, Steve Wheeler and Helen Keegan. Author Biographies. Index.

Published and unjammed

I was very pleased to see that my article 'The Good, the Bad and the Wiki: Evaluating student-generated content for collaborative learning' was finally published in paper format this morning (Yay! -paper ain't dead - it's just feeling a little off colour). Co-written with the help of Peter Yeomans and Dawn Wheeler (no relation - she's my Mrs), it focuses as the title indicates, on how wikis can be used to promote collaborative learning - for undergraduate trainee teachers. To be fair to the British Journal of Educational Technology, and editor Nick Rushby - who is a jolly decent bloke and a superb editor (that's enough of that - Ed) it has been available on Online Early for the past 9 months or so, about the same amount of time it takes to produce a baby, ironically. I wrote back in January 2007 on this blog moaning about the length of time it takes to get something 'out there' and published, so I welcome Online Early schemes even if the DOI (Digital Object Index) numbers confuse the hell out of a lot of people.

This is the first of a series of publications I am publishing soon on the work we have done studying the use of wikis and other open content software over the past two years down here in the University of Plymouth. Another article has just been accepted for publication in the Journal 'Learning, Media and Technology - this one will focus on using wikis to encourage better academic writing skills, and examines writing as a social practice. There are also a welter of book chapters on Web 2.0 tools coming out by yours truly (that means me) over the next 6 months, including one in the book edited by Stylianos Hatzipanagos and Steven Warburton, on Web 2.0 Ontologies which I have just been informed will be published by IGI Global in February 2009. I've been busy, see.

Home is where you hang your @

Yes, I know it's a bit of a lame title, but it kind of expresses exactly how I feel at the moment. I arrived home late last night from Handheld Learning 2008 in London, and got online very quickly to find out what I had missed by leaving early to catch the bus home. I always look forward to coming home again after one of my away trips, and this year I have done more than my fair share. But inevitably, my thoughts soon turn toward what is happening 'out there' again, and my window on the world is my laptop.

I will repeat here what I said to HHL 2008 chair Graham Brown-Martin yesterday at the conference. Handheld Learning is quite simply one of the best organised, professionally presented and innovative conferences I have attended in .... oh..... two years or so. It had something for everyone, whether a high level academic or a day-to-day classroom practitioner, and indeed there was a wide spectrum of around 1000 professionals and practitioners present at the event. It was a pleasure to meet up with so many friends, but also to meet and make some new friends, and rub shoulders with some of the great thinkers of our time in the field of e-learning.

Here are my personal highlights from the event: A three way conversation on social media with dana boyd and Marc Prensky, and having the entire conversation fed live to Mark Kramer's website. Meeting Steven Berlin Johnson and talking about online multi-user games and emerging cultures. Seeing a huge range of new technologies such as one touch voting systems and Wii handsets, and trying them out live for real. Seeing the new Google G1 phone in action. Listening to inspiring speeches from the seeringly incisive Ewan McIntosh and Stephen Heppell. Informal discussions, laughs and plenty of fun with James Clay, Andy Black, Kath Trinder, John Traxler, Steven Warburton, Mark Kramer, Dan Sutch and so many others too numerous to mention. Meeting Johnny Ball, John Trinder, Stuart Smith, Jill Attewell, Lillian Soon, Adele Botha and of course relaxing with a few glasses of wine as we listended to the samba, blues and jazz sounds of the excellent awards ceremony band. Two superb evening meals at Alba Italian restaurant and a comfortable accomodation at the City Road Travel Lodge (yes, it was actually surprisingly good). And the comic debacle that was Tuesday night down at Coffee Republic.

Plenty of footprints have been left on the web from this event for you to look at, read and comment on in the Twemes conference site. And of course, there is the excellent video of the event byJames Clay entitled 'Are you on Twitter?' For me, the best memories are already being transformed into learning materials for my students. I have quoted at least a dozen times today from the presentations, conversations and encounters I had earlier this week. And even though I know I will be off again soon for the next event, I'm glad to be home again for a while, because home is where you hang your @.....

Talking shop

Mark Kramer had his camera out a lot at Handheld Learning this year, as usual. He caught several of us in conversation near the front stage before the plenary session. In our conversation, Mark and myself, dana boyd, (and later on Marc Prensky) covered a lot of ground during our informal discussion including the effects of hypermedia, rhizomatic learning, constraints and affordances of technology, microblogging, data mining, democracy and privacy, freedom and online identity, etc... A number of Web 2.0 tools are mentioned including Boing Boing, Twitter, YouTube, blogging and Qik.

Have a listen in - go on, eavesdrop. We really don't mind. I'm just sorry you can't join in directly with the conversation, but you can comment on Mark's website.

Mobi Mundi on a Wednesdi

Well it is certainly a mobile world, but unfortunately not for me this morning. My iPhone battery is dead as a dodo and I have just spent the best part of an hour running the battery down on my laptop trying to get my wifi connection to work. It's Wednesday and the final day here at Handheld Learning 2008. We have been Flickring and Tweeting the conference on Twemes since the outset - take a look at the fun we have been having! I have just enjoyed sitting in the research strand on mobile technologies listening to three presentations. Mark Kramer from Salzburg, Austria was first up and talked about the future of learning using mobile devices. I like the way Maek draws on his day-to-day experiences and encounters to illustrate the key points he makes. He is doing a lot of ethnographic research and captures these human encounters as digital artefacts on video and audio devices, with live streaming to the web.

A South African perspective was offered by Adele Botha of Meraka Institute. Adele talked about the pervasiveness and ubiquity of mobile telephony in South Africa and outlined some of the key uses of the technology in education.

The main thrust of her presentation was to examine the new digital literacies such as 'mobiquette' that are required by learners and practitioners in the new digital mobile age of learning.


The final presentation was by David Cameron (yes that one - not the other one), who is based at Charles Sturt University in Australia. David spoke on the subject of how mobile media in the classroom can and do transform the educational experiences of young children. He presented some useful examples of how he and his colleagues use the technologies in drama based learning. An excellent session with plenty of time for questions and discussion, although the silubrious but elusive venue - The London Barbican Centre - was a little too difficult to find for those who may have stayed up a little late last night.

Reading, writing and rupturing

danah boyd, speaking at Handheld Learning 2008 was resplendent in her famous wooley hat and scarf. She told me she was 'feeling the cold' and pointed out that it was warmer outside that inside here at the Brewery, East London.

Danah wasted no time getting into her stride - she believes that simply incorporating technology into the classroom does not in itself promote good learning. Technologies have actually ruptured aspects of the society we live in but also constitute the networked culture we find ourselves immersed within. Educators have two responsibilities she says. Firstly, teachers need to know about the technologies that exist and how they can be used. Secondly, teachers need to understand how to apply technology to open up the world we live in to children. In short, we need to understand exactly how technology is fundamentally rupturing the world we know and how they are changing it.

Social network sites such as Bebo, Facebook and Myspace, says danah is where people go to socialise and be a part of the world. They go to engage with people who are their friends, classmates, etc. To be present without a body, we must 'write ourselves into being', creating profiles that clothe ourselves suitably for the digital environment. We also write our audiences into being by friending those who we feel are interested in us or in whom we are interested in communicating with.

The comments section of a social networking site has a different function according to boyd. She sees it as a having a third person testimonial function - using it as a space of conversation. This does not mean they don't use other means of communication such as MSN. It simply has another kind of function - a 'public form of social grooming' - a social 'upkeep' which goes beyond simply friending someone and then never speaking to them again. Teenagers are using social networking sites to 'hang out' in and in a time of increased vigilance about safety, perhaps this is inevitable.

boyd feels that there are several key features that provide the power behind social networks. The first is persistence - what is written on the web stays there. Replicability, the second feature is a two-edged sword. The ease in which we can copy and paste items can work both ways. Next, scalability - the potential to reach millions of people through posting on the web - is an important feature to consider. Searchability is also important - the ability to find people and track what they are doing is also something that can work either as a good or bad effect. de-locatability is the notion that mobile technologies make it meaningless where people are. The dynamics of the interplay between these features, says danah, is important to understand if we are to know more about how social networking tools are being used by young people.

We don't yet understand it, and this is why when we try to introduce say, Facebook into the classroom as a teaching tool, it just doesn't work. I also suspect that this is because Facebook and other social networking tools are not designed to be used in this way... the discussions will continue.

Complexity rules OK

He believes that technology is actually making us smarter, and has written 5 books about the future of technology in learning. Steven Berlin Johnson speaking at Handheld Learning 2008 says that Sim City has been a fertile and engaging learning environment for young people. The audience of course, agrees. Yet the progress toward increased engagement he says, is becoming more homogenised as adults begin to use the entertainment and technology tools their children are already familiar with. Are these trends dumbing down society? - he asks. No - there is actually a trend he says, toward more complexity, particularly within the content of new games and resources, because the interplay between environments and other elements of games encourages people to think more deeply, manipulate artefacts and objects, and generally learn better. He cites the game Civilisation as a particular game which engages people in complexity.

In this excellent exposition on the educational gaming culture, Johnson has exposed some of the key elements of how such games engage and entertain yet also create deeper learning experiences. Games intuitively engage. There are extra levels of exploration within the nested structure that makes up educational gaming, he says.

The popular TV series Lost is also a target for discussion - Johnson has discussed ontological, biological, historical, matahematical and geographical elements of the stories, cast and environment for this series. The complexities of the questions that emerge from this series, he says, equally match up to the complexity of engagement we have brought ourselves to as a society that appreciates and uses compex games. It is no longer passive TV but participative at many levels. The future of educational gaming looks bright...

What the kids say

For a conference on handheld technologies, there are a lot of laptops about. But people are also recording the action using handhled devices, audio, video, you name it. There is a lot of creativity here at Handheld Learning 2008, and the lighting, music and most importantly, the people, are creating a real buzz of expectation. We are in the plenary session for the conference, and listening to some of the keynotes.

I enjoyed some long discussions before this plenary session with danah boyd, Marc Prensky (who is sat right behind me), Mark Kramer and Steven Berlin Johnson so it pays to get to the conference venue early. danah was talking about the constraints of the technology being probably more important than the affordances, and cited microblogging tools such as Twitter as being particularly creative because they make people think more deeply about their message and also the audience they are writing for. Marc Prensky was talking about the fact that everyone is different and that people have misunderstood some of his ideas about natives and immigrants.

But it's what the kids say that matters the most, because they are the future, and we are watching a video of vox pop on how kids use the internet and technology to learn. A lot of work is being done in inner city schools to engage young minds in collaboration and inhibition in their learning (a quote from Stephen Heppell). There should not be a lot of difference between entertainment and learning and 'brain games' and 'adventure games' are favourites to hook young people. We are also watching a video of a young girl playing with Pictochat on her Nintendo DS Lite. She is scribbling and getting used to the graphics pad - not writing yet, but sitting next tyo her elder sister and learning from her. Lord Puttnam says that the power of the links between the entertainment and education sectors is vital to nurture and propogate. Games, collaboration, entertaining software, adventure and enjoyment. This is the future of education.

Handheld awards sparkle

We enjoyed an excellent opening day here at Handheld Learning 2008 tonight. The sparkling handheld education practitioner and innovation awards were hosted by TV legend and education champion Johnny Ball, (he joked that the reason he was here and not his daughter Zoe, was that she charges more than him) and several well deserved prizes walked away from the superb venue here at the Brewery, East London.

The award for Primary innovation went to Dean Bank Primary School, Durham (head teacher Chris Young, with colleagues Lynda English and Fiona Brown pictured). They set up a 24/7 access systems using PDAs so that pupils could gain support for whenever they required it. Since the start of the initiative, all parents have bought into the scheme, promising to purchase Q1 systems for the children as they transition into Secondary School. An excellent scheme and a worthy winner. Other awards were given to Manchester University and the Open University for further, higher and adult education and special needs provision.

The evening has been topped off with a great performance by a 10 piece band who have been playing samba, reggae, jazz and blues amongst other styles, and regaling the caberet style seated audience of delegates with their virtuoso performances. Have been seated all evening with a variety of the great and the good including Kath and John Trinder, Andy and Julia Pulman (they all seem to be in couples tonight!), Jill Attewell, Mark Kramer and James Clay to name a few. More form the conference tomorrow as the events unfold...

Watching the paint dry

It's been a busy day teaching with two of my BA groups having a stab at creating their first blogs here at the University of Plymouth. I have shown them how to integrate these into a Wetpaint wiki (probably the best of the bunch at the moment for functionality, ease of use and ad-free response). 'Watching the paint dry' is usually a euphemism for boredom - but on this occasion, I found it truly rivetting to watch them explore Web 2.0 tools. Time will tell what content is generated, but I'm encouraging the students to read and comment on each others' postings so that they can get the feel for how blogging works and the benefits it can accrue. Hopefully this will encourage all to create content that is engaging and informative. I also touched on social tagging and the theory behind it - the use of Delicious tagging was a particularly popular part of the session. My slideshare set has also created some interest.

In future sessions we will examine a number of other Web 2.0 tools including aggregators (probably Crowdvine and Twemes), microblogging (probably Twitter) picture sharing and podcasting. I'm impressed with the manner in which the students (almost all of whom have never done any of this stuff before) have taken to the concept of Web 2.0 and how enthusiastic they are to learn more about how these tools can be used to promote collaborative learning, encourage knowledge generation and create new educational experiences in schools and further education.

danah et mobile

I have just been into the National Express office and booked my coach travel to London for Handheld Learning next week. The bus is still cheaper than rail travel, although not as exciting. I'm following the tweets from MLearn 2008 which is on as I write and I'm a little bemused. Not a lot of new things seem to be coming out and those twittering seem to be less than enamoured by the proceedings. Maybe it's just my reading too much between the lines, or perhaps we are all becoming a little too cynical?

No matter, next week I'm attending Handheld Learning 2008 at the Brewery in London, and for once in my life, I am not presenting a paper, chairing, organising, demonstrating, exhibiting or otherwise making a nuisance of myself. I'm simply there as a punter (.....*and relax*). I am really looking forward to hearing how people are using mobile and handheld technologies in teaching and learning, and hope to make some new contacts while I'm there. Their organisation looks excellent, and they have already set up an online discussion forum and several services including Twitter and Twemes streams (just as we would expect them to!).

There are several noteworthy speakers I will be making an effort to go and hear, including Stephen Heppell, danah boyd (why is it she has her name in lower case, and what dreadful revenge does she mete out on those who fail to comply?) and Keri Facer. Marc Prensky, who is speaking at both events, will no doubt cause some consternation and controversy as usual. All have contributed significantly to our understanding of digital learning technologies, and all will no doubt have some interesting things to say. And of course, old friends such as Mike Sharples, Kath Trinder, James Clay, Mark Kramer and John Traxler should all be on good form. If you see me, say hello. I haven't bitten anyone in years....

Going for the hat trick

This year I'm going for the hat trick - speaking at the three most prestigious e-learning conferences in Europe (in my opinion at least, so don't go writing in). It will be the first time I have submitted and had papers accepted for EDEN (Lisbon), ALT-C (Leeds) and Online Educa (Berlin) all in the same year, so I'm quite pleased.

To celebrate this, I am posting my PowerPoint presentations from these conferences and others up on Slideshare just in case anyone wants to view them again. The EDEN presentation, on blogging as a teacher mentoring tool, and the ALT-C presentation, on my 5 stage wiki activities model are both up already. The Online Educa (Berlin) conference presentation will be posted nearer the date (mainly because I haven't created it yet). Also up are presentations I did in Salzburg for Edumedia, and my Edupunk presentation for F-ALT, which has already posted 200 views (That's me in the picture above, at F-ALT - a great action picture taken by Josie Fraser).

I hope my ramblings and jottings are useful to somebody out there.

Czech this out

Blimey. I'm a published photographer, me. Digital photography is a many splendoured thing. Schmap came to me a few weeks ago and asked if they could use Timbuckteeth's photograph of St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague in their latest online travel guide of the Czech Republic.

The picture appears in the Prague sights and attractions section. The travel guide blurb says:

Rising up from the centre of the castle grounds, the Gothic cathedral dominates the Prague skyline and is one of the defining images of the city and its tourist centre. The cathedral hides a number of valuable monuments including the Royal Crypt wherein lies the remains of Czech Royalty, the St Wenceslas Chapel, and the Coronation Chamber where the Crown Jewels are exhibited. The cathedral's foundation stone was laid in 1344 on the initiative of Charles IV (1316-1378) on the site of an earlier 10th century rotunda dedicated to St Vitus. It was not until 1929 that the cathedral was actually completed. Entrance to the cathedral is free although there are discreetly placed collection boxes. A charge is made for entrance to the crypt and other attractions.

I have to admit I had never heard of Schmap before now, but they seem like jolly decent chaps, and are obviously very discerning of high quality photography.... their tag says 'Beyond the Map'. All those hours spent in the darkroom were not wasted then. Timbuckteeth is off now to practice his exposures....

A proper twit

It's better than Technorati and more accurate than guesswork. It's probably also excessively self-indulgent, but then, so is a lot of the read/write web. What is it? Why it's the Twitter Grader and it informs you of the power and effectiveness of your microblogging activities.

In short, it lets you know just how big a Twit you really are. Here's how it works. It grades you on a score of 1-100 based on the following criteria:

• The number of followers you have


• The power of this network of followers


• The pace of your updates


• The completeness of your profile
  
• ...a few others (I would really like to know what those are, but they ain't telling).
  

There is even an automatic Tweet hyperlink to so you can send your rating direct to your Twitter feed (check me out - I'm Timbuckteeth in the Twittersphere). With Twitter becoming increasingly important as a social networking and communication tool, and more and more twits appearing every day, this little gismo seems like a neat tool to use to measure your progress and success levels. So I did a little exercise to see how high a Twit score my Twittersphere friends have and here are the results...

Howard Rheingold = 99.8

Josie Fraser = 95.7

Andy Powell = 91

Cristina Costa = 85

James Clay = 75

Kath Trinder = a big duck egg (0) - some mistake here, surely?

And finally, get this - Graham Attwell = Proxy Error!

My own score is 68 on the Twit scale - which means I am only a low grade twit in comparison to all my mates. So now you know just how successful a twit I am. All I need now is something similar to measure how I'm doing as a human being....

Resident evil?

Well good grief. There is plenty follow up to the digital immigrants and natives debate. Where? I hear you ask... Well, James Clay over at e-Learning Stuff has just posted up a commentary entitled 'Are you a resident or a visitor?' which addresses the debate from another perspective (read it and you will know). He includes some really useful links to other recent postings by Josie Fraser, Andy Powell, David White and others (you know ... the usual suspects) on the topic of natives and immigrants.

I must admit, this alternative distinction 'visitor' and 'resident' offers a view of behaviour in that 'other place'. I suspect though, that the 'residents' and 'visitors' tag may have been transmitted directly from the Second Life realm, and at present, my SL avatar Loudli Singh still refuses to dance....

In your face, Prensky

Marc Prensky's much quoted work on digital immigrants and digital natives is under attack (again), and his distinction between preferences, behaviours, and ... yes... even cognitive structures ... has been challenged in some recent research. Tom Hanson, Editor of OpenEducation.net shared some links with me this morning and writes:

"In recent months, research has been emerging that calls into question several of the assumptions surrounding the current generation of learners dubbed 'digital natives'. As but one example, the notion that today's students are masters of technology is simply not borne out by research. At OpenEducation.net we recently took an in-depth look at the net generation as it relates to teaching and learning."

Articles he has highlighted for free download include: 'Digital immigrants teaching the net generation much ado about nothing', 'Net Generation Nonsense' (By Mark Bullen), and 'Net generation concerns overhyped'. Well, from the titles, it looks as though these guys have already made up their minds. I have just given a keynote presentation on this very issue to a group of school teachers. I highlighted the widening gap between their use of technology and that of the children they teach. Is it all an illusion then? or is the jury still out on digital natives and immigrants?

I'll get me coat....