The Twitter Lists

Mashable, one of my favorite websites, has several different Twitter lists going on its well-known Mega Lists page these days, including:

85 Comedians to Follow on Twitter
100+ of the Best Authors on Twitter
85+ of the Best Twitterers Designers Should Know (scuse me?)
Twitter Professors: 18 People to Follow for a Real-time Education

If you’re a sucker for lists, like me, then you might want to check these out. Here’s just a sampling of some of the Twitterers on the lists:

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Get Yourself a Twitter Mosaic

I stumbled across Twitter Mosaic over at Joan Vinall-Cox’s blog, WebTools for Learners. I follow Vinall-Cox’s blog pretty closely, checking in with her to read about the latest trends in instructional technology.

Lo and behold — a recent post showed Joan’s Twitter Mosaic and I decided to try it out for myself. Twitter Mosaic simply asks for your Twitter ID, then quickly provides you with a code that you copy and paste onto your blog to view your own mosaic — a look at the faces of your followers. How cool to see it all in one place. BTW: It’s the longest code ever, so keep that in mind. And the more users you have, the longer the code.

So here’s mine. (I’m not sure how Sarah Palin got in there, but I’m sure I’m not following her.)

Get your twitter mosaic here.

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Follow Along as the World Votes

twitter vote report

Image by cambodia4kidsorg via Flickr

OK, if this isn’t a teachable moment, I don’t know what is.

Another giant in the social media world, Twitter, will be making Election Day instantaneously more interesting for anyone who wants to follow along as-it-happens or wants to keep a wary eye on the day’s voting operations.

Calling all teachers! What a great lesson for high school students on Tuesday.  Log on and watch the action.

Specifically, Twitter has created  Twitter Vote Report to assemble reactions and reports from Twitter users, whether they’re standing on a long line to vote, watching TV reports, or experiencing something unusual at the polls. You can use the Twitter “hashtag” #votereport for tracking tweets and to participate.

You can also do any one of the following, according to Twitter:

If you currently use Twitter, send a message after you vote that begins with #votereport (this is critically important for ensuring that your message gets to the right place.) Then write some or all of the following:

#[zip code] to indicate where you’re voting; ex., “#12345″

#machine for machine problems; ex., “#machine broken, using prov. ballot”

#reg for registration troubles; ex., “#reg I wasn’t on the rolls”

#wait:minutes for long lines; ex., “#wait:120 and I’m coming back later”

#good or #bad to give a quick sense of your overall experience

#EP+your state if you have a serious problem and need help from the Election Protection coalition; ex., #EPOH

If you want to use your cell phone, you can also text messages to 66937 and begin your message with #votereport.

I hope we can all report in that things were #good.

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Learn How to Elect a President

Common Craft has done it again, producing a simple and amusing how-to video, this time on how we elect U.S. presidents. Common Craft, an ingenious company started by Sachi and Lee Lefever of Seattle, Wash., produces videos (public and available on YouTube and other video sites, and enhanced versions for corporate use) about somewhat complex topics in a simple-to-understand way. Using narration, paper cut-outs and animation, Common Craft videos include “RSS in Plain English,” “Twitter in Plain English,” “Wikis in Plain English,” and more. They’re fun to watch and easy to digest, and I often use them in my Web 2.0 workshops.
Their latest entry is “Electing a U.S. President in Plain English,” a must for anyone still confused by our popular vote vs. electoral system of electing a President. I can tell you it helped me, and this might be the perfect teachable moment for anyone — adults, kids, first-time voters.

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An Interesting Twitter Development…

US Senator Barack Obama campaigning in New Ham...

Image via Wikipedia

OK — this is interesting.

I’m not much of a Twitter user, sending Tweets there a few times a week and scanning the people and groups I follow (Grammar Girl, PROpen Mic, MakeUseOf and a few others) for interesting article and posting ideas.
But last night, I decided to search for Twitterers to follow. My first addition was Barack Obama, who I thought would be a great friend to have on Twitter. Sure enough — less than an hour later, “he” was following me. Or his campaign people were following me, anyway.
This morning, I woke up, signed on to my email account, and saw a notice that Obama Girl was now following me on Twitter. OK — that makes sense. A bit unusual, but now I’m following her as well.

But then — by lunchtime, SarahPalinFeed was following me. Now how the heck did that happen? Somehow, I felt violated.

The beauty of Twitter is that you don’t have to follow someone back.

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Librarians are Cool

Libraries almost invariably contain long aisle...Image via Wikipedia

I know I’m dating myself here, but I don’t remember ever having a cool librarian as a kid. Instead, the librarians I knew had pursed lips, shushed people for a living, and slept with the Dewey Decimal System.

Not today. Librarians are Twittering, Facebooking, blogging, wiki-ing, and definitely not sleeping with the Dewey Decimal System.

If you want proof, take a look at the Library page of the Online Education Database, which currently contains reviews of 1,081 programs from 86 accredited online colleges. There, you’ll find tons of references written by and for librarians about using social media in libraries around the country.

Here’s what the Library page says about Twitter, for example:

Twitter is a free communication and social networking tool which allows you to convey short messages of up to 140 characters to your circle of friends via the Twitter website, SMS, email, IM, or other Twitter client. Messages appear not only within your profile on Twitter, but are sent to your community of followers who have signed up to receive your updates. Often referred to as microblogging, this new phenomenon has caught on with over 300,000 users on Twitter alone including Barack Obama and John Edwards. Twitter recently made the cut as one of Time’s Best 50 Websites of 2007. Librarians are using it to communicate at conferences and events and to keep up with developments in the field, and libraries have begun using it to promote their services.

Among their listings are librarian-only applications and networks like:

Shakespeare High Cafeteria: This online tribute to Shakespeare features active discussions about Shakespeare news, book clubs, a creative writing center, “staff lounge,” study help and teaching ideas.

Readers Read: Browse forum topics like publishing industry, general fiction, mystery/thriller, children’s books and nonfiction.

TeacherLibrarianNing: Educators and librarians get together on this network, where you can join groups, post photos, upload videos and more.

The Shifted Librarian: Librarians connect through this blog about library news, trends and of course, books.

Librarian Facebook Application: This Facebook app connects you to other librarians who can answer your search questions.

They also list a number of social media sites for librarians and book-lovers, including:

Shelfari: This blog about books and book collecting has a MySpace page and a Facebook application.

GoodReads: Keep track of what you and your friends are reading through this online networking site.

BookJetty: BookJetty lets users organize, rate and review books and even look up books in the site’s database of over 300 libraries around the world. Users also get a blog that lets them show off a “bookshelf” to friends.

MySpace Books: This ultimate social networking site has a page just for books, connecting readers, authors and those in the book industry.

Books iRead: Another Facebook app that lets you rate, review, and share books you’ve read.

You can also catch a number of 21st century posts on the site, including these:

50 Ways to Use the Wii In Your Library

100 Essential Firefox Add-Ons for Librarians

e-Learning Reloaded: Top 50 Web 2.0 Tools for Info Junkies, Researchers & Students

100 Ways to Use Your iPod to Learn and Study Better

Need any more proof that librarians are cool? I don’t think so.  Now shush!


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Ambient Intimacy? Guilty as Charged

SwurlImage by gniliep via Flickr

I was fascinated by Sunday’s New York Times article, “Brave New World of Digital Intimacy,” in which writer Clive Thompson examines the increasing use of social media like Facebook and Twitter. Guilty as charged — it seems the more I use them, the more I rely on them.

The piece looks back at Facebook’s decision to introduce the “News Feed” tool, which initially created a firestorm from users who felt that constant updates about their activities on Facebook was an intrusion. But then, just as suddenly, the tide turned.

In essence, Facebook users didn’t think they wanted constant, up-to-the-minute updates on what other people are doing. Yet when they experienced this sort of omnipresent knowledge, they found it intriguing and addictive. Why?

Thompson’s piece notes that scientists have a name for this kind of nonstop online contact: “ambient awareness.”

It is, they say, very much like being physically near someone and picking up on his mood through the little things he does — body language, sighs, stray comments — out of the corner of your eye. Facebook is no longer alone in offering this sort of interaction online. In the last year, there has been a boom in tools for “microblogging”: posting frequent tiny updates on what you’re doing.

Twitter, of course, is the premiere site for microblogging, where more than 2 million users provide brief updates about themselves, their work, their daily lives, sometimes on a minute-by-minute basis.

The Times article also notes that in 1998, the anthropologist Robin Dunbar argued that every human being has a limit on the number of people he or she can personally know at any one time.  Dunbar estimated that our maximum number of connections would average 150, which is now known as the “Dunbar number.”

So, Thompson asks, are people who use Facebook and Twitter increasing their Dunbar number, because they can keep track of more people? Try adding the number of contacts you have on Facebook and Twitter, as Thompson did for his article. He had 301 contacts on both sites, more than double the Dunbar number.

Check out the Times piece and think about your expanding world for a few minutes.


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Lessons Learned: The Gustav Information Center

A lesson for your classes this week — the power of the Internet during a crisis or catastrophe.  The latest example of how the Web joins in to get vital information out is the Gustav Information Center, a wiki created on Ning by Andy Carvin. This wiki, which I joined (see my widget at the bottom of my sidebar), is providing news updates, weather maps, photos, forums and videos. Teams of people are working on getting the word out to families, pet owners and others on a minute-by-minute basis.

It would be a great class lesson to examine the online efforts of individuals and groups to get the message out instantaneously during events like hurricanes, tornados, natural disasters or large-scale violence.

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Swurl — Your Online Presence

For anyone who’s a Web 2.0 junkie like myself, Swurl is another tool that allows you (nay, encourages you) to follow yourself and your online presence — all on one page. But it’s not just about vanity, folks. It’s also a great tool that provides you with quick links to all your web places — Facebook, blogs, Twitters and more. Swurl gives you two ways to view all your web entries — in list form, which looks like a bookmarking site, or in a cool timeline view. You can see mine here:

Every item is in the small box next to the date, and direct links to those items are in blue. Check it out and see if it works for you.

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