Here’s a sample from http://www.overheardintheoffice.com:

5PM The Aisles Only Go Up to 13.

Saleslady to woman: How may I help you?
Woman: Hi, I’m looking for something specific.
(45 seconds of silence)
Saleslady: Aisle 14.

I don’t work retail anymore but man, I sure could have used this information back in the day.

Others:

http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/
http://www.yousuckatcraigslist.com/
http://thisiswhyyourefat.com/
http://lovelylisting.com/

http://www.linfield.edu/instructional-support/flockdraw.html

Too bad it doesn’t appear to keep the content on the whiteboard once it has been closed.

http://blog.sonicfoundry.com/webcasttrends/webcasting-educause-2009-a-look-back-via-twitter/

I am not sure that this is the best article to make the argument of why Twitter was such a valuable thing at Educause, because I paid close attention to the tweets and did plenty of tweeting myself about actual conference content. I used it to take notes and to make comments, and to share timely info with the other conference attendees. Hell, the Google booth gave away tons of Wave accounts when they were most hard to get – you know I shared that tidbit! I’ll be using that tweet stream for a long time to come.

Today I read with great interest the Chronicle story: http://chronicle.com/article/Teaching-With-Twitter-Not-for/49230/ about courageously teaching with Twitter. I’m a big fan of Twitter, especially now that I’ve seen how useful and powerful back channels can be while at conferences. This story describes the experiences of two profs who tried it out in larger classes, with more positive than negative results.

Whenever I see something like this tried with more + than – results the first time out of the box, I get excited, because I know that means tweaks and refinements are one the way to make the tool work even better. We will have a top Twitter tips and techniques for teachers circulating out there before we know it.

Then we talked about the far more interesting topic of ideas and how they are conveyed today. I argued that people don’t want to read (or write) long papers today. They want to be able chunks of information that they need right at the moment, with perhaps some context and background to round the chunks out when needed. Jean argued that there is something to be gained from acquiring information in a slower, more in-depth way such as by reading a 300 page book. I think she’s right about the cognitive shifts that occur in long, slow engagement with a topic. However, I don’t think it has to be done via a 300 page book, or a long series of classes run by one professor, or the traditional higher education model at all anymore. I think we can reconfigure education like this:

We can concoct a way to organize a collection of meaningful chunks (tags? collections? streams?), and then enable people to engage in long, thoughtful, asynchronous conversations and activities in which people apply their learning at their own pace and in whatever place makes the most sense. The cloud could be the guide and recognized experts could serve as gatekeepers to determine that students have mastered levels of expertise, whenever proof of expertise is needed. These gatekeepers could be set up to accept appointments at the students’ convenience, rather than at the gatekeeper’s convenience, which frees up students to pursue recognition at the pace that best suits them. Beyond a basic level of expertise in which certain competencies have been established, people could be free to bypass the expertise requirements and just share what they know and can do freely, using whatever resources are available in the system of chunks.

I envision this as sort of an invisible college unbound. No more bricks and mortar unless FTF is truly a valuable component of the conversation (which I believe is far less frequently the case than most faculty seem to think it is), with dramatically reduced costs, with shared, lifelong learning conversations that emerge organically and evolve in whatever direction information, hearts and minds direct. I know that 1st and 2nd year college students are frequently not ready for such a world, but what if we started with this model at a much earlier age? It might be a bit utopian and naive to think that parents and teachers would give up k-6 control and allow all the little kids access to free information, but we could certainly start in middle school if it meant we could pair students with activities they care about, a cluster of guides (as opposed to teachers), peer mentors and of course, the cloud.

For years now, I’ve wished we could re-engineer education. I hated so much about school, though I loved learning. It’s almost a wonder I learned anything, given how much I hated bullies, the social posturing, the dullards, rote tasks, and the lack of support for things I needed more help with. I particularly despised the teachers who made it quite obvious that they didn’t care about me. I also hated how pointless so many of the learning exercises seemed to me. I would have blossomed under a free form style of education that allowed me to work in a team to solve actual real world problems.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/tech/2009/09/14/dcl.wired.found.cnn/index.html

http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Tweckling-Twitterfolk-/8895/

Evidently someone gave a really bad, out-of-date keynote, and the audience wasn’t having it. About 15 minutes in, they began posting critical, sometimes rude, tweets. Many have rushed to the defense of the speaker, and a few have defended the audience.

I’m inclined to support the audience, regardless of how hard the message might be to hear, so long as the responses are constructive and true. The speaker was paid to give a good talk and he didn’t bother preparing properly, so I have little sympathy for him. However, he doesn’t deserve to be totally humiliated for that. We in higher education need to make an effort to uphold civil discourse as well.

Pretty exciting stuff! Conor and I both agree it would be fantastic to have such a device but that there would still be the need for more powerful computers that are not cloud-based to do things like crunch multimedia.

I’m already halfway there – I don’t much use MS Office any more and instead, use Google Docs. All my stuff is stored in the cloud as well – email, twitter, ning, Google Wave, Google Docs, web sites, etc. I’ve really been trying to make the effort to get away from paper use, and now I think I finally am starting to succeed.

I’m also developing a course/reference hybrid using TWiki. The project walks people through a complex procedure and provides the worksheets they need along the way. It will also collect learners’ ideas and comments. Users can return as needed to refresh their memories, re-use a worksheet, or get new ideas from the comments.

I’m finding all sorts of advantages to developing in the wiki engine. Here are a few:

Most of the development takes place in the wiki. I started with a simple Word outline, turned that into the course menu and started drafting content in the wiki itself. If this were a team effort, we’d all look at the evolving content in the wiki and wouldn’t have to email Word docs around.

It’s easy to embed Flash interactions, video, and other media. Plug-ins also help you create basic interactivity, such as twisty code, without knowing javascript.

It’s easy to include job aids right along with the how-to content, including collaborative worksheets, checklists, etc. that teams will complete together.

You have fine control over who can change what. For the alpha test I’ll have comments turned on but everything else locked, so the testers can comment directly on each page without actually changing the content. The comments appear at the bottom of the page in a separate box.

The final product will be distributed to several companies. Most of the content will be easy for them to modify and customize–they’ll just need to click the Edit button and type.

Finally, with comments turned on, learners can contribute their ideas to the material. Administrators could periodically incorporate the strongest ideas into the “official” content.

This reference/course/brainstorming hybrid wouldn’t be nearly as useful locked away in an LMS.

http://community.astd.org/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/6401041/m/55610414/p/2