Multiliteracies: Microblogging

I started reading on this topic from the Multiliteracies Ning forum, which enabled me to take a look at Jennifer’s blogpost and the wiki that Claudia recommended.

Somehow, I got to this other interesting blog post, with links, experiences and suggestions, and that led me to a teacher’s account of an experience with Twitter in the classroom, including quotes from students, before reading Vance’s.

The article Microblogging and Relevancy mentions

it could be argued that if information is not provided to students in a meaningful way, the students may or may not really grasp or understand the intention of the instructor.

This should be a paramount consideration. I dare say all my sts use text messaging, but I wonder how many are acquainted with Twitter. It is a fact many of them barely use their email account, and do not blog for personal reasons. So I believe we should tread softly, so as not to overwhelm them with technology. As Alan Lew puts it,

I think I had a higher number of student drop my university class last semester when they saw all the social software things I was going to introduce in the class. It worked for those who stayed with me (…)

After all this “reading about”, I felt it was time to have the hands-on experience, so I signed up for Twitter and started following some of the people here.

I’m stopping now. If you keep track of my contributions today, you’ll find I have been at it for 7 hours non-stop. I really need to get down to some housework…