@NatGeo: Photos: Underwater volcano erupts, stains seas on.natgeo.com/mYGcbY

 

Come to the light my friend, spread your wings and tweet!

 

Tweet straight from Jim West’s blog

I already wrote about this over the weekend, but now I’m just having too much fun with it.  Jim wrote another anti-twitter post this morning.  So, I went over and tweeted his post directly from his own blog.  I think it would be extraordinarily funny for everyone to go over and tweet the post to see how many tweets we could get for Jim’s anti-twitter blog post directly from his own blog.  In fact, Twitter is so seamlessly integrated into Jim’s blog that you don’t even have to tweet his post.  You can click Tweet then erase the URL and post title and just do all of your regular tweets straight from Zwinglius Redivivus.

 

Now to each their own, but I prefer to use twitter for the short burst and the blog for longer, hopefully thought-out posts. Jim clearly prefers to keep all of his pearls of wisdom in one central location. His choice, of course, but Jim if you want it @drjimwest is still available! Just drop me a note for the account.

 

My comments were as follows.

I have two because I do try and keep my @shcdean more “professional,” just as I keep my SHC blog http://engage.shc.psu.edu/ focused upon institutional matters. I think the key to remaining whole (and not fractured) is that I do not hide my other online “identities.” There are LOTS of students who follow @targuman and my other blog http://targuman.org/blog/ and will occasionally comment there or ask about something I have posted there.

On the other hand, I do not think that it would be terribly appropriate for me to ask for music suggestions at @shcdean. There are lots of folks who follow that twitter account (including news organizations and other administrators) who are looking to that feed for more “official” sorts of information.

Or, to put it another way, I wear a coat and tie to work, but at home I put on jeans. I am still the same person, but the change of context allows a change of attire.

What do you think? Comment here or on Chris’ Typepad blog. For those mulling online pedagogy issues, you must check out http://www.personal.psu.edu/cpl2/blogs/cplportfolio/blog/.

 

So… with my various combination of plugins turning on Twitter Tools results in Error 500 when posting and the “Comments” not showing up in the main Dashboard. Other than that everything seems to work just fine. Go figure.

Current plugins (anyone see any real trouble here?):

 

Posted on May 1, 2009 4:53 AM

Study says Twitter, Facebook affect morality

By Greg Galiffa

For the Collegian

Using social networking sites that produce information rapidly such as Twitter and Facebook may have negative effects on a user’s morality, scientists say.

A new study released last week by scientists from the University of Southern California found that by using these sites, a person’s brain can not process the information quickly enough to invoke an emotional response, making them amoral over time. In effect, users will be desensitized, the study found.

Dean of Penn State’s Schreyer Honors College Chris Brady, who is a Twitter.com user, said the study isn’t wrong to think that people today receive information swiftly.

“I certainly think information comes in too rapidly or too quickly so we’re not able to reflect,” Brady said. “There’s too much information to assimilate and go through so we become less thoughtful when we’re required to make a decision.”

He doesn’t, however, find social networking sites as dangerous as the study does.

“I don’t think sites like Twitter are inherently bad for anyone,” Brady said. “It’s just a tool like anything else.”

Brady said he believes that social networking sites such as Twitter are helpful information tools he uses to communicate with others. He also believes scientists and news networks are pointing out Twitter specifically because it is the hot commodity right now.

“I remember they said e-mail was bad for people and would destroy relationships when it first started,” Brady said. “Any of these tools or services can be abused this way.”

Penn State student April Foster, who also uses Twitter, agrees the study is questionable.

“I don’t understand how it can make you amoral,” Foster (sophomore-psychology) said. “If I saw my friend posted something sad, I wouldn’t just disregard it. I would call them.”

However, while Foster agrees using the site can be “overwhelming” and “annoying,” the study would not stop her from using it, she said.

Emily Toombs, a Penn State student that normally “tweets” every day, says she believes people do need time to reflect after reading about something new.

“I agree it takes time to develop the appropriate emotion,” Toombs (sophomore- communications arts and sciences and English) said. “But I don’t know people who update that frequently — don’t think it’s as simultaneous as it’s made out to be.”

For Brady, who admitted to having more than 4,500 tweets total on one of his accounts, Twitter is a new medium that has a lot of potential for communication and information — so long as it is used with caution.

“We don’t need to spend our lives using the site,” Brady said. “We just need to control ourselves and make sure we don’t respond to everything that happens. Doing that gets us excited and into this mode where we aren’t really thinking anymore.”

 

STALLINGS, N.C. (AP) — Most churches want them turned off, but one North Carolina church encouraged its members to use their cell phones, BlackBerrys and other devices to help spread the word during Easter services.

Next Level church in Union County was alive with Twitter during the Easter Sunday service. The electronic service sends short messages to other phones and online accounts.

“I hope many of you are tweeting this morning about your experience with God,” Pastor Todd Hahn said before his sermon. A tweet is a message sent through Twitter.

Many of you know that I use Twitter and you can follow me @Targuman. It is a toyl that can be fun (toy) and sometimes useful (tool). But I don’t think it has a place in worship. I even think, contary to some, that it really doesn’t have a place in class either.

In both cases the community should be paying attention to the message and, in the case of a seminar, interacting with the leader. Twitter is not the same thing as taking notes, which can of course be an aid to learn, but instead requires a different set of concerns (using tiny keyboard or touch screen, fitting it into 140 chars) and shifts focus from the content of the event to the creation of an artifact from the event as created by the twitterer.

In both cases twittering distracts the community from the primary goals of the event. In worship one is to be in a contemplative and refelctive posture (mental posture that is, not “crash position” hunched in the pew although feel free to slump if you like), considering the words of the preacher and participating through internal engagement.

In class the students should be focused upon the content and engaging with the material and the instructor. Some will argue that twitter allows one to do just that, but I do not think that is true. The medium is just too invasive, it puts up a barrier to note taking and reflection rather than facilitating it. And that is why I do not think twitter works for classroom in a general way. Technology should be about facilitating the activity not hindering it (unless you are the NSA or the RIAA in which case yes, they are using tech to hinder).

This is not to say that Twitter cannot have a role in “spreading the message” or in the classroom. Certainly there are a number of people using Twitter as an evangelism and devotional tool (see for example @CommonPrayer and @prayingthespsalms). And one could design a course that would leverage Twitters strengths, for example in a large lecture class taking a moment and asking student to tweet questions and then thread them and have a Q&A. But as I saw just yesterday in class, when the laptops are open or the phones are out the students are not focused on the conversation at hand. That makes me a bit sad since I am one who does use my MacBook to take notes, etc. but it seems that for most students the tempation is too great. (And small tip students, I can see what time you updated your facebook status and know that it was during my class….)

So we are back to my techmantra: Tools are tools. They key is to use the right tool for the right job.