Targuman Rotating Header Image

Twitter

Fractured online identity?

Dec 2nd, 2009
by Christian Brady.
8 comments

Or split personality? Christopher Long, associate professor of Philosophy at PSU and soon to be associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts, is wondering how to manage his online presence. Should he have one unified identity @cplong? Or two or more, such as I have (@targuman and @shcdean)?

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/.

 

Testing… Twitter Tools

Aug 25th, 2009
by Christian Brady.
1 comment

Twitter Tools for WP seems to be acting up again with some combination of my WordPress plugins. Throwing 500 errors when I post. This is just to test that.

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?):

Active plugins

 

Twitter Jesus

May 16th, 2009
by Christian Brady.
2 comments

Interestingly enough Jesus does not twitter, at least not under his own name (the LORD does, however).

Reality Check - May 14, 2009

Reality Check by Dave Whamond

 

The dangers of twitter?

May 1st, 2009
by Christian Brady.
3 comments

One of our college paper reporters interviewed me earlier this week for his story on the “dangers” of twittering and social media. The study was reported by CNN (I cannot find the full study to…study) and many have pointed out the irony of that report since news outlets like CNN with their rapid-fire news updates rather than twitter or facebook are the targets of the study. I am convinced that twitter was cited (note the URL of the CNN story) purely because of the attention this srevice currently garners. You can assess my views for yourself:

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.”

(more…)

 

Twitter Worship

Apr 15th, 2009
by Christian Brady.
7 comments

A HT to @samharrelson for pointing out this story. My views may surprise some. The story is this:

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.

 
← Earlier Posts Newer Posts →