UK's old Tweeter dies at 104 y.o.

This story appeared on the BBC Technology News pages yesterday, what a great lady she sounds, sadly I was not one of Ivy's 62,427 followers however I do wish that I had been.

Silver surfers rule! Digital Natives......pah!

Such Tweet Sorrow the story so far.......

For those not yet up to speed on this project - the RSC have commissioned a 'live- real time' performance of Romeo and Juliet that is being carried out through the medium of Twitter and associated 'web2.0' tools.

It would appear that love has blossomed between our doomed couple Romeo and Julietcap16

who are having to keep their love secret from their friends this is not easy in the world of social networking much as it wouldn't have been in the closed community of the original couple - you too can follow this on the live timeline as you can see in the screenshot above, or of course by adding Romeo and Julietcap16 plus the rest of the cast as 'Twitter friends'.
If you wish you can also follow how the story has unfolded since April 10 at 'the story so far....' on the show site.
It is fascinating to follow this story in this new medium and also to have an extended story that will keep everyone on the edge of their seats until the eventual sad conclusion.

I like many others look forward to continuing to follow the story...... I hope that you will join us?

Parting is such tweet sorrow!!!

The Royal Shakespeare Company ( RSC) is using social networking ( Twitter) as the medium for delivering a 21st Century Romeo and Juliet. They have a cast of six who will tweet and supply links for those who want to follow the story over the coming five weeks. I heard Juliet ( Charlotte Wakefield ) Twitter @julietcap16 and Romeo on Richard Bacon's Radio Five Live programme this afternoon discussing the premise of the project:

Romeo James Barrett will make his appearance shortly. Michael Boyd, artistic director of the RSC, said: "Our ambition is always to connect people with Shakespeare and bring actors and audiences closer together.
"Mobile phones don't need to be the Antichrist for theatre. This digital experiment... allows our actors to use mobiles to tell their stories in real time and reach people wherever they are in a global theatre."

Interest must be high as their website http://suchtweetsorrow.com/ was recently down, but appears now to have come back on stream

The appreciation of innovation!

Many thanks to @josepicardo for this gem about how innovators are sometimes treated

It certainly rings true from my teaching career when trying to introduce new technology!

Teachers use of social networking sites

Following @twowhizzy's tweet last Saturday with a link to an article from Australia regarding legislation being considered to curtail and or dissuade teachers from using social networking sites, I must admit I have been waiting the opportunity to blog post about the issue.I am sure that I am not alone when I say that teachers should not be using these sites to interact with pupils - these are social not school networking sites and for me it is a big NO to blur the two.There are many reasons why this route is unwise no matter what age of pupils we are talking about. There is the vast difficulty of breaching the pupil/teacher relationship

'More than 30 Queensland teachers have had their registration cancelled for unprofessional relationships with pupils over the past three years.

Eight cases involving inappropriate behaviour of a teacher contacting students via electronic equipment were heard by the Queensland College of Teachers' disciplinary committee last financial year. '

Hey even my own kids refused to be my 'friend' on Facebook for ages, and I can't say I blame them, it's just not cool. If we as teachers rightly want to use the advantages of web 2.0 technology with pupils then we should use tools which look similar and do the similar things but are not-Facebook or Bebo such as a protected invite only Ning or Edmodo installations or of course the trusty wiki ( wikispaces, wetpaint and many more...). So please, please do not think that those of us who propose the use of web 2.0 tools in the classroom condone this activity - I for one do not neither do many others I am sure.

Apologies for the quality of this post it is being typed on the small G1 keypad following a long 8am to 7pm day in work and I couldn't bring myself to fire up a pc or a laptop!

Stress or Cheese ?

The reason for the title is my search for an explanation to my waking this morning at 4.04 am instead of the usual 6.30a.m.!All I do know is that my head was full of work related messages that I desperately wanted to remember - I realise dear reader that this way madness lies, however, I now see the need for a hard wired memo or note device which would enable these thoughts to be captured before they evaporate. Great thinkers of the past I know would sleep with a notebook and pen beside the bed and jot down these thoughts - In my case divorce would swiftly follow ( one had best not awake Mrs H before her normal 7.30a.m. !). Hence the need for aa device that does not require to be turned on thus waking spouses?

The second thought which had lodged itself in my head was 'Twitter' related ( please don't ask why). I hate the random jumble of Twitter which can distract ones thoughts and leads to often ill thought out responses - I want a means to select a person and then to have the option of seeing a discussion thread that I can follow and respond to in a timely fashion, the only way to achieve somrthing like this is to carry on an @ conversation with 'Twitter'. I don't want an all singing app like the soon to appear 'Google Wave' but want something lighter - a Wavelet if you will, a branch or threaded app......... you see what can fill your head at 4.04 am!!!!!!!!The one saving grace is flexi time at the IB allowing us to start at 7am and leave at 3pm. I feel sure that by the time everyone else is awake my brain will be mush! Ah well mustn't grumble 6.28am time to go to work? Now what was it I was trying to remember?

The world's first email or twitter user circa 1536?

                                                 The @ Book

Post from The New York Times news blog 4th May 2009

'Internet star @ least 473 years old'

It would appear from the New York Times 'TheLede' Blog that the first time that the now ubiquitous @ sign appeared in writing was in a letter written written on 4th May 1536 by a Florentine merchant by the name of Francesco Lapi. Francesco used the @ as a symbol for the ancient measure of weight or volume 'the amphora'. The Spanish word for amphora is arroba and the @ sign is still known as the arroba on a Spanish keyboard.

The @ stayed relatively little used on keyboards until 1971 when Ray Tomlinson decided to use it in the first ever email address his reasoning being:

'I chose to append an at sign and the host name to the user’s (login) name. I am frequently asked why I chose the at sign, but the at sign just makes sense. The purpose of the at sign (in English) was to indicate a unit price (for example, 10 items @ $1.95). I used the at sign to indicate that the user was “at” some other host rather than being local.' 

Check on your flock!

At Twittersheep.com you can input your twitter name and what you get back is a tag cloud which shows what your personal learning network have put in their Twitter Bio's. It is certainly a good way to check on the focus of your learning community.

If you want to vainly check out how you are getting on as a Twitterer don't forget to use Twittergrader which will give you a ranking out of 100 linked to followers and tweets.
And if you are really paranoid why not try Twitterholic just to see where you are in your own small pond :-)
The real reason for this quick dash around twitter is that one of our new Web2.0 participants is trying to insert a twitter feed directly into a wikispaces wiki..... without much luck! Is there anyone out there who can help..... maybe using a different wiki site?

Value your tweets!

An app called TweetValue ( click on the image above) will allow you to enter your Twitter name and will give you a response which is the worth of your Tweets in USD$ based on an apparently secret formula - by taking the number of tweets etc and crunches numbers to give your value ( from TechCrunch 02/02/09) As the article states this is similar to Twittad and also a Twitter Grader (see below) which I like because it gives you some good stats about you, twitter profile info about your blog - plus I love the TweetCloud. You can also check out your rank by local town, county and country...... cool if somewhat chastening!
I am sure that this is just the tip of the iceberg as far as twitter apps are concerned but these are fun starters

UKSnow GoogleMaps mashup

A Twitter mashup called UKSnow enabling twitterers to 'tweet # uksnow followed by the first the first letter and digits of your postcode ( #uksnow np7). The result is that the Google Map mashup designed by Ben Marsh will log your postcode tweet ( and a Twitpic if you can post one) will appear on the overlay snow flakes on the UK map. See below my tweet on snow in NP7

my guess is that this map will build as the snow continues in the UK. It also shows the power of social networking and mashups.

Tweet Tweet!

Apologies for this awful post from Monday 26th January - it was posted form the Eeepc and appears to have become a bit garbled!
The post was related to the gradual rise and rise of Twitter and related to 2 BBC News items extolling the virtue of Twitter :
Stephen Fry's interview outside the BBC prior to ( or after) his appearance on the now returned Jonathan 'Wossy' Ross. It was discussed briefly in the programme but not being a fan of Ross I will avoid posting that entry.... Twitter is growing in its usage in the UK.
While it also has impact in the US following major news stories which were 'reported first by 'citizen journalists using Twitter and Twitpic.
The BBC appear very keen on Twitter I guess no surprise when keeping a close eye on Twitter feeds can point to a rising news story amongst the chaff!

This post will now be Tweeted by pj23harry is this irony??

Bonfire of the Vanities

The quote comes from the burning of seditious literature by Savonarola in 1497 but has come to represent to destruction of material by those who are supposedly our betters. What is happening in 2009 sounds a little more like the goings on of the Borgia's.

In the current financial situation globally it is only to be expected that many companies will revert to their core business and also kill off competitor products in the classic method - buy and instead of funding allow to wither on the vine. 

Some quite well known web 2.0 tools have become victims over the past 2 months. 

Pownce first appeared in June 2007 as something which offered more than the already existing and ultra basic Twitter ( August 2006) this is how Pownce glowed brightly and was all to quickly snuffed out (from Wikipedia) :

Its launch, on June 27, 2007, was covered by outlets like Wired,^[5] Business Week,^[6] Webware,^[7][8] and the San Francisco Chronicle,^[9]with most of the coverage focusing on Rose, known for his involvement in Digg, Revision3 and TechTV. Due to this media exposure, invitations for Pownce were in high demand and were being sold on sites such as eBay.^[6]

On October 30, 2007, Pownce launched their public API.^[10] The developers have also created a Pownce API Google Group . Originally, it was primarily for discussing the release of the API, but it now serves to gather feedback and help developers.

On November 12, 2007 Pownce launched a custom theme editor for Pro users.^[11] They also added eight more preset themes for non pro users to use.

On December 20, 2007 Pownce launched a mobile version of their service.^[12] This version can be accessed from a variety of mobile devices at m.pownce.com.

Acquired by Six Apart

On December 1st, 2008, Pownce announced they were shutting down .

December 15th 2008

We have some very big news today at Pownce. We will be closing the service and Mike and I, along with the Pownce technology, have joined Six Apart, the company behind such great blogging software as Movable Type, TypePad and Vox. We’re bittersweet about shutting down the service but we believe we’ll come back with something much better in 2009. We love the Pownce community and we will miss you all.

The story of Pownce is one that I think we will have to get used to as Web 2.0 meets the real world, products need to 'turn a buck' or be put out of their misery. I don't think that this will put off web developers from coming up with the next big thing. The problem with this is that consolidation by the industry narrows the choice for consumers - take the rise and rise of :

From a slow start where to utter the phrase 'to tweet' was a peculiar code understood by a narrow group of semi-geeks,  now two and a half years on where most events in the world -from  terrorist attack in Mumbai to plane crashes in the USA are said to be first reported by 'citizen journalists' via Twitter..... it is becoming the known face of micro blogging ( and possibly an acquisition prospect by the owners of Blogger itself - all these double letters!!! 'oo' hence the death of Jaiku). 

This is great for the process of micro blogging and also for growing the community, however we have to be careful that this does not spell death or more 'withering' for applications such as Plurk ( never really got it myself!!) Yammer ( great for setting up micro blogging within an organisation/school - a walled garden) or Edmodo another protected micro blogging area designed for education (  championed by Jose Picardo).

Is this shake out of web 2.0 tools a bad thing? Not necessarily as there are still developers out there searching for a new solution to  problems that we don't know that we have, also shouldn't the strongest survive?

My answer is yes the strongest should survive, it is just a shame but inevitable that an applications 'strength' is going to be decided in the present climate, in the boardroom of the big fish in the pond....... taking care that smaller fish don't grow too big for their own good......welcome to the real world. I wonder what the rest of the year has in store for social networking sites ( watch out for the big fish circling the pond!!!)

Yammer - A micro-blog for your organisation

My WOW of the week - is Yammer, Twitter without the hassle!

Yammer recently won the top prize at the TechCrunch 50 event. But what is it and how could it work for you?
Yammer is Twitter-like in that it works on micro-blogging rules of short posts, where it scores over Twitter is that you can set up a Yammer network for your own organisation/ school or social network group which is then closed to others..... no followers only invitees! In addition to the micro blogging you can also tag posts to help colleagues find what they are looking for. If the organisation or someone within it wishes to takes admin rights over the group allowing access controls etc there is a fee of $1 per user per month, but if not the whole system works free for your users.
Below David Sachs the founder of Yammer explains the origins and uses of Yammer



It would be a great system to set up for all sorts of groups - especially perhaps as people consider how to introduce these tools into the classroom - Yammer can be configured to work from SMS (The company already allows interaction with the service via the site, an AIR client, iPhone, Blackberry, IM, SMS and email. This evening they’ve also launched an API to allow third party developers to build Yammer into their applications. ) The AIR client integration means that you can have a Twirl - like update on your desktop.
You could set up your class/subject group up on Yammer and use this as a means of communication for both assignments and as a method of communicating comments on assigments. It could also form part of your education of pupils on acceptable use.
Within a school a Yammer community of teachers would certainly help to begin the process of integrating web 2.0 tools into teachers daily lives with a purpose - I would advise against school admin getting involved as it could soon temper the debate within the group!!
This certainly seems to be something which would be useful in many different schools/organisations as a means of communication that the Twitter community can understand.

[yammer]

Google Talk v Skype v Twitter !!!

Since I had to return my marvellous MacBook to school, I have been struggling with the problem of not being able to connect with colleagues and friends over Skype , as I have done for the past 9 months or so - I have found this hugely frustrating, I hear part of conversations through Twitter ( pj23harry).
My Dell Inspiron 1300, doesn't like Skype, and in fact I lose all internet connection with Skype running on the laptop.... Today on my trawl through my Bloglines I came across a few articles by Darren Draper on Google Talk (beta). Google's Applications have of late been coming along plugging many gaps in the online experience and Talk appears to plug another. I guess it will be a matter of time and take up as to whether Google Talk becomes a chosen means of communication in the blogosphere, but it certainly has a few plus points going for it - ( although by means of a health warning I haven't yet carried out a conversation using it - pj23harry@googlemail.com/ should find me though if you want to add me to your list of contacts)
Talk has :
Group Chat
You can now invite multiple people to chat with you in a group using the Google Talk Gadget. When you're chatting with a friend, just click on the "Group Chat" button to invite one or more friends to join the conversation.
Popout support and Flickr slideshows
You can now do more with the Google Talk Gadget. In addition to putting the gadget on your Google Personalized Homepage, you can now pop out the gadget into a separate, small window anytime. This way you can navigate to other websites and still keep your contact list and chats open. And just like running the gadget on your homepage, this way of using Google Talk is completely web-based, and requires no download.
Google Talk Gadget on your Blog
f you have your own webpage or blog, you can also add a button to your site so your visitors can pop out the Google Talk Gadget when they visit your page. If you want them to chat with you, just list your username next to the button and ask visitors to sign in and add you as a contact.
File Transfer
With this top requested new feature, you can send unlimited files and folders to your friends through Google Talk. There is no restriction on the file type or size and the peer-to-peer transfer is fast and reliable
Voicemail
If your friends aren't around to answer your call, you can leave them a voicemail message instead. Just record your voice after the "Meep" and your friends will get an email to their Talk contact address with the voicemail attached as an audio file. They can play your message when they check their email and save it for as long as they want.
Languages
There are a wide range of languages which are supported within Google Talk.
Additional goodies
You can also it appears go to private offline conversation person to person if you wish ( similar to the private chat feature in Flashmeeting. You can copy over YouTube and Picassa Albums which can be played directly in the Google Talk Widget.

I can see Google Talk giving the people at Skype some sleepless nights if this catches on, especially as Talk comes into a growing comprehensive suite of 'free' online tools and applications which Google is currently developing. I for one hope that Google Talk will be more reliable on my laptop than Skype has been ..... let battle commence :-)

Social Networking ( addictive??)

Is it me??? A question I have been asking myself quite a bit over the past few days..... and I am not sure of the answer. I seem to have become a Facebook person over the past month. It all began when I joined to keep in touch with people in my Hockey Club (as Chairman I need to know what is going on).... it wasn't long before I began to explore Facebook further, and found how easy it is to tie up all of your links from other places to the 'One Stop Shop' that is Facebook. It can easily aggregate my Twitter feeds, Blog feeds, Delicious links, it can also import YouTube videos and much, much more.....( I even seem to be playing Scrabble with Dean Shareski in Canada!)......... oh yes, the question am I becoming addicted to Social Networking , and is it just me???
The answer I think must be Yes, I seem to be addicted. Evidence for this I know that at this precise moment I should be doing some much needed planning for the new School Year which starts for us next week..... however I appear to be blogging about Social Networking !!!! ( I began at 9am this morning - getting on for 2 hours ago just checking e-mails and messages!!!) - very addicted. As for is it me, No I don't think it is only me judging by this piece of research by Mike at 'On a Hill' who has looked into just students using Facebook in Welsh Colleges!

"Out of curiosity I've explored Facebook this morning and looked at the regional and college statistics for Wales. These figures are correct as of today. The WALES network has 65,952 members. In hierarchical order the college networks (in Wales) have the following numbers of members.
Cardiff, 15,104
Swansea, 6,447
Aber, 5,995
Bangor, 4,145
Uni Glam, 2,243
UW Institute Cardiff, 1,653
UW Newport, 716
Swansea IHE, 481
Lampeter, 469
Trinity, 333
RW College of Music and Drama, 332
NEWI, 356
A total of 38,274 facebook memberships. (How many students are there in Wales?) (How old are these networks?) To make sense of these figures, some statistical work will be required to show the number of facebook memberships as a percentage of the student population of each of the colleges, as we are not really comparing like with like here. (I suspect that Cardiff on Facebook includes the College of Medicine.) I wonder if I can find similar figures for Bebo or MySpace?"

I haven't dared to open up Twitter this morning as I know that this could put paid to my 'Real Life' and work for the rest of the morning. Twitter, using Twitteriffic and Twittervision is brilliant. Those brief 'to the point' messages or requests which come Tweeting in also can take over the task in hand...... In answer to a question from Allanah King in Nelson NZ, I prefer Twitter to Skype messaging at the moment as the message interface is so much more pleasing on the eye. I also allows me to pick up messages from a wider group of friends/colleagues.

I have one concern if it isn't just me, is everyone else substituting some of their 'Real Lives' to these 'Virtual Meeting Places'.... In a Flat World and Classrooms without Walls I guess the answer must be again Yes!

It is interesting to see how these spaces develop, it is very much the case that some 'take off' and some don't. personally speaking the main sufferer at the moment is the Ning Social Networking site - Facebook and Twitter are so much more instant and interactive that I don't seem to have the time to go and check out my Ning Networks.........there you go Mr H getting sucked into the discussion about which Social Networking Site is better ........ where do we go from here........ will I wait for a friend on Twitter or Facebook to point the way to the next development......... ( off to the 'real world' - q. Is it still light outside ???? )
Update on story (Friday 31st August ) - It looks as if I am not the only person worrying over the use of Social Networking, Channel 4 News in the UK ran a story last night about companies putting bans on the use of Facebook at work. Their experiences ran strangely parallel to my own in that as their 'expert' stated 10 minutes can become 30 minutes, then an hour, and before you know it 2 hours may have gone by while you have been online !!!!! addiction of the 21st Century? The jury is out ..... catch up on the article at this link


Technorati Tags: facebook, twitter

Another cool tool - thanks to Sharon Peters over at twitter for her tweet that I picked up at 1.35am ( the web never sleeps!!!) Jing which is a tools which will work on PC or Mac and can be used as a screen capture (like Skitch) - but also interestingly as a videon capture device (up to 5 minutes of video).

Thanks to Sharon for sharing this resource.

The Blogosphere is continuing to develop new 'watering holes' where bloggers can feel 'at home', the latest is Twitter. It has become 'the place' to keep in contact with friends and colleagues around the globe. You communicate via Tweets ( short 140 character messages) which you either use to instigate a conversation or to further a current discussion. As with all other Web 2.0 tools there is a way to 'know' what is going on at Twitter (ask someone), when I at first arrived at my Twitter page I thought 'Great!!!!! a bit like Second Life - I have no contacts here!!!!' , and as usual I couldn't see the point as I wasn't in any discussion at all!!!!! ( is it me???).
However Edublogger friend to the rescue, with the solution - easy add all of her friends to your page (plus add some of their friends) and 'Hey Presto' you suddenly have an interesting group of new friends (Yay) - so to anyone out there looking for a way into Twitter ( use pj23harry's friends list to create your own friendship group.
Twitter has the extra dimension of being able to use mobile phones ( hey we might just have hit upon a use for mobiles in the classroom to promote language skills ( well 140 characters does necessitate brevity!!). You can Tweet and recieve Tweets to your mobile once you set it up - freedom from the computer.
While I personally find keeping up with my Ning Social Netowork can be tedious on occasions - I have to go and find stuff!!!! Twitter as in all good aggregators brings all of my conversations to me - wherever I am (on a mobile phone or computer)..... if you haven't tried it yet - go on give it a whirl - it does become addictive though so beware ;-)
Happy Tweeting

p.s. You can also use Twitter from within Second Life - which I think makes for better communication.

Pippy Ballinger's Adventures in Second Life

On the roof of The Bloggers Cafe (EduislandII)

Having been swift to make legitimate complaints about Second Life, I have spent the past week, trying to come to terms with the alternative world which exists there. I have found that my random entries into the cyber world have been interesting ( I learned how to build in SL for example), they have been ultimately frustrating as I never seem to be able to meet up with anyone in a planned way.

All of that changed last night when on another new place for me - Twitter ( as recommended by friends Jane Nicholls and Sheryl N-B ) - a great place for short pithy comments from a global friendship group ( mainly borrowed from Sheryl! thx). While Tweeting ( I think the correct term), I found out that Jojash Mcmillan (Jane) was around in Second life and that Scrumples Schneider was looking to come in - we tweeted about meeting at the Bloggers Cafe in SL (On Eduisland II just around the corner from the ISTE Building!!! sadly I know these things now!)
Inside the Bloggers Cafe

As you can see above we settled onto the roof area for a face to face chat ( even though we were 11,000 miles away from each other), also there IsabellaG Despres from Chicago. Now the chance to chat possibly even of using skype while in SL to have almost fully interactive discussions is a use that I see Second Life doing for me - could be great for say Next Gen Teachers meetings ( Naace are using it in the Naace Lounge in Huining) also for future K12 online 'Fireside Chats' around a SL fireside perhaps!!! the possibilities are endless.
Pippy Ballinger reporting for Ddraig-goch from Second Life!