TALLER No. II

Cultivating Twitter
By Lisa Chamberlin and Kay Lehmann
August 10, 2010

In a recent article ("Finding a Place for Twitter in Higher Education," May 20, 2010, eLearnMag.org), Hend Suliman Al-Khalifa reported some of the findings in a Faculty Focus 2009 survey, "Twitter in Higher Education: Usage Habits and Trends of Today's College Faculty."

In the article, Al-Khalifa cthe findings of the more than 2,000 respondents, writing that according to the survey, the majority of higher education thinks Twitter is a gigantic time suck with little to no educational value. While she accurately reported the findings, she missed reporting the bigger picture, namely, that while approximately 30 percent of the surveyed higher education professionals tweet, currently only 10 percent of the general Internet-using public makes regular use of Twitter. The college ranks are outpacing the public in adoption nearly 3 to 1.


As Twitter continues to expand its reach within the public, it exponentially expands it within higher education.

Why is there so much derisive criticism of Twitter by educational institutions that are rapidly making use of the technology? Part of the answer is the learning curve. Twitter looks simple. Indeed, it has a simple interface. But to see its value beyond celebrity tweeting is a bit more complex.

Twitter is much like gardening. A shovel and vegetable seeds are simple objects, but growing a vegetable garden is much more complex. As gardeners study horticultural techniques, read what the experts have to say, and chat with knowledgeable neighbors, they begin to enjoy the fruits of their labor. Those who don't put in the energy waste time, get weeds, and have little to show for their effort. Instead of the no-to-low cost of the salad grown at home, the weekend gardener ends up paying a much higher cost to get the same beneficial nutrients at the store.

Twitter is just like this. The Twitter "garden" flourishes only when you put in the time to cultivate it. Twitter is so much more than a status update, but the seeds have to be planted and watered first.

Joanna C. Dunlap and Patrick R. Lowenthal expressed it well in their 2009 Educause Quarterly article, "Horton Hears a Tweet": "With Twitter, as with all social-networking tools, the value of the experience hinges on three things: 1) whom you are connected to and with; 2) how frequently you participate; and 3) how conscientious you are about contributing value to the community."

We never would have known about Lowenthal's contribution to the social-networking discussion if we hadn't been Twitter users. We saw his informational tweets on another user's Twitter feed, discovered he was the academic technology coordinator at CU Online at the University of Colorado Denver, and began following him. When we were in the process of writing a book chapter about Twitter, we tweeted that we were doing some research on the topic of Twitter in higher education, and Lowenthal tweeted back with this and other resource articles. This give-and-take is the nature of Twitter, the sharing of resources, the meeting (or challenging) of minds, collaboration, and broadening the conversation.

Those higher education Twitter naysayers may be too ensconced in their silos on the university campus to find value in the broader discussions going on about teaching and learning. I hope not. I hope they just haven't figured it out yet. If they are willing to cultivate it, build a community of experts through it, and use the appropriate tools like hashtags, retweets, Tweetdeck or HootSuite, they can't help but see its value grow as they build or expand their personal learning network. They may soon wonder how they ever lived without it.


Actividad:

Identificas las palabras que no conoces

Twitter
summarizes  (resumen)

Abreviaciones
1) twitter (verb)


2) twitter (noun)

sum·ma·rize verb \ˈsə-mə-ˌrīz\


sum·ma·rizedsum·ma·riz·ing

Definition of SUMMARIZE

transitive verb

: to tell in or reduce to a summary

intransitive verb

: to make a summary

— sum·ma·riz·able\ˌsə-mə-ˈrī-zə-bəl\ adjective

— sum·ma·riz·er noun

Examples of SUMMARIZE

I would like to take a moment to summarize the facts that I presented earlier.

He summarized by saying we needed better planning and implementation.

To summarize, we need better schools

Idea principal del texto:

Twitter es muy similar a la jardinería. Una pala y semillas de hortalizas son objetos simples, pero está creciendo un jardín vegetal es mucho más compleja. Como jardineros estudio de técnicas de horticultura, leer lo que los expertos tienen que decir, y charlar con los vecinos de conocimiento, comienzan a gozar de los frutos de su trabajo. Los que no poner en el tiempo el derroche de energía, obtener malas hierbas, y tienen poco que mostrar por sus esfuerzos. En lugar de los gastos no-a-bajo de la ensalada cultivados en casa, el jardinero de fin de semana termina pagando un costo mucho mayor para obtener los nutrientes beneficiosos mismo en la tienda.

Categorias lexicales:

Verbo: connected  , haven't figured


Adverbio :exponentially ,currently


Articulo:   A , The ,some

Preposicion:  about,

Conjuncion.: but, or

Cognados verdaderos

Education
professionals

Cognados falsos

complex. (complejos)


discovered ( descubierto)

Sufijo :
vegetable

Prefijo

Estructura de la oracio


 the majority of higher education thinks Twitter is a gigantic time suck with little to no educational value.


Frase nominal

thinks

Nucleo de la frase

education

Premodificador
the majority of higher education
Postmodificador
Twitter is a gigantic time suck with little to no educational value.









tiempo verbal

time suck

Nucleo de la frase verbalhigher