Today I am in Taunton for the RSC SW Learning Technologies Forum.
So far it has been an interesting day on how one college is using blogging and the University of Plymouth about using an iHub to support students with social anxiety.
I am demonstrating a range of Web 2.0 technologies this afternoon, so check my Flickr and Jaiku for updates.
Excellent blog article on though Twitter is winning the battle in the numbers game, Jaiku will win the war once Android starts shipping.
What if Google where to build Jaiku into Android as the standard phone Address Book? As soon as Android devices started to ship, Jaiku (whatever form it takes in the future) would gain hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of users rapidly.
Read the full blog entry, makes for interesting reading.
Personally I much prefer Jaiku over Twitter, the RSS and the comments allow for me a much deeper richer experience, more importantly as well it allows for interactivity much more easily than Twitter. This for me is why Jaiku has more potential for e-learning than Twitter.
However, ever since Google bought Jaiku, sign-ups have been restricted, let me know if you want an invite, and there have been quite a few 504 errors with Jaiku slow and unresponsive at times.
Hopefully with a day off tomorrow for Jaiku (what am I going to do) Jaiku will get even better and more reliable.
Follow me on Jaiku, though as you might expect I am also on Twitter.
In case you were wondering, android is an open source mobile phone platform.
I demonstrated Jaiku at ALT-C and then sent a good hour out of session taking to a English Literature lecturer who was very interested in using Jaiku (or Twitter) to enhance a session on discussing a book.
The book was set in a cafe, and he wanted the students to go to a cafe and then post their observations and discuss the book whilst drinking in a cafe.
Obviously you could do this face to face (difficult in a cafe to find enough chairs) likewise you could use a moodle discussion forum (such as this one), however one of the strengths of using something like Jaiku or Twitter was that the students wouldn’t need a wireless laptop, all they need is a phone capable of SMS and what student doesn’t have a phone these days?
Photo source.
Those of you who follow me online (or just plain bump into me online) or have read this
blog before will know that I am a fan of micro-blogging and specifically Jaiku.
So I read with interest today that Google has bought out Jaiku.
Exciting news: Google has bought Jaiku today. What does that mean? First and foremost, we’re of course continuing to support our existing users. So fear not: your Jaiku phone, the Web site, IM, SMS, and API will continue to work normally.
Interesting that Google went for Jaiku and not Twitter. Twitter has certainly had a lot more press than Jaiku, maybe it was a price thing, maybe it wasn’t.
What is also interesting is that Google already own a similar service, Dodgeball!
I do feel that micro-blogging has real educational potential, if not for learning, certainly for administration or even marketing.
Alas one of the side effects of this purchase is that…
That said, new user sign-ups have been limited for the time being.
But…
Existing users will still be able to invite their friends
So if you know me and have been thinking about joining Jaiku, fear not, want an invite let me know.
Earlier, back in July, I blogged about Web Worker Daily which had a nice article on how Facebook could be used to support your work. Well they’ve just published another excellent article on how you can use Twitter in the workplace.
For those of you who still wonder whether it’s anything more than inane stream-of-consciousness, consider these ways in which Twitter can help you professionally.
Though I do have a Twitter account, I much prefer using Jaiku which is a similar micro-blogging site, and all eight ways can also be used with Jaiku. Jaiku also allows you to add RSS feeds which makes it even more useful and you can create channels which will make it very easy to add micro-blogging to an event or a conference.
I can be found on both Jaiku and Twitter, why not give it a try.