Thing # 5 - Microblogging

I've personally been a fan of Facebook for awhile now - it has allowed me to reconnect with old high school and college friends, and even keep up with former students. The way I see it being used in the classroom would be to allow the teacher to post assignments, have students comment or ask questions, etc. I don't really care for the "What are you doing now?" - as I could really care less if someone is about to do laundry or they're laughing at an inside joke! Nonetheless, I think it definitely could be advantageous if used with more of a purpose in mind. As for Tweeter, not really feeling it. It seems so limiting in that the amount of text you can type in at one time is so confining. I have yet to figure out a real purpose for it. I checked out the post on some reasons teachers should consider using it, and I still didn't find a real purpose. Back-channeling seems pretty neat if you are lecturing to a large group and they all have access- that would be a challege in the typical classroom, and again I don't know how you would regulate it.