Too much tweet or lots of meat?

I first signed up for Twitter in June 2011. It was at a conference where participants were encouraged to follow a hashtag during a keynote address. I was aware of Twitter prior to this occasion, but never felt the need to sign up for it. I thought it would just be another distraction to add in my life. I was pleasantly surprised that following the conference hashtag gave me a pulse of what was going on/what people were thinking during the conference. It’s also an effective way of asking questions to the speaker in a large setting, where raising your hand might not be feasible. It also allows for a bit of anonymity for those who may be on the shy side. During the TCC conference the twitter feed helped to tailor some of my decisions on which archived sessions to attend based on positive tweet chatter.

Besides using twitter in conferences, using it in the context of a class has also been quite useful. It’s been a great way to kep up with educational technology news and views from my classmates. I’ve discovered new tools and have also used it to communicate with my group members on our assignments. Twitter would also be useful in getting immediate feedback on any type of prototype. During the debut of a web site or educational program, twitter could be used to capture the immediate thoughts of the audience. 

Although I have found twitter to be useful for conferences and during class, I still find it rather overwhelming outside of these two examples. So much of it seems like idle chatter (where people are at the moment, what they are doing, etc) that it can often drown out what is important. I know that you can follow certain hashtags or followers, and separate them out from the rest of your channel, but I haven’t yet quite found out the proper balance. It would be nice if Twitter could learn what you deem as important, similar to how Pandora learns your song preferences. Or maybe something like this already exists? 

How do you deal with managing your Twitter account?

TCC 2012: A Review of my first online conference

General observations:
This was my first TCC conference so I really didn’t go in with any expectations. I was surprised by the high quality of many of the presentations. Ironically, it seemed that there was a lot more interactivity (like polls) during these online presentations versus presentations at a face to face conference. Audience questions were thought-provoking and helped in stimulating the overall discussion.


Opinion about the value of a virtual conference for educators and for society:
I must admit I was a little skeptical about a virtual conference matching up to a face to face conference. During the duration of the conference I was on the East Coast at a face to face conference so I wasn’t able to attend all of the sessions that I had on my list. However, it was great to be able to tune into the web casts and watch them immediately after the session.

What I learned, including my tweeting experiences:
At the beginning of the class, I was pretty skeptical about using Twitter for anything. I’ve found a lot of use for it in both the context of our class but also the conference. Twitter pretty much gave me a pulse of what was going on in the conference at that specific moment. The Twitter feed was helpful as well, as I tailored some of my decisions on which archived sessions to attend based on the twitter feedback.  


What would I do next time?
I would definitely clear my calendar during the TCC conference. There were so many sessions to attend, and even though I attended many of the archived web casts, being able to ask questions to the presenter really adds to the learning. It was great to have the discussion forum though to follow up with additional questions.

Suggestions: Match up newbie conference attendees with veterans so they can give them some tricks of the trade. Setting expectations for what to expect at the conference is something that would help the newbies as well.