Micro-blogging
Once again Twitter, and by extension micro-blogging, gets a blasting from someone that doesn't truly get it. In today's Sunday Times (I'd love to give a URL but the site just isn't working: Sunday 21st December 2008, main paper page 16) India Knight oversells the virtues of Facebook (an edifice I dislike intensely!) and introduces Twitter as one of the "...the fastest growing websites." She goes on, "Slightly creepily, you can 'follow' various celebs' tweets as well as your own". Further reading explores her impatience with people who tweet trivia (main thrust is a pregnancy belt which is programmed to tweet every time the wearer's foetus kicks). This edginess is something we have discussed at length over the last few months.
Many of my colleagues and friends have embraced micro-blogging (via the likes of Twitter and Jaiku) as a means of mutual self-support and development and micro-blogging has helped us to develop a real community of practice. We see a formative function for micro-blogging in many areas of education. But there are many detractors.
First of all, what are the benefits of a community of practice? Do we need to belong to just one – or might we (can we?) belong to more than one? Frank Coffield suggests that such are fundamental to his 'participation' metaphor for learning [Coffield, F. (2008) Just suppose teaching and learning became the first priority, London. Learning and Skills Network]. He further suggests (page 9) that "... community, identity, meaning, practice, dialogue, co-operation and belonging" are all key words in describing communities of practice.
In an online, dispersed world how do we replicate the identity, meaning and dialogue we would otherwise develop over the coffee machine; the photocopier; the football crowd? How do we engender a feeling of community or belonging? Well – in Twitterland we talk about the coffee we are drinking, the depths to which our man (or woman) flu has sunk us; we might, given the circumstances (and uterus) even tweet our gestating baby's kicks. James Clay is known for commenting quite often on coffee. (e.g. http://tinyurl.com/77kkzo) but it should be noted that he gets as many, if not more replies from his 'followers' – his community of practice. Seemingly banal discussion is how we cement our sundry relationships. Think about the discussions you have at work, which are the most plentiful – they ones where you discuss last night's television or today's coffee – or the meaningful ones that improve your own knowledge or standing in the 'community'? I'll bet there are more of the former than there are of the latter.
Like all newcomers to a community of practice, whether it be a football team, a church choir or a teaching staff room, a certain settling in time is expected (and allowed). Don't judge Twitter/Jaiku as trivial until you've tried it.
David: listening to Fleetwood Mac, thinking about making tea.
