Tag Archives: Twitter

Time to check out Maang?

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A few of us have spent way too much of our vacation playing around on Maang, the NSW DEC’s new microblogging facility that replaces Yammer. It has been like two weeks of the really fun bits of a professional development day, mixed with watercooler talk. So much to learn, so much to discover, so much to share. I know that I’ve explored only the tip of the Maang iceberg and that it holds many more surprises as we learn more.


Maang logo

If you have never dabbled in Facebook or Twitter, but feel like you probably should know something about how social media works – and so many of our students spend a lot of their time (seemingly) perfecting their skills in same – Maang is an ideal opportunity for you to go beyond the possibilities of a professional listserv and to do so among curious colleagues who are also learning. What I’ve enjoyed so far is not just socialising and sharing with TLs in the dedicated Maang groups (there is a Teacher Librarian group with 142 members so far, a Bookweek group, a blogEd group, and many others), but conversing with principals, beginning teachers, IT specialists, teachers located in schools where I used to teach, etc. There have been several online reunions with colleagues from previous schools, and that has been stimulating, too.

Listservs have their own conveniences, plusses and minuses, but it’s important to investigate what else is out there in Web 2.0 Land, and to practise, practise, practise.

New South Wales Department of Education and Communities staff can find Maang by clicking on the hyperlink that now appears in the DEC Portal’s “Quick links”. Or go to:
https://maang.nsw.edu.au/st/signals

Some browsers will mention a “certificate” problem, but it is a glitch in Internet Explorer.

Hope to see you over at Maang!

To Twitter or not to Twitter

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As yet I’m not convinced about Twitter – although I’m also assuming the NSW DET firewall would block it as another form of social networking?

At home I often have MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger on, and dash off messages to friends when I notice them come online but, from samples I’ve seen of Twitter – short snappy mini blog post-like entries – it doesn’t seem all that different. I fear the temptation for me to keep Twittering every few minutes would mean I’d never get any other work done. I procrastinate enough as it is. Would I just be a Twit? 😉

I’m sure if I had time to “play” on Twitter, some educational purposes would begin to be suggested by the tech. Judy O’Connell had mentioned at the recent ASLA NSW conference about “no live blogging of the workshops”. Personally, I think we are all waiting for etiquette to catch up with the (revised rules?) of Netiquette – in that Twittering means doing more than two things at once but still pretending to give full attention to the speaker. 😉 I, for one, had made a point of turning off my mobile phone at the start of each talk at the conference, lest I be distracted or curious (as usual) about any incoming messages. And yet there Judy was asking the audience why no one was mobile blogging!

I could have been there with my (borrowed) laptop or my mobile phone and live blogging, but I made do with nightly summaries to my blog – which meant that I was able to have at least some synthesis in my posts. Raw Twittered reactions to speakers during the speech might not be as useful. Depends on what you think people might want out of a blogged conference update, I guess.