Survivor: Web2.0, and the Twitter Community Challenge

PSU seemed to be the center of the universe during this past week. With many prominent figures on campus, I am fortunate to have seen one of the most intelligent, passionate, and inspiring speakers imaginable. His speech opened my eyes to the possibility of change, the need for change, and a proposed plan for a path to change. It is also worth noting that my new outlook is not unique, as nearly every other member of the capacity-level crowd has since expressed similar reactions.

The funny thing is, I am not referring to Barack Obama. Nor am I referring to Bill Clinton. And I am certainly not referring to Jerome Bettis – wow, PSU really was the center of the universe last week!

The speaker I am referring to is Lawrence Lessig, keynote speaker for the 2008 TLT Symposium. Lessig’s presentation, which cleverly explained and explored digital creativity and its surrounding issues to, at times, John Phillips Sousa, writing, and Latin, has opened my eyes to need for an updated, intelligent revision of copyright law. Enter Creative Commons. Fortunately (and appropriately), Lessig has made his speech available to the PSU community, though this version omits some of the brilliance of the slideshow that is playing behind him (and Read My Lips is slightly out of sync, comprising the effect). I recommend you watch it in its entirety.

While Lessig is awe-inspiring and worth more than what I have written thus far, I would like to dedicate this entry to the TLT Symposium itself and the community of which I am now a part. I am fortunate to have found my way into State College, then PSU, and then CI 597C, where I have met the awesome Cole Camplese and Scott McDonald. They have opened my eyes and mind to new resources and possibilities in the pedagogical process. One such resource was Saturday’s symposium.

I am part of Team Tweets, a group that selected Twitter as the technology to present. We selected Twitter because we had never heard of it, not quite aware of how much potential it would have. When Allan Gyorke sent his 8 Steps for the TLT Symposium that included the plea to use Twitter, we saw an opportunity for our class to actively use Twitter in their own teaching/learning experience at the symposium. I think we are all glad that we did!

Several blog entries (John, Micala, Reginald, Renegade) have been posted expressing how Twitter helped enhance their symposium experience. They, as do I, credit Twitter and the sub-community it facilitated with making this conference more meaningful to us. I, while sitting in a session on Collaborative Techniques for First Year Seminars, was able to communicate with a new Twitter-friend who was in a session on Social Networking. While we were discussing the same topic and having an active conversation, it wasn’t until about 30 minutes into the session that we realized we were in different rooms!

Later, as I was fulfilling my responsibilities at the Tag Team Table, I met several nice people who had written their Twitter names on their name tags. I added my Twitter name and we struck up a nice conversation. In fact, we have still be following each other’s tweets and I have even been following their blogs (hopefully you are following mine now, Micala and Reginald!). Twitter helped facilitate small talk — or did it eliminate the awkwardness of it?

These are just two of many observations and thoughts I have regarding Twitter and the new community to which I now belong. I need to save the rest for my discussion in class next week so that the class hears new material =)

Another emerging issue is the awkwardness of using Twitter while attending a presentation — be it lecture, session, etc. Is sacrificing eye contact with the facilitator worth the added benefits of discussing the lecture topic? For which parties is it beneficial: facilitator, participant, or both? What other challenges does a Meet & Tweet present?

These and many others are issues we need to tackle as a group in addition to focusing on the positives of Twitter. “The group” includes CI597C as well as the new community who is hopefully following our class’ blogs. Feel free to participate!

For now, I need to change my copyrights to Creative Commons licenses!