Technology in Education

If you need evidence that social networking works, all you have to do is look at what happened to me today. For no other reason than wishing to help someone out that I didn’t even know, I ended up leading an on-line meeting about Moodle. The people that attended were from universities spread across the US and I’ve never met any of them before. Not even exchanged emails.

So how did this happen you ask? A little micro-blogging tool called Twitter. That’s how.

Since using Twitter I’ve made several very valuable contacts, see my last post for just one example. Today I found a way that I could be useful in much the same way. With Twitter I’ve attempted to respond when I could to other Twits (that’s what we call ourselves, I guess) when they’ve asked questions about Moodle. Something I spend a lot of time with. Beyond just a short tweet for an answer or a direction to follow, I decided that I’d open a Connect meeting room on our server and invite my fellow twits in to see what I could do. I would have never guessed at the response that it received.

Several collegiate level technology professionals from around the US dropped in and became active listeners to whatever I could give them about Moodle. One of my fellow workmates referred to this as something to be expected as who wouldn’t want to get free information? I think it was much more than that however as there isn’t anything that I talked about or showed them that they couldn’t have found out by simply visiting the Moodle support forums.

What happened today was an example of what this new techno-world has become. Social and professional networking at it’s finest. I think I finally get it and I can’t wait to get some more.