Headline: Twitter Wouldn’t Sell For $1 Billion, Says Source  TechCrunch reports on potential acquisition by Google.

As you will learn, I am a big fan of social networking and interoperability.  Although I personally am only lukewarm to the concept of staying in constant communication with the world around us, I firmly believe that we must meet people where they are if we are to have meaningful communication in the 21st century.  This will be especially true in the changing world of education, where online classrooms will have to compete with other portals, such as Facebook and google for the attention of students.  To help bridge this challenge, I think that people need to be able to easily use technologies that are familiar and can serve multiple purposes.  This is why I am in favor of a Twitter-Google marriage. 

For those unfamiliar, Twitter is a short form communication tool set around keeping posts to 144 characters or less (text message size), so that people can send quick notes an updates on multiple platforms, ranging from cell phones to web pages and beyond.  Although Twitter has made great inroads to ensure that their messages can be broadcast everywhere, including Facebook, they are still a small private company that if it were to go under, would take all of their messages and their broad user base along with it.  Enter Google, with its large reach and technical firepower, they have the ability to help ensure that the technology lasts and seamlessly integrates with multiple technologies (whether they like it or not).  In many ways, acquiring a company like twitter helps lay a familiar infrastructure to provide a new communication network to the masses.  This pipeline will be able to provide all types of content, user generated, educational or otherwise, in a format that speaks to the users.  Again, to be clear, in this day and age we need to speak to people using the mediums that speak to them…

Looking back on this news story, although these acquisition talks can be construed as Google trying to buy up another up and coming potential competitor, I still think that absorbing exciting new companies like Twitter help diversify and in the long run strengthen Google from a creativity standpoint.  Fresh eyes and ideas are only a good thing, especially in the world of social networking where we are all still unsure where the road will lead us next.

To recap, the article discusses that Twitter’s asking price may be too high, but I am sure the discussions will continue.  These type of stories are not only meaningful to those in Silicon Valley but could have far reaching social implications.

I am clearly on a technology kick these days. I thought this was an interesting article that scratches the surface of the generational gap taking place in the office, which I think also carries over into Education.  As non-traditional learners (formerly lumped under the title “Adult Learners”) are getting younger, they are becoming more technologically savvy.  This article suggests what many may have suspected, that younger people have more tolerance for multi-tasking, specifically using technologies such as laptops, PDAs and smart phones during meetings.  Looking from the standpoint of Education, this can be construed as a cautionary tale that there may be a place for this type of technology in the classroom (online or face to face), but we need to know the populations we serve.  A large part of crafting a quality educational experience is to help students push their boundaries, but still allow them some level of comfort in their education platform. 

via farm4.static.flickr.com

Interesting pic.  Speaks to the world of Education in the current economy as well as our new world of social media.

While working on a different project, I stumbled on a USA Today Article today that talks about a new tool on the United Way Web site that explores how many of our social and socioeconomic factors are interlinked.  Specifically, this tool, the “Common Good Forecaster”, allows you to select a state and adjust the average levels of education for the area and see what that does to a variety of other factors, such as average life expectancy and even average life span.

If nothing else, this seems to be a good tool to help people put their contribution to society into perspective.  This summer I plan on using this with my orientation class to show them what the cumulative effect of them graduating may have on their circumstances as a whole.  Sometimes it is too easy to think only of yourself or just your immediate family when making decisions on things like pursuing a degree.  Hopefully this couple help people see beyond that.

Common Good Forecaster: http://liveunited.org/forecaster/

I am glad someone in Higher Ed is trying this…

infoneernet:

Maybe Sugato Chakravarty should wear a helmet to class. The professor of consumer sciences and retailing at Purdue University repeatedly attempts the instructional equivalent of jumping a motorcycle over a row of flaming barrels.

OK, asking 250 students to post questions on Twitter during a class doesn’t risk life or limb. But it can cause ego damage if the mob of students in his course on personal finance gets disorderly online.

He has given them the power to do just that. As Mr. Chakravarty paces the front of a stadium-style lecture hall, wearing a wireless microphone to make sure his lecture reaches the nosebleed seats, some students crack jokes anonymously in an official Web forum. The course is one of two at Purdue that are testing homemade software called Hotseat, which lets students key in questions from their cellphones or laptops, using Twitter or Facebook.

Seen at The Chronicle of Higher Education (Subscription may be required for some content)

Interesting…

infoneer-pulse:

Dana College, a small Lutheran liberal arts institution in Nebraska, announced Tuesday evening that it is being sold to a new for-profit company. The sale comes just a year after another Lutheran institution, Waldorf College in Iowa, was sold to a for-profit entity.

But while Dana’s purchase is similar to a pattern in which some small traditional colleges are being bought, it may differ in other ways. The new owners say that their goal is to build the traditional liberal arts mission through on-campus programs, and not to use the college and its accreditation as a base for online operations. And the new owners not only say that current faculty members will keep their jobs, but that the college’s tenure system — which is not typical for for-profit higher education — will remain in place.

» via Inside Higher Ed

A different approach to Online Learning…

If I had it to do over again (and the degree actually existed), this is what I would have done for my Master’s. 

Interesting report from Australia for all my friends now graduating…