By Holly MacDonald

I have been on Twitter for a few months now, and although it took me awhile to figure out the point of it, then get the hang of it, I feel now that I both get it and use it.  I’m sure a lot of you are wondering how it can possibly be a good thing and the “how do you find time to use it?” invariably comes up.  To many people Twitter = to fritter away time.  But, to me, it has really connected me to some very smart people, and I’ve found some great things.

First off, for those who think you have to be plugged in constantly, it isn’t the case.  What you find, when you follow enough smart people is that you don’t need to sit on it all the time, but when you dip in, you find things that are interesting.  As Don Tapscott recently tweeted “Discovery is the new search”.  You don’t have to go looking for things, you just find them where you happen to be hanging out online.
Things I learned from Twitter recently:

• Top 10 Technologies for 2011 by Gartner: http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1454221
• Project Rome: http://rome.adobe.com/
• While I won’t be doing this (my handwriting is atrocious), you can create your own font: http://www.yourfonts.com/
• This interesting library of training resources: http://www.thetrainingworld.com/resources/index.html
• How to create a podcast: http://blog.acm.org/elearn/2010/11/how_to_create_a_podcast_for_el.html
• Linkbunch – send several links in one IM, email or tweet: http://janeknight.typepad.com/pick/2010/11/linkbunch-put-multiple-links-into-one-link.html
• I have also attended conferences via Twitter: DevLearn (all about developing elearning), Enterprise 2.0, Knowledge Management World, Virtual School Society and Global Ed Summit.  Tried to follow CSTD, but they didn’t have wifi, so tweets came mostly from people who were willing to send them SMS (as in texting).

I also participate in weekly “chats” all with learning pros who have a guided discussion (usually 5 questions) called #lrnchat: http://lrnchat.wordpress.com/

It really has become indispensable.  But, don’t worry – you can read my Twitter daily to save you the hassle of getting on it yourself: http://paper.li/sparkandco