All over the world people are tweeting 140 character responses to the question ‘what are you doing?’ as a way to communicate with friends, colleagues and others who have common interests.

TwitDir (a twitter directory) shows more than three million people are communicating in this way.

The exchange is different to normal conversation, it results in sharing of resources, help with fleshing out ideas, stories are told, people are inspired, problems are solved, feedback is gained and collaboration occurs.

The trick is to know who to follow and how to manage the flood of information; as well as being prepared for the fact that you may get more insight into the person that you are following than you have had previously.

I originally started using twitter a few months ago but was rather disappointed about the whole experiment because I didn’t know anyone else who used it.

This changed when I came across Jane Hart’s Directory of Learning Professionals on Twitter.  Suddenly I realized that I would get the most out of this tool by connecting with others who worked in same field as me.  There are over 400 entries on this list so I just went through and picked out professionals whose work I already followed and others whose descriptions inspired me.

Not long after I started using twitter a new site was launched which has directories for tweeters in all sorts of industries.  JustTweetIt’s Education directory has links for over a hundred people that you could follow and you can easily add yourself to this directory so others can follow your updates.

Now I have a stream of people who I follow.

This means that whenever I choose to tune in to twitter I have the chance to talk about eLearning, communication, design and web 2.0+.  To share articles, pictures, videos and blog posts.  To collaborate, promote, assist and inspire – it is the perfect tool to connect with others who have similar interests.

The 140 character limit really encourages you to be precise about what you are saying, something I really benefit from as I tend to be a bit wordy.

Being able to quickly and easily provide an update on what you are doing and to get feedback from others results in a better work flow and reduces the amount of time it takes to share an idea.

Just now I have twittered the following:

Within 5 minutes I have a number of responses suggesting that what is most important in a new model of communication is the “ability to convey what you want people to know” (@mayhemstudios) and “the message itself, by far” (@alexhosterman).

By considering the way that we communicate and share our lives with others, we have an opportunity to change the way that we work together in the future.

For those of you who are new to the world of Twitter, I suggest you check out Twitter in Plain English Video by CommonCraft below:

I am considering how twitter could be used in business to improve communication and how it could be integrated into the eLearning experience.

I will post more on these topics another day, but for now I leave you with this question . . .

how do you see us communicating in the future?

I have been wandering around the eLearning world for a couple of years now, picking up tips, discovering gems, creating content and discussing theory. Only now have I decide to blog my experience.

It is strange that I haven’t started blogging earlier, considering I have been planning on doing so for a few months   It has been through joining Work Literacy – Web 2.0 for Learning Professionals that I have been encouraged to develop my online presence.

From ‘An eLearning Experience’ I hope . . .

• to share my half-baked ideas and get input from you
• to give back to the eLearning community
• to meet and collaborate
• to capture, develop and analyse
• to open up doorways, passages, tunnels or https connections

Now, any tips on using WordPress . . .