And many people CAN actually pay attention while multi-tasking; even if they’re playing on Twitter or Facebook while I’m talking in a way unrelated to my lecture, that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not listening. I don’t think it’s my job (or my right) to dictate whether that’s possible for other people.

So short answer: since students are allowed to be on their laptops during my lecture, I am de facto allowing them to be on Twitter.

Jaime – It sounds like you believe learning is a top-down process as opposed to a collaborative process. If I held that same underlying philosophy of education, I probably would be skeptical of Twitter too.

if it’s ok during conference presentations, should students be allowed to tweet during our classes? E.g., when we’re teaching about Weber in introductory soc, should we consider our explanation of the iron cage “fair game” for the 300 students listening to us lecture? granted, some instructors purposefully use twitter as part of their classes, but should we just assume that students can generate a twitter firestorm while we are teaching?

There seems to be something about institutional environments which stymies person to person contact, a sort of barrier of unfamiliar protocols coupled with an unfamiliar place that can hold back personal interactions. It seems like twitter is able to reconnect people on that personal level, its nature as an open person to person network might work to re-establish a sense of place and community amongst people. I’m not really sure, but I feel as though there is something there which contrasts old institutions characterized by human networks (bureaucracy)’ and new institutions formed of digital networks. A transparency which seems to open up new (old?) forms of interpersonal contact.

Anyway, rambling. Very thought provoking write-up! Thanks!

If conferences are supposed to create space for conversations, it’s hard to imagine a better tool.

Indeed.