Social Not-working

Twitter, eh?

Love it
Hate it
Love it...


A picture for you of the world on the outskirts of our PLN... and sometimes within:


Pesky Pests

  •  DM: Put me on your blog roll, I need you to make me famous!!
  •  DM: Retweet my links for me, I need you to make me famous!!!
  •  @kalinagoenglish Come and comment on my blog!  You will love it!!!!
  •  RT 457 of my 3rd post ever! #edchat #edtech #eltchat #tefl #efl #eltpics #dogmeme #tefl
  • Hey EduVIP look at me! Today!  Like you have to know this: I'm your BIGGEST fan, like you know, ever!  Did I tell you how fab all your pictures of food are!!! They make me so hungry I just want to come live with you and curl up in your kitchen.  Did you look at me yet?


Nothing But Narcissism


  •  Feeling lonely over here, my blog needs your comments.  Come over and write your thoughts but don't forget to hit the RT button on your way out :-))))
  •  I don't have time to comment on other people's blogs and stuff because as you know, I'm busy making a ginormous wiki about grocery shopping in Sainsbury's: I'm going to label everything according to aisle.  I will need all the EduBloggers help on that so don't forget to RT on your way out.
  •  Having dinner with VIPx and his darling wife tonight!  We'll be eating mushroom soup.  Have you RTed my dinner plans yet?
  •  Just had a cup of coffee, I love my Java.   Especially first thing in the morning.  Have you posted that to Facebook and Stumble Upon yet?  I wanna have 30,000 followers see.  Then I'll be the best.
  •  Sitting in a traffic jam.  I'm going to paint my toenails tonight.  I think I'll paint them violet.  Then everyone will acknowledge my truest deepest amazingness.  
  •  Arrived in Casablanca, staying at €€€hotel, dontcha wish you was me:  twitpic2078359304 - oh you're so unlucky not to be mee, meee, meeee.


The Truly Tacky


  •  Just bought a 4G so now I'm as handsome and as awesome as Steve Jobs!
  •  Can you link to our website via your blog?
  • Win the chance to win an i-touch by coming to our website and registering your email address with us so we can spam you non-stop about our amazing products we're sure you're passionate to buy!
  • Holy smokes!  I've got 500 fans on Twitter! I never knew I was so intelligent!
  • Just heading to the loo.   Let's talk about what people do in loos, shall we?
  • Just twitted my 1000th thought today.  "I've been very busy and productive today."
  • Hey!  We have a product we know you'll love to bits and we want you to feature it on your blog!  RT and spread the word!!!
  • How about those lovely balloons of Ms Spears?  Bouncy! 


Useful to think about:




Best, Karenne

I love hearing from you!

I remember the last time I did a dry-humour post on social-notworking, Twitter: in the space of 140 characters, a handful of the wonderful people I follow got a wee bit upset and thought I was talking about them.... Lovely folks, if I'm still following you, you don't have to worry.

I'm just doing some clean-up.  And, important disclaimer, obviously I too in my forays into the world of social-media undoubtedly made my own fair share of the above mistakes (and others).

Please add your thoughts if you enjoyed this piece and you feel like there's something you would like to question, add or say about it - don't worry about perfection or agreeing with me as it's always a pleasure to hear from you and know your own opinions.

What bothers you about Twitter and EduSocialMedia?

And by the way, have you already written about this specific subject or something similar? Do please add your link as I welcome the opportunity to participate in your conversations too! :-)

Check on your TweetPsych

Recommended reading 

Advice on using Twitter as a teacher, as a conversation medium

Advice on using Twitter if you'd doing so as an educational company


Hat tip
Russell Stannard for his Teacher Training video How to MakeBeliefscomix







22 Responses to “Social Not-working”

  • David Warr says:
    November 09, 2010

    Very funny. I can imagine people taking offence, like you said.

  • Betty Carlson says:
    November 09, 2010

    All I can say is that reading this post made me glad I DON'T have a huge Twitter following, lol!

  • Tara Benwell says:
    November 09, 2010

    This was really fun to read Karenne! I love that idea about looking at your last 20 tweets. From my personal twitter account, my last 20 tweets (@tarabenwell) show that:
    1) I have a dream that goes beyond ELT
    2) I'm excited about student bloggers
    3) I like sharing new apps that are useful for creativity and YL. My iPad was a gift and we are still in awe of it-especially my 4 year old who LOVES to draw.
    4) I appreciate other people's hard work (especially those who are in line with their own dreams)
    5. I love sharing stories about my own kids.

    How about you? Thanks for the fun!

  • Willie Lee says:
    November 09, 2010

    the only thing more disposable than twitter is facebook. All you criticized is found tenfold on shitty facebook, I hate facebook. I hate it because I only have 5 friends there and two of 'em are my parents.

    btw, what's so social about social media anyway?

    jokes apart, I can safely say I'm only in it for the money.

  • KALINAGO ENGLISH says:
    November 09, 2010

    Willie Lee, please do follow me :-)))

    David, yah... the NPD's especially. :-)

    Betty C :-) sometimes it's a lot better, these days I have so many lists to look through in order to find the good peeps. I know, I know, just unfollow more but actually so many people do send out really great stuff so whaddya do, you just take the mickey every now and then of the folks without a clue!

    Tara,
    Aw :-)) I gotta DM you about the dream of yours and that's lovely you're having fun with the ipad.
    Re your q' of me... hmm... I think it's mostly about education, sometimes about making my dreams come true, sometimes about my students, often sharing blogs I like reading... sometimes music, sometimes social-media stuff... my blog posts.... hmmmm tough question! I think I need to be a bit more social too :-)

  • Sue Lyon-Jones says:
    November 09, 2010

    Thanks for this, Karenne - made me laugh a lot! Will link to it from the Twitter posts on my blog.

    Sue :-)

  • Richard says:
    November 09, 2010

    Good for a chuckle, cheers! I followed the tweetpsych thing though, now I'm disturbed.

    My last twenty tweets have been about teaching or related things, football, general nonsense or RTs.

    I'd imagine it would look different after #eltchat!

  • KALINAGO ENGLISH says:
    November 10, 2010

    Oh, I forgot to say David... actually I reckon that the folks who "would" get offended if they took this seriously.... well, they probably won't actually ever read this post!

    Hey Sue! I love your funny posts on Twitter, have remembered now to link above!

    Rich, uh-huh... I have to confess that even though I thought there was a touch of NPD in me, myself, when I travelled on over to the tweetpsych to go check on my profile LOL, it also was very helpful to me, to see what "statistics" came up and um, I need to do more of certain things!

  • Tobius says:
    November 10, 2010

    You've spoken to why I avoid social networking: it's almost never social, and I don't want to be the kind of person who pretends to be your friend in order to gain something.

    Even now, the only emails I get from my now-defunct site (where the last post is that I'm not going to update it) are people asking me to add a link. When I say the site is officially 'abandoned,' they normally respond "that's okay. We need the links."

    Meh.

    I plan to blog again. And I don't hate technology. But I think I could be modern-Amish: ask yourself if you really need it before you adopt it.

  • KALINAGO ENGLISH says:
    November 10, 2010

    I hear ya, Toby.

    There have been times where honestly I've looked at my inbox, the DM inbox or the comments spam and I've almost abandoned everything I've created too.

    There have been times when I've disappeared from all the social media sites because I felt utterly overwhelmed by those who only want something from me.

    The thing is I LOVE SHARING and I love sending out tweets (actually I even have another twitter account dedicated to sharing the work of others simply because I think it's important to make sure their work is seen too, for the democratization of education and not everyone has a large "following" - the size of a following isn't an indication of quality so I use mine to point others to that quality)...

    But it's my choice and I spend at least a half hour everyday seeking out that quality so I don't need people to shove their products in my face or their free books or their gadgets and gizmos... if it's good enough, I will find it - or they can write a sensible report and address me as more than a potential intermediary for their "success" - I mean end of the day, I'm just a person, just a teacher, just someone having a laugh like they are!

    Anyway, I can't wait to hear about your new blog!!! Please make sure you tell me when it's up. I really thought your page was one of the best for students and it has been missed.

    K

  • Unknown says:
    November 10, 2010

    I'm tweetless. (LOL) But I have enjoyed your post.

  • Marisa Constantinides says:
    November 10, 2010

    Yeah, I'm with you on this...

    I too get fed up by

    - hashtag hijackers
    - celebs allowing poor me glimpses of their luxurious lifestyles
    - auto DM's directing me to websites
    - emails telling me how my blog would benefit if only I 'shared' a post to promote whatever...

    But it would be unfair not to mention that I also love the great conversations we have and getting to meet people like you and the great members of my PLN, dear Karenne.

    My last 20 tweets today are part of moderating #ELTchat, so I guess they are saying it's great to be part of all this.

    Sure, lots of minor gripes, but the rest of it is a great big bonus.

    Marisa

  • KALINAGO ENGLISH says:
    November 10, 2010

    Adam,
    All the time.

    Marisa,
    Yup! I think that's why I love it/hate it/love it... sometimes it drives me nuts and think, right I am so out of here - but then I reflect on all the great people I've met and know that I've gotten so much out of that space: met some truly amazing folks...

    What can you do, after all the Narcissists, Pests, Trolls exist in RL too!

    Nowt but laugh I think!

    Thanks for your comment and so glad to have spent so much time with you face2face and online and kudos on the #eltchats they are a really brilliant way for the folks to tweet on theme!

  • KALINAGO ENGLISH says:
    November 10, 2010

    Rose,

    LOL!

  • This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
    SUCCESSFUL says:
    November 11, 2010

    This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

  • Teacher Tim says:
    November 11, 2010

    Funny and some valid points. Makes me wonder where it will all lead in the next few years.

  • KALINAGO ENGLISH says:
    November 11, 2010

    Yup, Tim! This is a question I ask myself frequently!

    At IATEFL last year, it was absolutely incredible because of Twitter, loads of us got together and we spent lots of time together and since then many of us have continued to get together (I went on a vacation with Marisa and Shelly for example in Greece, met up with some of the bloggers at their workshops or Skyped for some folk when one of us has needed help with something: in many, many, many cases some of us on Twitter have now really moved our online friendships into real life friendships and now things like going to conferences has become terribly exciting because you know that you're not going to dash in some strange room somewhere stand up in front of strangers and then park yourself in a hotel room watching the telly - now, you have friends in most of these cities.

    So... while that's all true the flipside that I'm making fun of in this post often does put a big wet blanket on all our great times! Tonight, before you commented, I've had to delete two comments from a troll...

    And sometmies that along with the folks we somehow see my blog as a target for advertising or in general, me, on Twitter as a person they should yell their wares at, it gets exhausting. Terribly so, because it's so frequent and although some may think that's flattering and why doesn't that bird keep quiet... it's not.

    It's just not flattering to swat away people whose sole interest in talking to others is that they visit their websites (I mean lots of have them, there's nothing wrong with being proud of one's work)... it's just where's the love - ya know.

    No one goes to a BYOB party with nothing in their hands, walks up to the host and says hey do you mind, I can't stay, busy, busy - must rush off, no time to thank you for the treats but hey come round mine and while you're at it... bring some of that caviar and champers with you because I'm only serving beer meself.

    It just makes you go oh.

    Karenne

  • SUCCESSFUL IN LIFE says:
    November 11, 2010

    Oh ha ha ha oh very ha ha

    THIRD head of the triplet

    CLICK swish swivel CLICK
    I dismiss YOU not the OTHER way round
    PS How was Brummie Uni ??
    Still brianstorming??

    A ha a ha a ha ha ha ha ha ho

  • Clarissa at Talk to the Clouds says:
    November 11, 2010

    Oh, my, you actually seem to have some peeved person out to comment, not just a general troll or a spammer. How...junior-high-school. (Of them, I mean.)

    Anyway, I've managed to get rid of the Tacky but am not sure what to do about the Pests who seem to be new to social media and don't quite get that this is Not Acceptable. And it's really true about the first half of Narcissism--if you want to GET comments, you have to GET comments. Everyone occasionally has a great post that goes unloved, and I think it's OK to bring it up, but if it's a constant thing...the problem is not the other people. :/

  • KALINAGO ENGLISH says:
    November 11, 2010

    Hi ya Clarissa!

    I know what you mean - I think the thing is any of us who blog or tweet have a twinge of narcissism at the very least! We couldn't not love ourselves and think we had something to say that people might want to read and we have to tweet /link share our posts in order to be heard.

    One of the first rules of blogging, methinks

    It's really just the overdoing of it that sometimes irks especially by some who can't really be bothered to read any other blogs but their own - and for that's okay, no one has to read anyone else's or comment, but then they can't really expect to get any back, can they?

    :-))

    Nice to talk to you again, must go deal with that troll...

  • KALINAGO ENGLISH says:
    November 11, 2010

    Hi ya, Troll

    Successfully realize that you have successfully gained my attention and I've written a post just for you.

    Do hope you enjoy it!

    Dear Internet Troll

    You may well have enjoyed your daylight time on Alex's, Sandy's or wherever else it is I've seen you but you buckaroo.. note that the buck stops here.

    Got it?

  • Mr.Saeed says:
    November 12, 2010

    Mr.Saeed! yup
    I would like to say:"You are successfully gain my attention.Because You are great edu-blogger.My last twenty posts are about my posts and others work who I appreciate .
    Good luck.

 

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