Just wondering - so many community based tools have seeped into the "Learning 2.0" trend - does anyone see a training/learning value to Twitter (or its clones)?

It feels like a terrific nuisance to me. But then , perhaps as I round the corner in my mid-30s I am becoming a dinosaur?

Don't need implemented examples - just wondering if there are any ideas in the rooom...

Thanks in advance!

Dennis

Great question, Dennis.

As a 50-something I can see a good value in twitter for training. I have heard a great deal about using twitter in the marketing space (check out garyvee's stuff), and I have heard a lot about it in corporate environments, but I had not heard about it in the training world. So I considered what might be useful.

I think it would be valuable for mentors and proteges to keep up with each other. That's not classroom training, but it is a WLP function.

I wish I'd had it when I was working with a virtual team in New Meixco, Virginia and Londoon developing elearning. Had we'd been able to twitter what we were doing and the difficulties we were facing, we might have been done quicker...

Likewise when I've done course development the development team could have kept better track of the progress with twitter.

Those are in the delivery, infrastructure development and courseware development phases of training. Pretty wide spectrum, huh?

Now, finally, I see twitter as closely related to a wiki in these cases. In the latter two of these a wiki could have been used instead. It would have been more effort, but produced a more useful result.

For a new idea, I can see using twitter as part of a corporate scavanger hunt. I know these have been used to train new employees by getting them involved in finding out about the company. With mobile devices capable of twittering, the tweets could inform team members of objects found, etc. This could be very fun and even more valuable than current corporate scavanger hunts.

I'd have to see it to believe it. I don't see *any* value in it, so I'd need to see a damned good example of it working in that way. Still, I shall keep my mind and eyes open the possibility. I wont be the one to attempt it though. :-)