My DEN Crib by Lee Kolbert

As you, my faithful readers, already know, I’m a big fan of Twitter. But for those Twitter-nostics out there, especially my “I Think, Therefore, I’m a Democrat” bumpersticker-yielding “who has time for yet another social networking app” dear friends, this is for you! If you love social conversations, if you love social conversations that are relevant (not necessarily about the milk in the coffee this morning turning thick), but perhaps about… dare I say it? P O L I T I C S ?

YOU, my dear are going to love this.

Built on the Twitter API, Politweets tracks the conversation going on between everyone in the “twitterverse” about the Presidential candidates and the primaries. When you visit the site you’ll notice the candidates stacked top to bottom in the middle of the screen, while the most recent public Tweets about Democratic candidates are to the left and the conversation about the Republicans to the right. How clever, huh???

The order of the candidates (in the middle) changes depending on how much each candidate is being talked about. In spite of the Hillary v. Obama and McCain v. Romney chatter, there’s no shortage of conversation about online hero to the people Ron Paul.

 Amanda is a popular video blogger on YouTube. She’s also severely autistic (you’ll be questioning exactly what that means after you watch her video), and she’s amazingly articulate for someone who “can’t” communicate. Many students struggle with communication, whether because they’re shy or they have Asperger’s Syndrome or some other condition that makes talking or writing a challenge. Amanda has managed to use her blog and YouTube as a way of creating a dialogue with the rest of the world.

I strongly encourage you to take a look at Amanda’s video, In My Language, and peruse her blog, Ballastexistenz. What assumptions do we make about others, especially as teachers? And if Web 2.0 tools can allow someone like Amanda to interact with others in their language, what can be accomplished by using these tools in education with our mainstream population?