Every year, for the last 6 or 7 years, I've started teaching my module on Learning Technologies, aimed at members of academic staff, by introducing them to twitter. We then use twitter as a tool throughout the module, sharing information and developing a community . Each year there are always one or two participants who are already twitter users, some people who have dabbled or lurk, and always a few who have never used twitter before. It can be a challenge to convince people to give twitter a try, because the value of twitter to an academic is only realised after a period of time spent engaging. Even building up a network takes time, and often it's not clear to the academic that the time invested now will pay any dividends. To that end, I was helped enormously this year by a short presentation from Jane Walsh ( @DrJaneWalsh ) who gave an engaging, often amusing and very persuasive talk on the value of twitter in her own research and teaching. Jane was a participant herself on ...