I don't get #lrnchat!

It's been a while since I attended PodCamp Boston and met a lot of interesting people :-) One of those interesting people is Gina Minks (@gminks on twitter)

Gina informed me about #lrnchat, on twitter (you can find transcripts here) and I eagerly wanted to check things out. What is #lrnchat?

#lrnchat is an online chat that happens every Thursday night 8:30-10pm EST / 5:30-7pm PST over the social messaging service Twitter. Participants are people interested in the topic of learning from one another and who want to discuss how to help other people learn.



I haven't had a chance to participate in a #lrnchat session because when it's on I am generally tired. The morning following a #lrnchat session I feel as though my twitter stream has been spammed - and spammed badly. I only get one side of the conversation with some quotes that are just like "whaaaaaa?" and others that are awesome pearls of wisdom in an of themselves that can stand without context.

Now I can say with certainty that I don't get #lrnchat. I do get a gathering of like-minded individuals to exchange knowledge and information and participate in a panel like discussion, however I don't get the medium of twitter to do this. In the past, for such ventures, we used IRC chat, or yahoo chat, or some other chat service that was unencumbered by character limitations (twitter is only 140 characters) and does not pollute other people's twitter streams. I know that when Leo Laporte or other tech guys go to conventions I unfollow them on twitter because there is simply way too much noise coming from them and it drowns out the other people that post less but I am more connected to.

#lrnchat seems to me like another instance of using what's new and shiny when another 'older' technology would do just fine. I don't get #lrnchat, am I missing something?

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