Since reading about Yammer in a higher ed environment, I’ve been experimenting a bit with it myself. It’s basically an enterprise, Twitter-like client. One thing I like about it is that, ideally anyway, it kind of emulates spontaneous hallway conversation – that potentially rich seed bed of great ideas. Because Twitter has achieved so much popularity of late and faculty are busy juggling the classic tripartite (teaching+research+service), it seems that now might be a good time to give this thing a whirl. It’s as easy as Twitter and so the barrier to entry is all but nonexistent (e.g., 5-minute demo in a department meeting).
In classes, especially online, students could use it as a complement to traditional LMSs; it would be another way to promote interaction and collaboration.
When Twitter was first being discussed among academics as a potential learning tool, I remember David Parry was one of the first I read who shared his experiences with using Twitter as an educational tool. (If you haven’t read it already, I highly recommend reading his Twitter for Academia.) I wonder if he’s done the same with Yammer?
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