I like your ideas; I've also been trying to play about with the circles & work out something that works for me. How, however, do you manage to add people to them, when you have quite so many (looking at the second list with the 1.3 etc) - I can only see 1.5 rows of circles! (OK, I know you can add someone by right clicking & going for the add to circle, but that's fiddly if you're block adding them!) I've also got in the (equivalent of the) me circle my 'other' G+ account, that I've been using to see the effect of things like extended circles. Which I do find useful. Would be nice, if, at some point, rather than having 'stream' it was possible to see in a single stream all the updates from a set of circles, rather than 1 or all. (Unless that's something I've yet to find!) (That, and I want boolean logic for them, so I can have everyone who is in both a & b, but not a or b!)

Les, have you been talking to the guy on the floor above me ... he's forever trying to convince us that it's more environmentally friendly to use the lift ... on the grounds that going up (a whole flight!) of stairs uses up energy, so you have to eat more, thus putting excessive demands on the agriculture system! By the way, fully agree with James' points re those who take noisy 'breaks'!

Thanks for the post, Jane :) Don't often comment, but do often read (and, even more often, point students/ colleagues to the tools lists!) This is very timely, though, as the Uni that I work at is looking at alternatives to the current VLE (WebCT Vista) - wanting to take into account what some of us are doing outside it; yet ensuring that whatever they select is suitable for all students/staff - who all differ in their ability to use Social tools (and how much they want to/ etc,. etc., etc.) You made the point: "and how can we help those who would like to find out how to work and learn collaboratively, who are not already doing so now?" ... and good to see that you've said "like" ... rather than "how can we make them" - collaborative work doesn't suit everyone all the time. I think it can be very hard for those who support infrastructure (as well as 'protect' students from too many innovative ideas, if those innovations mean that they spend so much time learning to use the tools, they're not really covering the content). You have to find a balance - and not sure where it is. Referring back to my original cpoint - that's what's coming out; some staff (e.g. me!) want total flexibility) - but others need a system that can have some set 'guidelines' - so they can concentrate on what they really want to do. Not an easy balance to get.

Edit: Change that link to: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/QzXv09nSC9CY7W1GfnhVug?feat=directlink - for near Nottingham http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/y2DkhGgF8CDVbnDg2oShng?feat=directlink for anyone. Not sure why it didn't think Josie & Steve were in Nottingham, could have sworn I'd seen them. But, Ewan wasn't!

Edit: Change that link to: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/QzXv09nSC9CY7W1GfnhVug?feat=directlink - for near Nottingham http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/y2DkhGgF8CDVbnDg2oShng?feat=directlink for anyone. Not sure why it didn't think Josie & Steve were in Nottingham, could have sworn I'd seen them. But, Ewan wasn't!

Hmm... have just discovered that the short cuts (in Mac) for Close (Firefox) window & Grab's "grab screen' are the same, as I've just found a web site that could answer (to a degree) the question of where people tweeted from. And when. It's crowdeye.com & seems to go back a max of 14 days - and you can narrow things down to a 10 mile radius. http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/3MfGQJFEH1pTkK6p-z8khg?feat=directlink - the screen grab in the end didn't highlight the tallest column, saying it was 1,761 or similar tweets. The number didn't seem to vary when I changed the location, but the people showing up did.

I think 1 of the other big questions is whether you're seeing the eLearning as predominantly quick training (e.g. how to use x software) etc., or whether you're looking at something that's going to take a longer time & also the input of other learners/experts is likely to really be important. Either of these could be 'formal'/'informal'.

Hi Jane, I've also used Momento on the iPod Touch (assume it's also on the iPhone) that lets you include Facebook & Flickr updates as well as Twitter ones. I think it's got a few more things to, but haven't really played with them. It saves them locally - so you can browse what you've done if you're off line (assuming, of course, you'd used it at some point when online so it could synchronise itself!)

Definitely interested ... and hopefully as I'm signed in with Typepad, you should have access to my email address (maybe??). I'm @emmadw on Twitter if not.

Fascinating reading! I'd not realised till you mentioned this that you were into comics - I've equally probably not mentioned to you that I've got a fair collection (or perhaps you noticed them!) of old girls school stories - from a slightly earlier era. Meantime, several of the folks I know via that are also into comics - indeed, I went to a session at the ICA called "I love Girls comics" a couple of years ago with one of them. (She's done a lot of work in the area - so I've pointed her to this post). Now, really ought to get on with my own post re. ALT-C!

Thanks for this - it looks useful. Have to say that one of my favourites (though I do use several screen grab tools) is Screengrab! - which is a Firefox plugin. So, though it's got less functionality than many others, it's there at the time. (And, the version that goes with Flock lets you upload directly to Flickr if you've got an a/c there; which is handy.)

I saw it demonstrated on the Royal Institution Xmas lectures & thought that it would be useful for someone using a head switch (I've worked with students who have used them in the past) so interesting to see those videos. (The RI lectures just had a single word, not a whole sentence)