My surprise Twitter anniversary

Image via Pxhere

Twitter informed me this week that it is my 'Twitter Anniversary', that it is 13 years since I set up my original account on the platform. Over that time, I have posted more than 5,000 tweets. Ask me now, and I have no idea what most of them are about; maybe bad offside decisions in football, bad takes on movies by me, bad puns. 

Earlier this year, I set up a second account.   

As part of the 'E-Learning Theories and Practices' module on the MA in Technical Communications and E-Learning at the University of Limerick, students have an assignment that requires us to create and maintain a Twitter account, posting material relating to e-learning and technical writing-related discussions. 

Sounds simple, right? And it is simple, in many ways. Posting a tweet — a short message — on the social media platform just requires users to input any information they like, press enter, and it is immediately live. But the tweets we post for this module need to on e-learning and technical writing-related discussions. The tweets should be informative and thought out — maybe a little more nuanced than what I posted on my previous account. 

Posting using the #tcidul hashtag links all of the tweets related to this discussion and posted by students, lecturers, and graduates of the MATCEL course at UL.

I have spent 13 years on Twitter but have found this assignment has made me think about the platform in a different way.

In my opinion, the hashtag here is key. It links the information posted to our community of users. I’ve been on Twitter for 13 years but I can’t say I’ve really felt part of a ‘community’ on the platform before. The #tcidul community brings me in touch with classmates, lecturers, and graduates.  

The assignment has offered me a fresh reminder of how Twitter can be used as a collaborative aid in education and in the workplace. The use of the hashtag #tcidul to group tweets has opened a window into areas of technical communication I haven’t thought about before, guided by the ‘community’.

Of course, Twitter is much more than just our #tcidul community, and allows us to interact or follow a whole world of users beyond this. For new users from my class, it has opened up an undiscovered treasure chest of information. The hard bit for them will be to decipher what is useful from what is not, and what is true from what is not. That’s something that isn’t always easy on Twitter.  There are many 'bad actors'. Not everybody is who they say they are.

Twitter is difficult to regulate, the information unchecked, often deliberately misleading, even from official accounts of real people and organisations. During the Trump administration in the United States, it became an instant feed, often unfiltered by press aides, into the mind (and sometimes the viewing habits) of the holder of the highest office in the United States, President Donald Trump. But that didn’t always mean what was being published by Donald Trump was true. Eventually, Twitter censored President Trump’s feed but hundreds of thousands of Twitter accounts publish information that is uncensored, unverified, and often untrue. Twitter users need to be aware of this.

When Twitter was created back in 2006, it was designed to simply share "status updates” the company said, “for staying in touch and keeping up with friends no matter where you are or what you’re doing".

Four years later, Twitter was selling itself as something far more: "Share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world." Since 2014, Twitter has simplified its tagline to: “What's happening.”

Perhaps the best way to describe what Twitter can be for us, on the MA in Technical Communication and E-Learning course at UL, is a tagline the company used in marketing in 2011: "Discover what’s new in your world."  We just need to keep in mind that new isn’t always right. 

A few tips on taking over the world, one word at a time

Image: Martin Claffey

How long does it take to rule the world? Even Alexander the Great's ancient empire sweeping from Greece to India took a decade to build. And yet Josh Wardle has taken over the world in just four months.

Wardle is the creator of Wordle, a word puzzle game that has captivated players worldwide, with game results shared on social media.

In October 2021, Wardle created the word game for his girlfriend. The concept is simple: a player has six guesses to discover a five-letter word. When a player enters a word, a green background behind a letter indicates that letter is correct. A yellow background indicates a letter is in the word but not in the correct place. Players try to use this information to guess the word correctly in as few guesses as possible.  

From a game to amuse his girlfriend for a few minutes, Wordle now has millions of players worldwide.

With global popularity achieved, there is one five-letter word which has emerged behind the boxes in Wordle which has grown in relevance from the success of the game:  M O N E Y.  Josh Wardle sold Wordle to The New York Times to take over the running of the game, in a deal which has made him a millionaire.

The rise of Wordle has made me think back on some of the modules I have learned about over the past 18 months studying on the MA in Technical Communications and E-Learning at the University of Limerick.  We have researched many Open Educational Resources and learning tools. In my 2021 semester, I created a learning resource — I hope to come back to that another time in the blog over the next few weeks — and also got to see resources created by some of my classmates, and previous students on the course.  

In many ways, Wordle would fit in perfectly among those ideas we discussed in 2021. It's simple. It's educational. It's fun. Indeed, some teachers in the United States are already adapting the game to their classroom.  

Whether consciously or subconsciously, Wardle follows Keller’s ARCS (Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction) Model of Motivation. Using his girlfriend as his audience, he used learner analysis to come up with his design.  Wordle captures the learner’s attention, matches the learner’s interests, builds confidence, and gives satisfaction to the learner.

However, critically looking at the game while considering other areas we have studied, Wordle has a little way to go yet. One of the areas we studied on our E-Learning modules was accessibility. Wordle’s system of green and yellow squares on a black background can cause difficulties for some players who have difficulties distinguishing the colours. In response to this, The New York Times has added a high-contrast mode to make reading easier.

Some Wordle players have had found the game causes issues for screen-reading technology.  

But, of course, Wardle didn’t set out to make his game follow universal design principles, to be robust, or to be compatible with assistive technology. He wasn’t considering localisation of his game, or translating and adapting to different languages.

He didn’t set out to create a game to make money, or even to make it popular. It was designed for his girlfriend who liked word games, and The New York Times has intimated that it intends to make the game more accessible for all users  — through some players are already unhappy with some of the puzzle solutions since Wardle handed over curation to the Times.

I believe the success of Wordle is something inspirational for all of us learning and creating at UL. I believe the game illustrates how simple ideas can lead to huge success. And even if an idea is not perfect at first, it can be improved, and made more accessible. Similarily, with our own projects at UL, peer review and testing so often can improve our original ideas.

Maybe one day one of us will follow Josh Wardle’s lead and create something which can bring satisfaction to millions. Building an empire has to start somewhere. 

Make sense of GDPR puzzle — forewarned is forearmed

Image via Mohamed Hassan/pxhere

"I guess if you keep making the same mistake long enough, it becomes your style" - John Prine

I was interested to read an article in the Irish Examiner recently that there were 6,802 data breaches of General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) reported to the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) over the past year. The report stated this was the sixth-highest level of breach notifications across Europe, and the fourth highest on a per capita basis.

The law firm DLA Piper reported a 594% year-on-year increase in fines imposed for GDPR breaches across Europe.

With the cost of fines running into billions of euro, the question has to be asked: how is this still happening? 

In 2021, as part of the Workplace Issues in Technical and Professional Communication module on the Technical Communication and E-Learning degree programme at the University of Limerick, I created an online presentation on the subject of GDPR. In one of my script's lines, I stated: 

"Data controllers have to be able to demonstrate they are GDPR compliant. And this isn’t something you can do after the fact: If you think you are compliant with the GDPR but can’t show how, then you’re not GDPR compliant. This is a big issue for companies."

It is clear 'big issue' is quite an understatement. The problem is growing out of control in the European workplace. Companies fret "after the fact" about GDPR compliance, yet they can all find the answers in front of them. If data controllers are aware of their obligations and adhere to them, no issues will arise. 

GDPR has now been in operation for almost four years. Businesses must put increased emphasis on educating their employees on regulation. Mistakes can be made on GDPR compliance, but firms can keep them to a minimum. 

As students of technical communication, I believe the focus on data compliance creates opportunities to make the most of knowledge of GDPR in workplace situations. This area of employment is likely to see increased roles for data controllers or data managers in companies and in government. There will also likely be increased virtual roles and a market for increased development of online courses in data management. 

We can expect to hear about many more companies getting tied up in costly bureaucratic knots about GDPR compliance in the years ahead. 

But with GDPR, it's always a case of forewarned is forearmed. 

An introduction to Clickbabble

Hi there, 

My name is Martin Claffey, and I am a student of Technical Communication and E-Learning at the University of Limerick (UL).

Clickbabble is my reflective blog which will touch on subjects including education, technology news, e-learning, technical writing, and media. My posts will be influenced and shaped by some of my experiences during my studies on this course.

I hope you enjoy will enjoy reading,

Martin