Teach42

We’ve all known it was coming, it was just a matter of time. Well, it has finally arrived and I’m thrilled to say that it was worth the wait. ShoutEm is a create-your-own-Twitter platform that works just as easily as Ning does. All you need to do is sign up with the current invite code of “doneright“, and within minutes you’ll be creating your own version of Twitter, as customized as you want it to be. It took me about 10 minutes to create Tweach42, the microblogging community for Teach42 readers!

They have several basic skins to choose from, but if they don’t quite suit you, you can upload images and tweak the settings through their UI. Or if you want more advanced features, just create your own darn CSS, they fully support it. I can only imagine what people are going to come up with down the road. Features include the ability to allow or disable public profiles, anonymous shouts (tweets), control replies, pownce like file sharing features, and even the ability to keep your network private or approve registrations on an individual basis.

What does this mean? It means that we finally have the ability to create our own Twitters for niche purposes. Youth Voices doesn’t need to hack WordPress anymore to simulate Twitter. Teachers can use it for any classroom project, with full privacy or publicity as needed. I plan to use it for backchannels and as an example for how microblogs work in a less crazy setting than Twitter itself. The possibilities are pretty endless.

Mind you, this isn’t a replacement for Edmodo, a site I’m still a fan of. Edmodo is what Twitter would have looked like if it had been designed by educators for classroom purposes. This is for people who like the Twitter format already and just want their own custom version of it.

If you want to play around with it, visit Tweach42 and send off a few shouts. And when you want to create your own, visit ShoutEm and use the invitation code “doneright“.

What kind of uses do you see Shoutem being used for??

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