Educon Conversation, better late than never.

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I have been going back through some of my audio files recently and I found a really good conversation from Educon 2.1.

This conversation was from John Pederson‘s Session, The Networked Learning Manifesto: Welcoming Parents into the Conversation.

You can find the actual Manifesto that sparked the conversation here.

The participants that I recognize from the audio are:

• Will Richardson
• David Warlick
• Kevin Jarrett
• Bud Hunt
• Zac Chase
• Andy Carvin

There are many voices that I don’t immediately remember or recognize, however. Which is a little sad because there are a lot of really good voices in the room.

The original recording for the session is here, but I believe that the audio isn’t quite as good as this excerpt. There is also a follow up conversation at Parents as Partners.

This is the kind of conversation that I need to keep reminding myself to come back to. Some very smart things were said about going to where parents are and becoming a person to them first before trying to “get them on board” with technology and networked learning.

I hope that we all follow up on the promise that this conversation evoked.

Why twitter matters (for Tim).

Tim was the best man at my wedding. He was my friend before I had any others. He was the one who helped me to understand IRC and modem speeds. He was the one who made being geeky okay. Anyway, this post is for him because he is intrigued by my use of Twitter and other connection tools in the world of education. He is also a generally curious person, and when I decided to come to his city for a certain conference hosted by a certain school all based upon the connections in my Twitter network, Tim decided it was too much. So, he joined up today.

Now, it is my job to tell him why he has made a good choice, and how perhaps he can even use Twitter to the benefit of his own scholarly pursuits (he is a PHD cantidate at UPenn for Mathematics). Well, here goes:

Even though Tim has already decided to take the plunge, I still think it is a good idea to talk about why twitter is not a total waste of his time, and why it is worth the time it takes to build a new network even though he has a vibrant Facebook presence and he seems to have quite a bit going for him in the world of academia…

Here is a nice little story about how twitter was born. - It is always nice to know just how something begins and why it begins too.

Here is a really great piece on what twitter can do for musicians and the rest of us. – I really like this piece because of just how many different ways that twitter has influenced the lives of the musicians and other people in the article.

Here are some personal reflections on why twitter makes sense to use for learning – Although this is a small sample, Tom Barret, puts together a pretty compelling reason for using twitter to learn as an adult.

Now, as many of you know, I don’t like to talk too much about the tools, but seeing as how I have a special assignment today, I figure I will have to from time to time.

Now that you are on twitter, you will need some voices to listen to.

I recommend using a few different tools in order to figure out which voices you are interested in:

• Tweetgrid or Tweetdeck – These two tools let you monitor the conversation on any topic that you choose. All you have to do is type in a Hashtag (a tag that starts with #) or a keyword. Tweetgrid is a web application and Tweetdeck is adobe air app. Once you find someone that is saying something interesting, follow them so that you can listen to what they are saying even when they are not talking about that given topic. These tools are also the best way to follow a conference or event.
• Twellow – This site, although ugly, is incredibly helpful at finding people who are interested in what you are interested in. It is basically a sophisticated twitter people search.
• Liz Davis‘ List of Educators on Twitter or Jane Hart’s Directory of Learning Professionals on Twitter or the Twitter 4 Teachers Wiki- These three lists are pretty exhaustive and at least the list from Liz can be sorted to fit your own needs. The Wiki is well sorted and has every different type of user I could think of accounted for.

Once you have a least a few people that you are following, you will want to hone your network to make sure that you are not missing out on voices that are influential or are startling. Here are few more resources to do that trick:

• Who Should I follow?- This analyzes your current friends and makes sure that you are listening to people that are relevent and close to you (geographically).
• Mr. Tweet – Mr. Tweet is single-handedly responsible for growing the readership of the readership of the edublogosphere many times over. A great resource, but don’t get suckered into following too many people.
• Friend or Follow – Once you have a lot of people to follow as well as people who are following you back, you will want to see just how far the reciprication goes. This service allows you to see just how popular you are with the people who you find interesting.

Once you have a network of people that you want to listen to and you have a general voice for what you would like to talk about, you need to start tweeting and holding conversations.

• Dial2Do – Tweet by calling a phone number and speaking.
• Tweetree – Look at the conversations on twitter as threaded discussions, including media (photos, videos, etc.)
• Tweet.im – Tweet through your instant messenger client.
• Posterous – Tweet via your e-mail.
• Twhirl – This is still my favorite twitter client for tweeting and receiving updates. Because I need something to come and hit me over the head with updates from time to time, the fact that it pops up in the bottom right corner when one of my friends has said something is a really big plus for me.

How do you extend your twitter network into the other stuff that you are already doing?

• Friendfeed – Tie Twitter and all of your other social networks together.
• Twitter Search – This will allow you to create rss feeds of searches that you would like to be updated on at all times. In practice, I like to have a few of these rss feeds going directly into my google reader so that I can stay up on topics even if I miss things while I am away from twitter.

More than anything, Tim, twitter is about listening for me. As much as I want to be a part of the conversation and engage others. Twitter is about listening to the voices around me and trying to soak up all of the information I can and learn from the network. I say and contribute enough to never be accused of lurking, but I know that my value is in putting pieces together, not in being the first to tweet out a story.

As I am reflecting upon my two years on Twitter, I would say that more than anything else I have learned how to have good conversations, learned how to create community, and learned that posting to twitter about the birth of your second child is just awesome.

Expanding on The On Button

I received an e-mail from an attendee of my educon presentation, The On Button: Instant and Always on collaboration. She was asking about one of the items in the presentation, in which I described adding an opml file (which was created by a Live Search OPML creator). Rather than simply e-mailing her and walking her through it, I decided to use ScreenToaster in order to do the nuanced topic a little more justice.

Here is the link to the tutorial.

Now, I have been a big fan of screencasting for a long time, but until tools like ScreenToaster and Screencast-o-matic become more common place, I don’t think that we will really start using it as a way of communicating our thoughts. When it is easy enough to demonstrate your learning, I think it is heinous not to create an archive of that learning.

I guess my biggest question is, how much learning has dissapeared because e-mails get deleted or the school period ends?

My next question is, what can we capture now that we couldn’t capture before?

Why shouldn’t students be able to show what they know, literally.

(Also, as an aside, I will be expanding on many of the ideas of my presentation over the next few weeks. Let me know if there is anything specifically that you would like to hear more about.)

The secret to a great meeting after educon.

1. Believe in what you are saying.
2. Own what you know.
3. Reference the hope that you feel many times.
4. Reach.
5. Be able to back up your reaching and hope with the network that brought us all together.

I have never thought so much or slept so little…

So, I have been the youngest person in the room ever since I finished college. This is both a blessing and a curse.

It is a blessing in the fact that I can claim that I never taught without blogging. It is a curse in the fact that my life experience is so sufficiently small that it seems almost inconcievable that I couldn’t have intelligent ideas about how to change schools. No matter how much I believe in what I am saying or how well I flesh out my ideas, my inability to look older is still a major flaw.

The best part, however, and the reason for my post is that because of the way I look, speak and write, people tend to push me harder than others. I have had more push back on my thoughts than any other time, and I have lost more sleep this weekend in thinking through the issues that I most care about.

It is beautiful to be challenged on the merit of your work.

My session went well, but it only went well because I was able to put ideas out there and see if they stood on their own. I want more of this. I want to be able to have more opportunities to react to well developed thoughts and questions.

This weekend, to me, was about taking the time to let our work stand for itself. This weekend was about thinking about what is going on in our schools and seeing if it holds water. It is about pushing back from all sides and seeing what is pushed up in the process.

The question I really want to ask is this: How can we ensure that all perspectives are pushing equally? How can we get all of the voices in the room to test what we are talking about? If we only have some people pushing, ideas get pushed down. If we only question the ideas we don’t agree with, the ones that we value will never grow.

So, whatever you read on my blog, tell me I am wrong.

Push me to be better. I want to be better.

Educon 2.1- The On Button: Instant and Always-on Collaboration

All of the best collaborations I have been a part of have started off with a lot of questions. Not “how do we get it done” questions, but rather questions that yearn for something more, questions that require you to truly envision something that has never existed before and then breathing it into being. Perhaps that is a little bit high minded for the type of collaboration I would like to do today, but I don’t think so.

I think that we can start with questioning the very nature of collaboration, the ways in which we communicate and come together. I believe that we can challenge the format and flow of our information. And in the process, I believe that we can create an instant and always-on type of collaboration that has never existed, until we all decide that it is worth building.

So, what are the questions that we would like to answer today? Well, I have a few to start:

1. What types of collaboration would you like to have at your fingertips by simply clicking once with your mouse (without first having to build a personal learning network for a few months)? (Instant)
2. What types of collaboration do you miss out on because they are not in your workflow (or you simply don’t have time)? (Instant and Always-on)
3. How do you create long lasting collaborations (or at least ones that outlast your involvement with them)? (Always-on)
4. How does the format and timeliness of information change the possibilities of collaboration? (Instant)
5. How do you get information, people, and resources to come to you? (Always-on)

In answering these questions and many others that you have come up with, I think we will come to an understanding of the nature of instant and always-on collaboration. In the hopes that we have something to grab ahold of in this discussion, I have outlined what I believe are the tenants of getting collaboration to be as simple as an on-button:

(All of these tenants assume one thing: All collaboration is made up of single acts that are held within a single space and a single time. Together these acts of collaboration make up the process of connecting with others, discussing ideas, and creating something new.)

1.    All Logins that can be eliminated, should be.
2.    Everything that can be aggregated, should be.
3.    Everything that can be archived and tagged, should be.
4.    No new online space (blog, wiki, portal, etc.) should be created that cannot leverage existing spaces.
5.    Workflow is king. Any space that doesn’t play well with the tools that people already use, is worthless.
6.    Quiet the incessant chatter of the web. Focus only on conversation and voices that matter.
7.    All spaces must include specific information for specific stakeholders.
8.    All spaces must be able to accommodate an infinite number of stakeholders.
9.    Action should be inevitable, and membership should be impossible.
10.    You should be obsolete in your space immediately.

Discuss.

Extra resources:

• Bitty Browser Plugin
• WordPress MU Plugin Commander
• Link for tagging on Scribd
• Link for tagging on Slideshare
• Link for tagging on youtube

Every login that can be eliminated, should be.

I have been thinking a lot about this concept in preparation for The On Button: Instant and Always-On Collaboration, but I don’t know that I ever thought about it in terms of money or value lost… until now.

I believe in eliminating logins because you are walling off possiblilties for your community. I believe in eliminating logins because teachers don’t have enough time to remember yet another password. Logins don’t use the web the way it should be used, pouring feeds together, remixing content and sharing it out again.

Yet, this article seems to suggest that value is lost when logins are involved. When you have true value in your community, logins don’t matter. When you have something that really is “worth something”, putting it behind a login will only ensure that most people will never get at it.

Logins stop the collaborative process short. As much as I love my profile on Twitter and such, I believe that an identity is not tied to a login. I believe that an identity is bigger than a login. If we are creating the right kinds of spaces, with the right kind of respect and safety, we can simply tag our content with our identities, adding value rather than taking it away.

As much as I like this concept, it needs some more thought. I just wanted to share the link and ask the questions: What happens if we remove all of the logins from our lives?

(I also found the link from OL Daily. If you don’t subscribe to that daily goodness, go and do so.)