Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech

I’ve identified myself as a closet twitterer. Like RSS, I have a hard time explaining twitter, so usually I don’t even try. I can’t articulate it. So when Common Craft came up with their latest video, some have seen it as being a great way to show others what twitter is all about. I don’t share that enthusiasm. Don’t get me wrong I think the work of Lee Lefever is great but this one misses the mark. I know, he can’t share it all in the time constraints of that format, but I’d have to say that if I didn’t know what twitter was, I’d watch that video and say, “that sounds stupid”. That’s how I‘ve always felt about any explanation.

Today I listened to the TWIT podcast with guests Dave Winer and Steve Gillmor. The last half of their podcast, they address twitter and really begin to uncover its power and potential. There are some pretty significant reasons they address including the ability to select your network, its political and social change implications as well as the appeal of the short, concise bytes of information that lead to larger and more significant learning.

So while I love the 140 format and conciseness in general, there are just too many layers to explain in a 140 seconds.

Technorati Tags: twitter, twit, rss, commoncraft, davewiner, stevegillmor

From the “sharing continues” files, this just in,

Google now shows my friends shared items, my “friends” are my Google Talk friends. I just want more friends is all.

Also , I discovered that I can export my Jing captures to flickr. Sort of the Skitch for Windows alternative.  Unless there’s something else?

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Taking a page out of Merlin Mann’s Inbox Zero presentation, I considered my news reader habits. I think they mirror Mann’s suggestion for getting your inbox to zero. Okay, I realize email is harder to get to zero. Feeds aren’t usually addressed to you and don’t ever require a response or action. However, I take my feeds personally in that while I don’t ever have to respond, I usually have some type of response. I either:

• have no interest
• find it interesting and compelling and need to comment
• am inspired enough to write my own blog post
• think others would benefit and I either share or email the post to them
• consider it interesting but know that it will require more time to process

So given these responses I:

• skim over and it’s automatically marked as read (some consider this deleting)
• head over to the blog and make a comment
• link to it in a blog post
• hit the share button or email button
• star it and read it later

I also try to read my feeds 2 or 3 times a day. I remember a certain blogger (initials W.R.) who showed his reader in a presentation only to have  oodles of unread posts appear from a fellow blogger in the audience. He was admittedly embarrassed.

So, grant it, email may be harder but for some people, their aggregator has become a challenge and almost as taxing as email. It shouldn’t be but if we’re interested in deep learning, it means spending a lot of time in the aggregator. For many of us, our aggregator is more important than email.

PS. my inbox is at 11.

[tags]merlinmann,inboxzero,43folders,rss[/tags]

This post is part confession, part request, part exploration.

The Confession: If you don’t blog but have some significant ideas, learning, teaching to share, I likely may not know about your or even follow your work. Which is to say that my RSS aggregator has become the primary means by which I learn. During my time at BLC, I was privileged to listen to Marco Torres and his students talk about their work. I had heard of Marco before but only through the blogs of others. To my knowledge Marco doesn’t blog. He has great stuff, phenomenal stuff to share but I don’t tend to use his resources as much as I should because he doesn’t blog. Only when others attend a conference where he is speaking am I reacquainted with his good work. I’m introduced to books, music and ideas this way. I certainly don’t think this is a good thing to rely so heavily on my network but with RSS, I get a better sense of who people are, what type of work they are doing and am apt to use their work more in my learning and sharing. Blogging allows even authors to share their work beyond the scope of their book. Case in point is the Freakonomics blog. I loved the book and the writings of Levitt and Dubner and am happy to follow their adventures via their blog. It keeps the work of their book fresh in my mind. They continue to expand on their original ideas and of course allows me to contribute as well. I feel a part of the learning in a much more invested way.

The Request: Please blog. That means folks like, Marco Torres, Tim Tyson, Marc Prensky, (hasn’t blogged in a year never allowed for comments) and Dan Pink (he does blog but should do more and without comments is it really a blog?)….I could go on. Blog because it adds a personal touch to your work. Blog as an extension of your work. Blog to market yourself. Read Naked Conversations if you don’t believe me. Don’t tell me you don’t have time. You all spend lots of time in great offline conversations and experiences, simply bring these online. People are interested. I don’t have the time to check your websites periodically to see if you’ve got something new. I’m being selfish but you have to  come to me. That’s what RSS is for!

On a side note, do these people even subscribe to any feeds? Will they know I’ve challenged them to blog? My guess is no.

The Exploration: I had this discussion with Will on the bus and he told me that I’m in the minority in terms of where I get my learning but I’m wondering how else we can stay connected to the great work out there without blogs and RSS? If RSS is the Killer App that many claim it to be, when it takes off as email did, will that force folks into blogging? That’s maybe a reach but I’m trying to figure out how else people will be able to have the knowledge and understanding of important work or will people simply choose a small number of people and ideas to focus as they have done prior to all the web 2.0 stuff?

I’m just saying, this is how I learn. It’ maybe not the best way but I in our world, I don’t know how else.

I need you to be a feed before I read.

[tags]rss,feed,marcotorres,freakonomics,timtyson,marcprensky,danpink,nakedconversations,[/tags]

This is my presentation from the TLT/IT Summit 2007 in Saskatoon. It was a great treat to meet Kelly and John whom I’ve conversed with online but was glad to meet in person.

Here are the slides. (Embedding was not working)

[tags]rss,tltsummit2007,shareski[/tags]

 

 Demystifying RSS: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

As I prepare for my RSS session on Tuesday at the IT Summit 2007, I’d love to have some live testimonials. If you’re available for a minute or two between 1:30-2:30 MST on Tuesday, May 1st, would be  interested in telling my audience why RSS is important to you? Or maybe your favourite RSS hack or tip?

Leave a comment and let me know if I can skype you. (leave me your skype name if I don’t have it)

Also, feel free to add to the RSS wiki or the Google Reader wiki.

[tags]rss,shareski,presentation,saskatoon,itsummit2007[/tags]

As I prepare for my upcoming session at the IT Summit 2007 on RSS, I wanted to develop another metaphor for RSS. About a year and half ago, I came up with the dinner party/friends analogy. It seemed to resonate quite well but I wanted something fresh. Here’s variation on that theme:

I’ve recently assembled a team of researchers who go out on a daily basis and find out what’s happening in the world of digital learning and education in general. This team is comprised of teachers, consultants and experts who really know there stuff. Some live in China,New Zealand, Scotland, United States and Canada. They send me their findings in an instance. Some will even call me to discuss their findings. If there are questions, I can get clarification and often leads me to others who are also working on the issue. They are relentless.When I wake up in the morning, I’m always amazed that the work they’ve done. Sometimes it’s too much but I wouldn’t want it any other way.

The best part about my team is they are free. Many organizations would be thousands of dollars a month for this type of work. I’ve been able to compile this team for nothing. All they ask is that I also share my work and allow them to consider me a researcher as well. So far, it’s been working very well.

So who’s on your research team?

You’ll want to click on the larger image to see how many you can name. (Don’t look at the tags either…cheaters) If you see yourself, why not sign the guestbook on the flickr page.

BTW, I’m still having issues with my feed not formatting so you’ll want to come to the site to see this post properly….I know the issue is with PodPress, I need to revert back to version 6.8 but can’t find it anywhere.

Update: Steve has added some great notes to the image with links.

[tags]rss,itsummit2007,guhlin,macleay,kwhobbes,wegner,hunt,cassidy,couros,oakes,mcleod,warlick,richardson,stager,davis,dembo,utecht,seimens,levine,downes,sierra,kuropatwa,fisher,mcintosh,fryer,wall,d’souza,norman,shareski[/tags]

Having a week off to go on a golf trip is nothing to complain about this awaited me:

Why do I feel compelled to read through these carefully? I had 3 newspapers waiting for me that I simply tossed in the garbage. Being that it was Easter break for all teachers, my inbox only had a few dozen messages, few of which I felt obligated to respond to until tomorrow. But the newsreader, is more important to me then any other source of information I use. I’m afraid I’ll miss something. This tells me how critical this is to my learning and interests. I kind of knew this already but I can’t remember taking a week break from my newsreader before. The fact that Google Reader uses the “100+”  measurement is a bit deceiving. I’m sure this will take me the evening to go through….so I better get at it.

[tags]rss,googlereader,professionaldevelopment[/tags]