Beyond School

I promised in an earlier post to give the link when Teachers Teaching Teachers posted its podcast with students weighing in on “How to Be Unschooly” in blogs, Twitter, and more. Consider it done. It is so worth a listen.

There’s something to say, too, about the back-story on this. Soojin, the Korean student who generated the tweet that triggered the podcast, was a student of mine - but from last year. As Soojin discusses in the podcast, my efforts to push him, as a member of my classroom, to turn on to connective writing didn’t work. A year later, he’s out there doing it independently - I see him on Twitter all the time, and read his blog - and out of nowhere, from Korea, Soojin is causing educators in New York to invite him to a podcast, and invite me as almost an afterthought. I love that.

I also loved finding the other student pioneers on that Skype call and chat - especially, and for reasons similar to the Soojin story, Lindsea. A Hawaii student, I “met” Lindsea last year through my classes’ collaboration on the first 1001 Flat World Tales with her class with teacher Chris Watson. Lindsea is now, like Soojin, a part of my network, and a student pioneer.

You’ll meet other pioneering students on the podcast as well:

• Hannah, a student at principal Chris Lehmann’s Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia (and an excellent writer and speaker I “pray” will contribute to Students 2.0 regularly, and pull Philadelphia into Project Global Cooling next year). Hannah’s been blogging intensely about environmental issues in her region, and mentioned she’s received little to no encouragement from comments. Can we remedy that?
• Ben, from the excellent New York City Students group blog - another fantastic model of real student blogging. (Ben, as I told you on the podcast, I invited you all to Students 2.0 when I was seeking recommendations from my network, and Diane Cordell pointed me to you. That offer is still open as an additional, less frequent, non-competitive megaphone for your group.)

And then, manning the chat channel with his usual good questions and helpful hands, was another Philadelphia student I’ve come to know over the past year: Tyrone Kidd. Tyrone, I’ve wanted to give a shout-out about how impressive you’ve been as another pioneer since you popped up on my radar (and in my Seoul Networked Learning class blog) a few months ago. I love your pioneering spirit.

All the students above are noteworthy for showing they can navigate these networks, and prudently and maturely learn along with us.

They’re also noteworthy for teaching us how to make blogs and social networking “unschooly” to them. But for that, you’ll need to listen to the TTT podcast. (And Paul Allison, it was nice to finally make contact, so many months after discovering your blog.)

Photo: Pioneer Aviator Bessie Coleman, First African American Pilot from PingNews on Flickr

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[Update 2: Most of the clarification promised in the update below is in the comment thread. I still don't hear a lot of testimonies that RSS is really sticky with non-geeks, though, even from its strongest defenders. So I'm still wondering if we shouldn't be looking for other paths to conversion in our PD sessions and classrooms.]

[Update 5 hours later: Yet again, Clay is a victim of his own English teacher-y proneness to a turn of phrase. I'm almost finished with a post clarifying and extending this (and thanking some people for diagnosing my RSS malady). But right now I have to pick up my wife. More soon ]

From a comment I just left on Darren Draper’s blog, in which Darren lists focusing on RSS as a priority for Professional Development workshops :

I suspect that RSS is Dead, but we evangelists don’t want to lose something to preach.

I think Twitter links, Diigo groups, Education.Alltop.com, and such are easier ways to turn people onto the blogosphere.

Just because we believe in RSS doesn’t mean we’ve converted others. I think our track record on that is miserable enough to speak for itself (mine is, anyway, with colleagues and students alike). Can we say “dead horse”?

How many of you out there really do see Feed Readers / RSS Aggregators sticking after you leave the class or workshop?

Faith that RSS is the true savior does not make it so. I think it’s more of a Model T Ford - or an Edsel.

Photo: Nietzsche by escolanomade; beautiful by dawn m. armfield

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It’s almost 6 p.m. here in Seoul, and that’s bedtime for this nocturne. Before curling up in Morpheus’ arms, I want to throw this screenshot of my Tweetcloud up here (thanks to Cathy Nelson for sharing that one). It’s an interesting little thing, this tag cloud of your most frequent tweet words. The largest words are most frequent from your tweet history, the medium fairly frequent, the smallest less so, but apparently still frequent enough to gain a space on your cloud.

The temptation to see it as a window to your soul - or your Twit-soul, anyway - seems a respectably objective hypothesis that, better still, opens up a bit of fun. So here’s the cloud, followed by a little playful (but sometimes pregnant?) poetasting:

The “self-promoter” (i.e., guy who likes to share his thoughts and seek yours in reply) inevitably tops the cloud with “New Post.” (Shamelessly) Guilty. (But note: We can promote others too, as below )

But I’m happy to see the next most frequent tag is “Thanks,” next to the thanked-for “@dmcordell.”

There’s lots of poetry there too. I especially like:

From the obsessive AP Lit teacher:

Check classroom - college coming.

From the secular naturalist mystic:

Day’s delicious design.

From the army veteran who ain’t above a little spicy naughtiness now and then:

Doing @dswaters? Easy.

(Sue, I think I know you enough to know you’ll ROFL at that one! )

From the 1001 Flat World Tales and Project Global Cooling guy:

Getting global, going google.

From the best teacher in me:

Learn learning.

From the guy who loves passionate students worldwide:

Life, @lindseak! Look! Love!

From the guy who likes the virtual cocktail parties:

Need network! Play, pln!

From the blogging evangelist:

Post posts, ppl!

From the Church of Poetry acolyte:

Reading real right.

From the guy who pines from Korea for his life’s love, China:

Send Seoul Shanghai.

From the guy who reads Dean:

Share @shareski.

From the guy who reads Sylvia’s tweets from late-night jazz clubs:

Sleep, @smartinez.

From the guy who tried to pull his network into his classroom:

Sorry, @sschwister: story (student stuff). Sure.

From the guy who knows a true teacher:

@taylorteacher, teach teachers teaching.

From the guy who knows a smart librarian of the futur(a):

@technolibrary: tell.

From the guy who knows mashups:

Things think.

From the guy who blogs (almost) daily:

Thinking time today.

From the guy looking for young fires wanting kindling:

Wait. Want. Watch.

From the lonely groom in exile:

Wedding week.

From the guy who Will makes chuckle:

Weird wiki, @willrich45!

From the wannabee Whitmanesque bard:

Wish! Wonder! Work, world!

From the guy who just passed 500 posts in 16 months, after 25 years of writing almost nothing:

Write years.

If you want to play likewise, call it a voluntary meme. Link back here so we can also see your “twit soul.”

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Short and sweet, that’s the question. I find it fascinating from the angles of psychology and sociology. Lots of talk about “self-promotion” on Twitter around the blog-hood these days. I frankly don’t know what it means. I say as much in this reply to comments on my last post:

I also wonder about all the “self-promotion” talk going on. If by that we mean announcing a new post we just wrote, it seems most people do it (me included), and I actually like it. It gives me a chance to discover more about the personalities in my Twitbin. I actually use Twitter far more than my RSS reader these days to read new posts. (I also like the writerly aspect of it: Tweeting a New Post announcement requires the ability to write a terse blurb that entices me to click the link.)

Is that what people mean by “self-promotion”? Posting links to new posts? I see it as inviting conversation on the blog, I guess.

If that’s not what people mean by self-promotion,what do they mean?

Can we get specific in the comments? What exact actions constitute “self-promotion” to you? I feel like a Beverly Hillbilly clueless about manners at Mr. Drysdale’s mansion.

Photo by Trainman74

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David Jakes’ post slamming questioning Twitter has done a good job of generating reflection on “the uses and ‘abuses’” of Twitter. I left this comment there, and want to copy it here for my records:

The dismissals of Twitter as idle chatter, or stunted substitutes for extended thinking, miss something I’ve noted (and practiced) on a number of occasions: Twitter is a launchpad, not a landing one, for thought and connection. Examples: many of my podcasts start as ideas flitting across Twitter, small exchanges, and then end with the Tweet: “Want to Skype for a podcast?” At least three or four podcasts have come from this approach since I started tweeting regularly in January.

I like the metaphor - and I use it with my students - of all these digital tools as “different trapezes.” In isolation, they’re pretty limiting. We have to be “gymnastic” with them, and swing from one to the other as whim and inspiration strike us. Here’s my favorite trapeze act of late:

Twitter to Skype to Garageband to posted Podcast on Blog to blog Comment Thread to Trackbacks ad infinitum

You notice my entry trapeze is Twitter. You notice my exit trapeze is blog conversations. Twitter is that indispensable for me these days.

But we’re all experimenting in this new Wild West. Let’s keep the carny interesting with the acts we bring to it. They’re all educational, all learning experiences, good and bad.

To change metaphors: we’re evangelizing this stuff, but it’s all so new we can’t be too “expert” at it. We’re not only evangelists of the new Gospel - we’re its guinea pigs as well. We’re experimenting on ourselves. So it’s good for us to experience the abuses, the extremes, so we can, to riff off your post, “better help kids learn.”

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