The TWAIN blog

TechNewsWorld cites Facebook as the top social networking site. The article states that Facebook “has had 132 million unique visitors for a 153% growth rate since July 2007″. Myspace is in second place with 113 million visitors. A third site is Hi5 with 56 million unique visitors.

The visitors rate isn’t the same as the number of members. An article on CNN.com says that “MySpace had 72.8 million national users in June versus Facebook’s 37.4 million”.

Statistics for which one isn’t the issue in this post. The issue here is the article in CNN about Teacher-Student Facebook connections. The article can be read by clicking the link above or by clicking here: http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/08/12/studentsteachers.online/index.html

I like that this article is posted to start the conversation out of our edu-tech blogs and into the real world. Teachers are using Facebook and Myspace to connect to their students and to use the tools to provide information about their classes. Teachers are using cell phones to text students. These tools are permiating the social networks outside of school and in school. They are in use!

Are teachers misusing these tools? Sure. Some. The headline-makers. The teachers who aren’t out for the safety of their students. These teachers will use ANY tool inappropriately! The article does refer to this and redirects that the tools aren’t to blame. And I greatly appreciate that!

But it is that idea of being stuck between a rock and hard place. We are in that fine line area of using these tools while some districts are starting to block them and discourage teachers from engaging in accessing these tools.

The fact is that Facebook offers the ability to reach the students better than a district hosted website. If your students have you as a friend in Facebook, the updates from a teacher are immediately posted to the student’s Facebook site. Facebook is the most used social network site by students in middle to high school. It is the most filtered site. And yet it is the site that students use any proxy bypass to get around our filters each day. It is the most requested site by the students to get access to.

And you know what else? Students don’t need our web access to get to it. They are getting to it via their phones anyway.

So…a teacher who posts notes, information about tests, class information, etc. in Facebook is able to get that information sent directly to students via Facebook and their cell phones are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Is Facebook the new teacher web page?

How safe can we be if we aren’t even recognizing and using the power of Facebook to teach proper use of social networking?

Here’s what I want for our schools: I want our middle schools and high school to have a Facebook presence with multiple editors and administrators (site-admins can be multiple). They can post news items, pictures, and links to resources on the page. Alternatively, the administrators can view student pages and offer suggestions to them to remove suggestive pictures and information. How else can we help our students learn to use the tools than to teach them to use them appropriately?!?

I was up late last night preparing my lesson for today. It felt like that first day of school when you have the first lesson you put together to share with a new group of kids:

1) Did I put enough in it?

2) Will they get the jokes and laugh?

3) What if I run out of time?

4) What if I run out of material?

5) This activity - is it too long? What can make it more interactive?

Then finally going to bed and waking up 30 minutes later with more ideas.

This was the first group presentation I had with the principals and superintendents in my district. I was given 30 minutes. I wanted to be sure I packed it well enough. I wanted to share my own philosophies, direction, and ideas but also to show some of the “cool” stuff.

I packed it well but also left it open for changing and shifting. I like to have some freedom in my presentations.

Last night, I posted it all on Slide Share and my wiki to be sure it would work. And it all did.

By the end of the presentation, I had given it 90 minutes in all. People were taking notes and I could see in their eyes that they were piecing together ideas. I saw smiles. I saw jaws drop twice. There were two wikis made to host discussions between elementary and secondary campuses. Two wikis up and running by the end of the session.

I saw principals text their secretaries and send emails to start checking calendars to get me to them.

I heard my own voice say, “A waste of time and money is me…in my office and not on your campus!” It was a revival of sorts.

Needless to say, it was a good day. A good start to a new year. I am really looking forward to this year. I am passionate about what I do and I can tell that the need is here too. Teachers WANT to do more with technology. They WANT to learn. Same with these principals. They WANT to use the tools. They see HOW to use some of them. But they WANT me to come in and start the conversation. START the ideas flowing.

No technology for technology’s sake. The shift started. The match is lit.

And to me, this is so exciting and only the tip of the iceberg!

I think the generic post for “what are you reading?” is too broad a category for our field. Especially during summer when any Jackie Collins book could be added to the shelf as fast as the newest US Weekly for some.

I want to ask the question differently. What books are considered part of the “Web 2.0 Educational Technology Must Read” list? Which ones are the books that lead us toward more informed arguments?

After books, which blogs? which magazines? which podcasts?

What are our “must-reads”? “must-listens”? “must-bloggers”?

What are yours? And yes, this is completely subjective. Lay your cards out on the table. Who are your influencers when it comes to education and educational technology integrating 21st century skills?

Who are our “ceWEBreties” of today?

I heard the story of these three grey whales in church this morning. The story was summarized from a book on worship by Craig Larson so I am not direct quoting it but summarizing the summary I received this morning.

In 1988, three grey whales were trapped under ice off the coast of Alaska. You may remember this item in the news as there was such an effort to help the whales move out to free waters. Under ice, the whales had no where to come up and get air. They did manage to find one small hole in the ice where they were gathered to share the air.

The whales were gathered around a small hole in the ice which they were using as a breathing hole. The rescuers drilled a hole in the ice about 6 feet down to expose another hole 20 yards away. The whales moved over to the new hole. The rescuers then drilled another hole 20 yards away again and the whales moved with them. This continued for 6 miles with the crew drilling holes every 20 yards for the whales to get access to a breathing hole. After six miles, the whales were out in the waters and no longer under the ice sheath.

Now, one could use this story to connect philosophies of how we need to put out more breathing holes for teachers to use to connect to global learning. But I choose this story to connect to my last post.

What if we - the ed tech community - are the ones bunched up around one breathing hole? We would need to spread out. I think we are all reading the same things to add to the same conversation that we keep having over and over. And we are all stuck under the same ice sheath.

I believe we need to spread out. We need to check for other breathing holes. Or as we heard at the NECC first keynote by James Surowiecki - we need to fill our groups with more diverse individuals. We need to listen to diverse thoughts and endulge in diverse conversation.

As discussed in my last post, I think we need to hear a little more dissention in the ranks. Its okay to get frustrated with what is going on. It is also okay to vent a little and let people know. I don’t think we all have to be pro-Twitter if some of us don’t think its useful for our teachers or students. I don’t think everyone needs to blog or wiki either. Its okay if you don’t listen to certain podcasts too!

I was not greatly impressed at NECC by the content of the conference. I was more impressed by the growing gap between the speakers and followers at the front of the room vs. the ones who just want to try in the back. The cliques of the Twitter crowd and the teachers/administrators who are just starting to untie their shoes to put in a toe to test the waters.

*I keep picking on Twitter only because I hear more people complain about it than anything so far. I pick because I love.

Lemme ask you this:

Have you read any divergent thought lately?

Who are you following on Twitter/Plurk?

Are you following education specialists?

What about small business owners? Media specialists? Mathematicians? Scientists? Innovators in other fields?

Are you following anyone in a field other than your own?

Can I make a suggestion? Go through your followers’ followers’ followers. You may find your own breathing hole further down the ice.

Another suggestion? Think about and post a thought that may be different than the group.

I post blog after blog and I read blog after blog. In our education circles, I read the same posts over and over. One person posts one idea and then their idea is reposted on everyone else’s blog until the next idea. And then they all comment on each other’s posts and it all ties them together more and more. It reminds me of junior high when all the same people dated within the same group. It just was a perpetual date it seemed with the same person over and over.

Find the divergent thought in the group and if it isn’t there, be the one to speak it first. Take the devil’s advocate point and see where the discussion goes next. Don’t jump on the bandwagon.

I don’t get it. But then again, I never liked crowds. I like my own breathing hole. Better than that, I like my own ocean to swim in. And I like the other creatures in there who may not ever get an iPhone or a Twitter account.

When I started grad school, my colleagues and professors discussed the separation between Academia (University-level teachers) and Classroom (K-12 teachers). The gap between research and application of the research to the classroom. To the teachers in our group it felt as if the professors or “Academia” we discussed just weren’t grounded in the real-world. We could read research paper and journals but it just seemed as if they were observing and not participating.

There was a gap and this gap made them separate from us - on the battle lines.

I am starting to see this gap develop between our classroom teachers and our new upper echelon of education technologists and bloggers out there. I think this was most noticed by the idea of “famous bloggers” from Scott McLeod’s post as well. It is also seen in the conversation taking place on Twitter and in the blogs of the new philosophers of the Web 2.0.

The group is adapting the new technologies so quickly for themselves and for the development of new communication for the edublogosphere. But, is it reflecting in our classrooms? Is it being shared by our teachers? Or are we getting so far ahead of ourselves that we are creating our own gap between research and reality?

I see communication on Twitter from the new philosophers (I like this title better than Famous Bloggers) asking us to provide them with teachers for conversations they want to have using the new technologies. I can see why it would be hard to find core teachers using Web 2.0 strategies like we use daily to communicate with one another! I don’t know of any teachers using Plurk or Twitter for that matter during the school year or even summer.

The blog conversations are so full of ideas and the push to “get our teachers onboard” and “motivate student learning” with these tools. Inspire them with collaboration and creativity! Really??!? That’s what our teachers need right now?

I am in the field. I know the push. I do. But frankly, it is getting embarrassing. I have tried most of the tools and even found a few I like personally. However, I don’t think most of my teachers would really give a flying flip about most of them or the conversations we are having. I think they see the great divide much more than we do. And that divide REALLY separates us from them.

For the past few months, I have played around the edge of the new philosophers. I have been reading their blogs, listening to the podcasts, reading the books they recommend, joining their Ustreams, and even observing the Twitter conversations about everything from baseball to new uses of technology. I have been an observer and an active participant.

But the gap is great and expanding. And I don’t want to go to their side and lose connectivity with the teachers I work with.

I wish I could Twitter and Plurk all day too.
I wish I could research blogs and contribute to the online conversation like they do.
I wish I could Ustream and connect with this global philosophy shift in live streaming.
I wish I could participate in their witty and fun conversations and travel tips they share all day and night.
I wish I could get online and ask for participants from your district because mine…well..they gave up on listening to me months ago because I am “too far out there”.
I wish I could read all those books you all talk about and listen to those podcasts while I get ready to take on a new day.

But I can’t. I have to work. I guess we can play together at NECC or TCEA someday.