The TWAIN blog

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.

Today while sitting in the dry sauna at the gym, I listened to a podcast about 21st century skills and district leadership. I turned it off when I got in my car and started thinking about applying the conversations I have been part of in Twitter, blogs, wikis, and at conferences to a district that hasn’t been part of those conversations.

How do I start catching teachers and administrators up to speed without scaring them away?

I am sure I could show Twitter to a group of people and lose them in the outset. I also know that mentioning the word “blog” to some teachers is the equivalent of some not so nice other four letter words.

What is the conversation starter?

Do I go with a video? The monks sharing how to use a book? Karl Fisch’s videos on the future?
Do I go with a presentation by our forerunners? Ian Jukes? David Warlick? David Jakes?
Do I go with a book? Will Richardson’s? Daniel Pink? Thomas Friedman?

I think of the pieces that have added to my conversation. Pieces. Puzzled pieces. This conversation has been going for about 4 years now in the tools of Web 2.0. Its been a lifelong conversion, I know but the resources I use now online for social networking and communication have been used for about 4 years.

I think of Wes Fryer’s post for his local school district and the passion by which he explained 21st century skills as a need to know NOW skill and not something to start planning for the future. I want to say those same things but I also know that to an entire district, it would be overbearing on my part.

How do you do it? How would you do it? How would you start the conversation? What are your puzzle pieces?

I have been testing out the use of Twitter, Plurk, and Seesmic for the past few days. I see the benefit to each of them for social uses but am trying to figure it out for classroom use.

Twitter is the social instant messenger that is all the rave right now. With Twitter, you submit a short summary of a question or a statement of what is happening. Then people can respond to what you submit or they can simply read your post. Its a very short amount of space to type anything but its great for sending a short note linking to a blog or a link you have elsewhere.

Plurk is a Twitter but with the ability to read in a timeline and respond visually to each post. Its the evolution of Twitter but not as well accepted as Twitter is right now. With Twitter in constant flux in either running or being on the mend, Plurk is getting more attention. I like Plurk a little better than Twitter because I can understand the timeline concept easier and it visually cues responses for each post.

I did learn today about Tweetdeck which is an Adobe Air product that also gives Twitter some leg-room for changing how we view it. It is also getting some good play in the Twitter community.

Lastly, I am using Seesmic which is a video system for posting quick social chats as well. Videos are posted on a public timeline and then anyone can respond to something you post or you can respond to them. Having an iMac with a built-in camera has really helped me start using video chat technology better.

I actually have been posting my personal blog posts I share on MySpace using Seesmic since I can embed the videos directly on my MySpace account. My friends like it too because they can still see me even though I have moved away. I am posting one tonight for my family’s website as well.

All of these have significant impact because they take the blog to the next level. Who has time to read blogs anymore anyway? This way, I get a one-line summary or a quick video that I can respond to in a matter of seconds.

Plus, I can check my Tweets and Plurks on my phone during lunch.

After attending that awesome conference called NECC and now going through not only all my handwritten notes but the blogs, wikis, and web sites all together; I am ready to build a new home for all my stuff.

Being a web designer and web master is really handy. I know the code. I know how to manipulate images, codes, and CSS. But its also a hindrance. I don’t know if I should go with a pay site, build my own server (no experience there but I think I can learn it), or use a variation of a wiki. I have so many social network locations and sites that I just want to merge them all into one.

Plus, I want to document my new job and the struggle with moving a district toward technology integration piece by piece. I want to share with the Web 2.0 community of tech leaders and visionaries how what they are discussing in various conversation and web spaces is really impacting a community I work with. We are starting from the ground floor and what an opportunity to record the ins and outs of putting these things into place!!

Any suggestions? I am looking into wikis, editme (David Jakes uses it), paying a service to host, etc.

I am at the NECC conference in San Antonio. It is amazing to see so many faces of people I connect with through Twitter and our social networks.

This year, I am laptop-less. In fact, I am only posting this using my room-mates’ laptop while he is partying somewhere downtown about now. I have spent the past few days at the nation’s largest technology educator conference without access to a portable computer. It has been frustrating on a few levels but really positive on many others.

I have been regulated to taking notes with PEN and PAPER!! Not only does this help me focus more on the speaker but it also gives me a greater chance to really PEOPLE WATCH. And people are amazing to watch in these large groups.

The most amazing thing to me is the use of the technology by our technology education peers that makes it appear to something similar to paparazzi stalking a star. The “heavy hitter” celebrities of the blog world are following each other and sitting in the front few rows. They then Twitter, Ustream, and even blog about what is happening while it is happening.

Now to the audience participating globally in the conference, I can see how helpful this is. Its opening the conference and discussion to others in the world wide classroom.

But to be in the room and watching - its really distracting! People aren’t just discussing the topics. They are discussing their plans for dinner. They are discussing their inside jokes. They are posting commentary about the commentary. Some try to be more witty than the previous post and the conversations jump off the topics into their own little satires.

In our keynote this morning, I had a woman sitting next to me who was posting her blog. She was in Twitter. She was also adding to a discussion in Ustream. Meanwhile, those of us around her were distracted by the screen of her laptop seeing as the lights were dimmed for the video playing of the keynote. I watched her post about her experiences, watched as she answered emails, watched as she twittered to her friends about what they were doing in other areas of the state.

I didn’t see much conversation about the keynote. I didn’t see her really noticing that her tick-tack clicking of her nails during the presentation was disrupting the crowd around her. I don’t think she cared. She was in the Web 2.0.

I left the keynote today with the idea to watch the audiences more than the presentations. And while many conversations were on task and on point, there was still this strange race to be the first to post the information. People are taking pictures, filming, streaming, and blogging it seems to be the first to post the content. They want to be the source for the information first. It reminds me of a favorite media-news site I check daily called Ain’t It Cool news. Media news is posted with a commentary section for each item. The first few posts are the people visiting the items to post “FIRST” so they can get the recognition of being noted as first-posters. Paparrazzi? Nope. Webucators! First to Tweet. First to UStream. First to Flickr!

My questions:

What happens when we allow the social networking on the computer overpower the social gathering?

When do we give up meeting and sharing ideas locally when we get together locally only to be sharing those ideas with people in other rooms, states, or countries?

What is are the new rules or etiquette guidelines for social networking in social gatherings? or Are there any?

Does the social network become the new society?

I close with this. I attended a “Twitter dinner” last night. This was a nice dinner joining people from the Twitter-verse together. The dinner was great and we got to talk to one another. We hugged and shared that common feeling of knowing that we are on the front-line. Its interesting to meet the people you don’t see everyday but are in the same boat as you and to greet them with a hug. First meeting in person and hugging each other because we are in the trenches as comrades.

The party was swelling and then circled about as a group. People began taking out cell phones and Twittering while we were in the group. Then they began talking about the Twitter conversations. The social gathering was now guided by the conversations taking place from people not in the room. The party was over for many of us at that point. It was like watching people talking about a party I wasn’t a part of in the party that I was a part of. I was in the room with these people but they were in a party taking place in their cell phones.

That’s just one issue with Twitter. I guess the other is that it is constantly down…..

Find me there - mradkins

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