Catching Up

Spring always seems to be such a busy time of year, but it’s the *good* kind of busy. The kind of busy where you feel creative, energized, and full of new ideas. It’s as though when the flowers start to push through the ground, we awaken as well and this feeling of newness spreads over everyone.

There are lots of exciting things going on at work these days, not the least of which is having the entire third floor of our current building move into a brand-new building and then have the rest of our staff move around into newly renovated areas in the current building. We currently have several people telecommuting and this change will mean that all of our team will be together again in our own dedicated space and I am personally very excited about it. I’m one of the telecommuters and I love working from home – I really do. There are, however, things I miss about working outside the office, too. I miss laughing and joking around with co-workers. I miss the energy and fun, I miss looking at photos of people’s families on their desks and I miss the spontaneous “meetings” with friends. I am very much looking forward to this summer when we’ll all be together and in the office again. I love change and this is exciting stuff.

We’ve also purchased another Second Life island and I’ve been hard at work there creating additional spaces to represent the university, spaces for students, and spaces for ‘fun’. We’re planning on a ‘beach party’ on the last day of classes as a way to celebrate the end of the semester and give our students a fun way to connect and meet each other.

We’re also in the process of developing a student blog, and talking about ways to use podcasts for our students. I’m personally excited about using video in a more personal way as well.

Lots of really exciting things happening and hopefully lots to share in the near future!

The Popular Crowd

Doesn’t it seem like lately, there’s more and more discussion about twitter followers, being popular, and how to NOT be boring online? Maybe it’s just me, but I swear that every day I think I see more blog posts, tweets and discussions about this and I honestly just don’t get it.

It frustrates me to hear people talk about how many followers they have – there are people out there that seem to obsess over this and make a big deal about people un-following them – why? Why is that a concern for you? I guess I could understand it if you were a company and people were deciding not to listen to you – you might want to think about what your message is or how you might better engage your audience, but if you’re just you? Just a normal person like everyone else.. why does it matter how many twitter followers, or Facebook friends you have? Why is that important to you?

Just a few days ago I saw at least three different comments about how if someone isn’t listening to you, you must be ‘boring’ or not ‘worthy’ of being paid attention to. The other day on twitter I followed someone that I thought I could potentially learn something from and was greeted with an auto-response follow asking me if I’d seen a specific blog post on how to get more followers. It irritated me so much that I immediately unfollowed. It is NOT about the numbers, folks.. it’s about connections, networks, learning, growing, and listening. It’s about having conversations and expanding your perspectives. It’s about collaborating and interacting with each other. This is not junior high school – it’s not about your popularity.

Chris Brogan had a fantastic post today about exactly this sort of thing – perfect timing. Here’s an excerpt:

“I think people get confused by numbers. I am followed by 33,000 folks on Twitter. I had 245,000 unique visitors last month. I’m #6 in Advertising Age’s Power 150, #68 in the Technorati Top 100. Numbers, numbers, numbers. I think that’s part of the problem.

Because, even though I use those numbers as a gauge of what I’m doing here, what I spend my time and attention on is making connections. Many hours out of every day go into making relationships with you. Look at any given page of my twitter traffic. Realize that I’m my own #1 commenter on this blog. I spend hours every day answering email and phone calls from folks who often times want nothing more than to connect.”

Read the entire post here.

When I commented yesterday on twitter about this sort of thing, I received a response from a new follower that basically said “yes, but most people ARE boring!”. I just don’t agree with that. I think every single person on this planet has a unique story and if we had the time to listen to them all, I think we’d be amazed at how fascinating we all are.

So please, can we move past the numbers and popularity game and just try to treat each other with respect and consideration knowing that it’s not about winning – it’s about connecting and learning from each other.

Educause Top Teaching and Learning Challenges for 2009

I’m attending Educause 2008 in Orlando this week and I’m excited at the prospect of attending some really great sessions and meeting some new people. I present on Friday morning, but until then I hope to catch as many sessions as I can.

My first “track” session this morning is the “Top Teaching and Learning Challenges for 2009″ presented by Julie Little and Carie Page from ELI. I presented at ELI in Minneapolis in September and will be a panelist at ELI in January 2009 in Orlando as well. Here are notes/key points from this session:

Today this session is launching a new community project, talking about the big issues, and asking for input and involvement.

The conversation about the challenges began around the community (expertise, peer-to-peer collaboration). They plan to form discussions, videos, podcasts around this topic in the coming months.

In the next 2-3 years, what big challenges face teaching and learning with IT?
What big issues are dominating your campus conversations and debates?

One of the top challenges is “Engaged Learning” – students actively involved in their learning, recognizing the social and interactive nature.

Traditional learning/delivery retention is typically around 35-40%. Engaged learning increases retention to between 55-75%. Engaged learning has been around for a long time – it’s not new – just high-tech now. Students can now perform authentic tasks, explore, solve problems and engage in a variety of activities,  and can form virtual cooperative learning relationships.

21st century literacies: (among students and faculty)
Three Kinds: Information, Digital, and Visual.
Three Levels: Stimulated, Literate, Fluent
Three Learning Strategies: Stand-alone instruction, Component of general education courses, Woven within the instructor’s academic plan

Introducing New and Emerging Technologies to Faculty:
There is a large technology gap between students and faculty – (finally get faculty using email just as students begin to prefer texting). Students can help us lead in this area – students WANT technology used in their courses. By supporting a few faculty, we can reach hundreds of students.

Challenges:
http://www.educause.edu/eli/challenges

What’s an eight-hour work day look like?

I’ve been reading some things here and there lately about flexibility in work hours and how we should probably rethink that whole idea of an eight-hour work day. I’d certainly say that, at least in some professions/positions that should be a thing to consider.

I’m certainly not saying that I think flexible hours will work in every situation, but I do think that expecting someone to sit at their desk from 8am until 5pm and be completely focused on work during that time and then leave at 5pm and ignore work until the next morning at 8 is ridiculous in this day and age.

When we’re connecting with students, working on projects and using our gorgeous Web 2.0 tools to weave our community magic, and eight-hour work day is a thing of the past. If I’m adding students on Facebook at 10PM and writing on their wall and joining groups they’ve asked me to join, I’m still at work.

The problem for me is that I *love* my job. I have no desire to turn off the lights at 5pm and ignore all of it until 8am the next day. It’s not how I function. I’m constantly connected, constantly interacting (unless I’m sleeping, but that doesn’t count – and actually my iPhone is about 1.5 feet from my bed during that time as well and if I wake up in the middle of the night, the first thing I do is check email and twitter), and I love that. I love social networking and community building.

Now, if I’m not at my desk at 4PM because I have to run my very active and athletic 14-year old to practice, is that still frowned upon? Is it still a bad thing to “leave work early” when in fact, I never leave work at all.

What’s an eight hour work day look like? I have no idea. I can’t remember.. it’s been so long since I’ve seen it.

Connections

Technology is a wonderful, beautiful, amazingly powerful thing. I get crazy excited about the thought of getting a new computer, a fancy hot laptop or a new iPhone. I love iPods, flash drives, external hard-drives, etc. If it’s new and somehow related to technology.. I want it.

Using technology without people though.. is pointless. All of the technologies and tools that I love, are all about connecting people and learning from each other. Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Second Life, IRC, etc, etc, etc. Without the people.. there’s nothing.

The power of these tools is in the people it connects. If I can meet you and talk to you, I start to learn from you. I start to understand how someone can think differently or do things in a way I hadn’t thought of previously. We start to connect and learn from each other and then maybe there’s a personal connection. Maybe you look at my Flickr stream and see photos of my children or friends, or cupcakes I’ve made, and now that professional connection has stepped outside the lines into a personal connection. Now there’s a new level to the conversation and it continues to expand and grow.

I’ve been connecting with people online for many, many years now. It started in a BBS and IRC and has continued changing and adapting through the years. The technology keeps changing but one thing always remains constant.. the people.

Change

There’s a lot of talk lately about a topic that I love: Change.

We’re hearing politicians talk about change, educational institutions are having discussions about changing thinking and being more ‘open’ and we’re even hearing about all of the change that’s happened in China recently as part of the the Olympics coverage.

I thrive on change. I love switching things around and seeing what happens. I love new things, new perspectives and experimentation. Change is GOOD for me.. when I’m in control of it and/or know that it will happen. I think that’s the key.

If I’m going along and then people change the plan on me out of nowhere, I will freak out. I will completely lose all sense of self and stability and it will take me a long time to become centered again and feel like I’m going in the right direction. If, however, I am aware that change is on the horizon and know to be prepared for it, and have some of idea of how this change will affect me.. then everything is good.

I think that our social technologies are all about change. They help us see things differently, they provide us with new perspectives and hopefully help us make new connections. I think maybe we should work harder to not only tell people about these things, but show them how to use them, and explain how these tools can make a difference. Show them how to embrace the change and move forward. It’s one thing to go around telling people to “Drink the Kool-Aid”, but it’s quite another to take the time to explain and show them how the tools work and how using them has the potential to change things.

“Like a Dream”

The new CEO of Linden Lab visited Global Kids today where a group of teenagers were working in both New York and Chicago learning about Tanzania as part of the “I Dig Tanzania” program.  Mark Kingdon spoke with the students and seemed to be really impressed with the work they’re doing.

Some quotes from the video where Mark talks about his feelings related to Global Kids and Second Life:

“Second Life is an amazing platform for personal growth and we’re really excited about the opportunities for people to connect and learn in Second Life”

“What you’re doing here is like a dream… I’d like to go back to school and learn it this way”

“Seeing something like this is incredibly inspiring because for me because it takes learning to a whole new level. This is different than a lot of classrooms”

“I love the fact that you’re connecting with students in other places too, that’s just so awesome because it helps to build relationships and see different points of view..”

I, for one, couldn’t agree more.

The blog post and video are here.

Participatory Learning – What’s your “Technoprofile”?

Saw this post this morning on one of my favorite blogs, The Bamboo Project Blog, by Michele Martin. I love her blog and find something valuable there on a daily basis. Truly.  Michele’s post refers to a post by Christine Martell that refers to a learning framework by Ray Jimenez on social media and learning.

In reading Michele’s post I was thinking about how this still relates to the discussion that we’ve been having in our local learning community recently about “open invitations” to participate and the desire to involve everyone.

As Michele points out, some of our learners might certainly be ready to participate, but perhaps not in the way we would want them to, or in the way we think they should.  I think this is really important.  We may feel that it’s easy and perfectly natural to comment on blogs, edit wikis, and take part in online conversations and even if we extend an invitation to others, it may not work.  We can open our arms as wide as we can, have snacks and refreshments waiting for them, and we may still not have anyone come to our party. Why? Not because they are refusing to participate.. they’re uncomfortable with the ways we’re asking them to participate.

Not only do we need to think about inviting people to be part of our community, discussions, and learning but we need to be aware of the different levels and know where our co-workers are.

I think most of us agree that we want our learners and co-workers to be creators and contributors, but they may not be ready for that. They may not feel comfortable starting a blog, creating virtual content or even editing your wiki. In fact, I feel completely comfortable as a content creator and even I’m intimidated by editing a wiki. No idea what it is, but I’m always a little hesitant to do it.

That being said, these are all things to think about as we think more about “Open Content” and invitations to participate.  Not everyone’s ready for the four-course meal. We might need to just offer some appetizers at first. At least that way, everyone’s at the party.