Girls and Computing

01. February 2012 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

Teaching 8th grade has to be one of the hardest things ever.  I dare anyone who thinks they know what they’re doing in life to put themselves in front of a group of 8th graders (girls, even) and see if they can hold their own.  I’m betting most people won’t last 5 minutes.  I don’t claim to be good at it.  I struggle every day, but I’m determined to reach them.

I teach a required “technology” class in each grade level that meets once a week for 10 weeks.  In 6th and 7th grade, things are going swimmingly.  In 8th grade, things were not.  I teach Scratch in 8th grade.  My plan was to have the girls create 3 Scratch projects of increasing difficulty.  I usually end with having them create a video game.  That worked okay the first trimester, but this one, I got a lot more grumbling after we finished our first project.  I decided not to fight it.  I asked them what they wanted to do.  Tell me, I said, what technology/computing projects would you like to do?  Many wanted to do video projects.  I suggested social media of some kind.  And they jumped all over that.  So, now, I have two groups doing projects on Tumblr and two doing video projects.  I was a little unnerved about this.  What if they suck? What if they goof off?

Today, though, the two groups working on their Tumblr projects were doing awesome things.  One group was customizing their theme, creating tabs, even digging into some CSS.  At one point, one girl said, “This being techie thing is really hard.”  A girl responded, “Yeah, but it’s really fun.”  Girl one said, “You’re right it is.”  Later, someone in that group said something about how many details were involved in technology.  I just smiled.

The other group, which is really just one person, took a bunch of photos and opened them up in a photo editor and started manipulating them to make them more interesting and different.  She was playing with levels and saturation.  And that was pretty awesome.

Maybe they weren’t doing exactly what I’d had in mind at the beginning of the class, but I actually think they’re learning stuff, and for the most part, they’re doing it on their own.  They were Googling the answer to how to manipulate the html to make their tabs work.  They figured it out before I could even help them.  I think that’s pretty empowering.

I also got some feedback from my CS students this week, who are a great bunch of students, really fun to work with.  I wanted to know how they liked the class so far, what I could differently next year for the things already covered, and what they’d like to be sure to cover this year.  I also wanted to know how likely it would be for them to take another CS course in the future, whether with me or later in college.

Here are their thoughts, summarized:

1. They generally like the class and find it fun.  The projects we’re doing are varied and interesting to them.

2. They all hate it when the technology doesn’t work.  I would second that, and I’m working on fixing those issues.

3. They want to go on field trips.

4. They want the class to count for something toward graduation other than a basic elective.  Some suggested language. :)  I laughed because Mr. Geeky tried that same strategy in grad school in order to avoid taking another language.

5. On a scale of 10, with 10 being very likely, the likelihood of their taking another CS course ranges from 4-9.  I thought that was pretty good.  I can handle a moderate likelihood of taking a CS course.  Heck, after my own first course in college, I never wanted to see CS again. You can stop laughing now.

6. Lack of interest is certainly an issue, but lack of time to fit the course in is a bigger one.

7.  They all liked that the class was small (7 students).  I did too!  They emphasized that the small class size meant a lot of personal help, which is important to them.  If the class gets larger, and frankly, I hope it does, I’ll have to figure out a way to deal with that.  Pair programming or peer instruction.  Something.

It’s been fun to teach, for sure, and I hope to improve upon what I’m doing next year.

Technology as separate or integrated

14. November 2011 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

Last week I participate in an #isedchat about whether “technology” classes should be taught separately or if tech should be more fully integrated into the work that students do within their academic classes.  The consensus seemed to be that technology should be integrated into the academic classes themselves.  But then there was the problem of how, exactly, that was supposed to happen.  What do you do with the teachers who aren’t particularly tech savvy?  How do you decide on what kind of technology gets incorporated?  These are tough questions that I see many schools wrestle with.

I can think of some things that I think every student should know, technology-wise, but many of these are basic.  File–>Save, for example.  There are standards out there, but they’re pretty vague.  The ones I see most teachers and students really struggling with are these:

6. Technology Operations and Concepts
Students demonstrate a sound understanding of technology concepts, systems, and operations. Students:
a. understand and use technology systems.
b. select and use applications effectively and productively.
c. troubleshoot systems and applications.
d. transfer current knowledge to learning of new technologies.

 

These are, of course, fairly vague as well.  What systems are we talking about here?  In this case, though, I kind of like the vagueness, because one thing I can’t stand is someone who can only use a particular product–be it Microsoft or Apple or Google or even Linux.  It’s okay to like or feel more comfortable with any of these, but when you find yourself in front of a different system, you are not allowed to throw up your hands (see 6d. above).  These are all things I explicitly try to do in my tech classes.  But I could see these things being incorporated elsewhere.  How does one do this?

There are lots of ways, but mainly, assign things that involve the use of said systems, and don’t be crazy specific about which systems the students use.  Take writing a paper, for example.  Let them use Google Docs or Word or LaTex or a basic text editor, but you can require it be formatted a certain way and that it be a pdf file in its final format (to save you from converting files yourself).  And then the students need to figure that out and in the process, will learn a little about file formats.  Have them include a picture or a graph.  File formats, file resizing, and a little bit of spreadsheet calculation will be absorbed this way.

Assign a podcast or an animated slideshow or a documentary.  Now we’re talking–all kinds of systems!  All kinds of file types.  How do you get that YouTube video downloaded and into your remixed version?  They will figure it out.  There’s this thing called Google (or Bing, whatever).

Assign some data analysis and visualization.  Let them figure out how to do this.  (Yep, Google, again.)

And I’m not saying you might not make suggestions about what works or provide support as they struggle, but instead of defining the process so specifically, why not define the goal and let them figure out the process.

Because I’m telling you, a student who doesn’t know that File–>Save exists in almost every program or that ctrl-c is copy and ctrl-v is paste (cmd-c or cmd-v) or who can’t search for the answers to their questions isn’t going to survive the 21st century.  And a single “tech” class where these things are taught (out of context) and never again used, probably isn’t going to cut it.

I’m happy to teach those classes.  They’re fun, but even more fun is when what you teach gets incorporated into many classes.  It makes it a much more worthwhile endeavor.  And it might make it an obsolete endeavor, which, honestly, is a good thing.

Corporate Money and Education

07. September 2011 · 4 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

If you’ve been reading me for a while, you know that I’m an open source kind of person.  I like to use open source software whenever I can.  I’ve donated to OS projects and paid for some outright because they’re good.  But it’s not just about the money.  It’s a philosophy about how software is created through collaboration, and that anyone can change that software as needed, hopefully in a way that contributes to the improvement of that software.  That being said, I am often willing to pay for and use propriety software.  I pay for Apple software, for example.  I pay for Weebly for school.  Honestly, I’d pay for Google docs.  Often I do this when it’s something I don’t need to alter or for which there isn’t a good open source alternative.

But what I’m starting to get the heebie-jeebies about is corporations making money (and lots of it!) off of schools.  Most schools’ budgets are stretched pretty thin, but many of the products sold to schools are way expensive.  Microsoft, Blackboard, student information systems, even Apple, charge schools a ton of money to use their products.  They often sell you their products by suggesting it will help you teach better, make your life easier in some way, or help you students learn.  As you might imagine, I see this a lot in Computer Science.  The two biggest robotics competitions both require the purchase of not just equipment (which I don’t have a huge problem with), but also software.  I’m going to pay $1000 to get software.  They also sell curriculum packets for a ton of money.

I give Microsoft some credit in that many of their products for CS education are offered at no cost, but often to go further, one has to purchase a more robust package, for a few hundred dollars.  Google, of course, provides many things for “free” but they’re not open, and they’re selling off your info in one way or another.

And then there’s the publishers, many of whom sell not just books to you and your students, but online “experiences.”  And I’ve seen other companies that sell whole curricula to schools.

Now, I get it.  Building curriculum is hard, and sometimes you get thrown into teaching something you’ve never taught before and you need some materials, stat.  But I just don’t trust companies to not have some kind of self-interest.  Microsoft, for example, wants employees, so it’s willing to give away some products in exchange for potentially loyal employees.  Nothing wrong with that, but I don’t buy that their desire to create more computer scientists is about “bettering the world.” It’s about bettering Microsoft, which may or may not be bettering the world with their products.  Ditto Google.  The textbook publishers just seem desperate, like they know they’re not going to last and so they’re trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip.

I know that some of my students might go off and work for Microsoft or Google or some other giant corporation where they’re going to be very successful.  But I worry about conflicts of interest.  I’m not teaching CS for Microsoft’s benefit.

I also hate corporations that sell products/curriculum with the suggestion that they want to help students learn when it’s clear that what they really want to do is make money.

I’m not opposed to companies making money.  Audrey Watters recently posted about some good education startups.  Many of these companies are filling gaps left by larger corporations.  I happily support some of these companies.  Yes, they want to make money, but many of them are also hoping to help teachers and students. They started as tools for education, not as general software companies who saw an opportunity in the education market.  I know education can’t be (and maybe shouldn’t be) completely separate from the corporate world, but a little distance wouldn’t hurt.

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Technology in the Classroom

06. September 2011 · 1 comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

A lot of people are talking about the article that was in the NY Times that made the argument that millions of dollars spent on technology did not improve “learning.”  I put learning in quotes because as many people have pointed out, “learning” in this case equals test scores.  Test scores remained flat.  Whether real learning occurred might take a few years to figure out.

It’s part of my job to “integrate” technology into our curriculum.  Really, I’m just there to help teachers do that by pointing out possibilities and working with them to redevelop lessons, etc.  But I’m actually kind of down on technology for technology’s sake, which is what I’ve seen happening in many places, and what I’ve seen advocated by some of the people whose blogs and Twitter feeds I follow.  I teach the “technology” classes at our school, but I refuse to teach PowerPoint and Excel and all those applications.  I am application agnostic in my approach.  I’ve been shifting the curriculum gradually toward a computing/computer science curriculum.  This is a trend I’ve seen in other places, and one that I think is really important.

Instead what I encourage is for teachers to have students use presentation, spreadsheet, image editing, video editing, and other applications within the context of their classes.  And don’t focus on the tool!  Let students use whatever is at hand, while making sure the school also provides options.  So, for example, an English teacher has her students do a multimedia essay.  I come in and together we talk about strategies for putting together multimedia vs. a regular essay.  I also talk about what’s available to them in terms of tools.  There are free tools online, things the school provides, and many students have their own computers with things like iMovie.  The focus is on learning to compose differently, not to learn the ins and outs of an application that may or may not be around in 10 years.

I do the same with math and spreadsheets and special graphing software and even scale drawing tools.  Basically, teachers simply remain open to the possibilities that technology has to connect their students to the material.

We are in the process of evaluating several technology initiatives, and I have to say that I’m the cautious one for once.  I just want us to not throw money at something that might be better solved by a reevaluation of curriculum.  Or we should do things on a smaller scale.  And then there are other areas where I think even more money needs to go.

I’m very lucky in that I’m surrounded by really smart people who are completely open to incorporating technology into their curriculum.  They don’t have a knee-jerk anti-technology reaction either.  They’re very thoughtful about their use of technology.  It makes my job a little easier, and, I think, helps our students be thoughtful about their own use of technology.

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Technology woes

19. August 2011 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,


At the beginning of the summer, I bought myself a Motorola Atrix Android-base phone to replace my first gen iPhone.  It was the right choice.  It integrated so nicely with my Google lifestyle.  I loved that phone.  I swear it made me 10% more productive.  At the beginning of August, I went on a trip to Key West with my sister-in-law.  When I arrived at the airport, I whipped out my Atrix, texted Mr. Geeky that I’d arrived safely and then texted my sil that I’d be at the hotel soon.  I stuck the phone in my back pocket and made a trip to the ladies room.  As I was, uhm, preparing to use the facilities, I heard a clunk.  Please tell me that wasn’t my phone, I thought.  It was my phone.  And not on the floor, but in. the. toilet.  There were bubbles, like my phone was gasping its last breath.  Without thinking twice, I grabbed the phone. Don’t worry, no business had been attended to yet.  I went over to a seat and attempted to take the phone apart.  No luck.  I’ll do it when I get to the hotel.  Actually, I did it in the cab on the way over.  I left the phone in pieces for most of the time I was in Key West, and spent a good chunk of time whining about how much I’d loved that phone.

When I got home, I read up on what to do.  I’d mostly done everything right–taking it apart, letting it dry–but I had attempted to charge it when it was still wet, which at best shorted the battery, and at worst, shorted out the motherboard.  I decided that maybe, just maybe, a new battery might do the trick.  The new battery arrived yesterday.  To no avail.  So now I’m scouring ebay for a replacement.  Retail cost for said phone is $449.  I feel kind of sick about the whole thing, but I live my life through my phone.  I could also send my phone off to attempt to be repaired.  The cost of that is much less, but there is no guarantee that it will work, and I’d be out the money whether it worked or not.

I’m buying a case for the next phone I get–and I am never putting a phone in my back pocket again.  They don’t make women’s back pockets like men’s, big enough to hold a wallet.  For what it’s worth, I discovered that dropping a phone into the toilet is pretty common.  So I’m among lots of other idiots.  Sigh.

ISTE 11: Days 2 & 3

29. June 2011 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,

In reverse chronological order, and sort of bullet-y.  tl;dr version: some interesting controversy among computer science people, good food, still meh.

  • Rode home on the train with a colleague, early, skipped the keynote by Chris Lehmann, even though I’m sure it was fab.  I was conferenced out.
  • Wandered around Reading Terminal Market with said colleague.  She got sushi.
  • Attended a session on recruiting and retaining girls in technology and other stem fields.  It was pretty interesting, covering some ground about gender and stereotypes that I hadn’t seen others bring up before in similar kinds of sessions at ISTE.
  • Wandered around the playground area, where I saw the following:

  • I also saw a robotics team–mostly boys–and they named their robot a girl’s name–sigh.
  • Found the VEX booth and talked to them for a while.  They had the classroom competition set up.  I talked to them a little about our competition teams and how I’m adding a middle school team.  Then I asked if C (and some variations) were the only languages you could use on the robots.  As it turns about, they have a “brain” that’s basically Linux and that can accept any language.  It’s illegal for competition, but I’d love to get my hands on one and see if I could tie it into my existing curriculum that uses Python.
  • Wandered around the Exhibitor area.  Talked to some Google people.  Saw waaaaay too many Interactive Whiteboards.  And while some of them clearly do some cool things, they’re no longer game changers.  Five years from now, I think, they’ll be almost as pointless as overhead projectors.  Tablets are the next big thing.  I stopped by the BrainPop booth.  I love their animations, and they’ve added games.  Turns out we just got a subscription–pretty fun.
  • Wandering around the Exhibitor area made me feel a little ill.  Education is seen primarily as a market, as a way to make money.  Very few of the vendors, to me, seem to be interested in really improving education or teaching or learning.
  • Attended a breakfast for computer science teachers.  We heard two talks, one by David Gagnon from the University of Wisconsin, who discussed games and learning.  And then we heard from a woman and her students and how they use Scratch.  Both talks were good, through watching the Twitter feed, I was a little disturbed that someone (don’t know who exactly) said they didn’t know anything about computer games–and they teach computer science.  Wow. Just wow.
  • Last night, I ended the evening at an NCWIT event, for which I was very late, but I still got to talk to a couple of people.  I missed the drawing for Engineer Barbie.  Bummer.
  • Prior to that, I went to a cocktail hour sponsored by LearnBoost, which I found out from my friend Audrey Watters, a writer/journalist who I try to run into and talk to as much as possible. LearnBoost is a very cool application, btw, and one of the few vendors out there who seem to really listen to what educators want.  Check it out!
  • I needed that cocktail hour because just before that, I was at a Computational Thinking session where fights nearly broke out.  The CS teachers questions the goal of the curriculum, and saw it as pushing out computer science as its own class.  The presenters really didn’t have an answer for them, which was telling.  Discussion was somewhat heated.
  • And that whole issue–CS vs. “Technology”–was something that had continued (with the same actors) from the CS SIG meeting.  I heard stories of whole programs being wiped out as administrators invested more time and money in courses on using applications.  Fascinating stuff, and I got the feeling that not everyone in the group agreed and kind of wanted the controversy to go away.  I’ll have more on that another day.
  • Preceding that, I was at a pleasant meeting of teachers from Independent Schools. No controversies here.  Just sharing information.

At various points, I hung out in the Bloggers’ Cafe, chatting with various people, including Jenn Orr and her colleague and whoever was within earshot.  I also spent time in the Market, eating at Pearl’s Oyster Bar (so yummy), getting Thai takeout, getting BBQ chicken, and getting a couple of cannolis from Termini Brothers (also yummy).  I lost my power cord to my phone, but I bought a new one at Radio Shack.  Basically, I wasn’t terribly impressed.  I learned a few things, but it didn’t thrill me.  I don’t think I’ll make the trek to San Diego for next year’s.  I want to learn, to have interesting conversations, and not be talked at or, worse, sold to.

 

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Hacking and magic

03. May 2011 · 4 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , ,

It’s been a fun week for me to be the local technology guru.  I’ve been helping with a couple of video projects using Jaycut, one in 8th grade and one in 12th. I’m also evaluating the success of what I’ve done so far this year and I’m planning tweaks for next year.   Like many schools, we use some free tools to get stuff done.  While we have Windows Movie Maker and some of the kids have their own computers to work on, those who use the school computers need an option.  So, we’re using Jaycut, and it’s working pretty well.  But we’re doing a lot of hacking things together.  We’ve used DoInk to create some very cool animations, then we screen record those, and imported them into Jaycut.  I’ve also helped students record Skype conversations, download YouTube videos (with Zamzar), and extract audio from their video.  I don’t even remember which one of those many things I was helping a student with when she said, “Wow, you’re magic.”  It happened again with my 7th graders today.  I told her how to do something, and her eyes got big when it worked.

Even though my real hacking skills–in code–are limited, I realized after helping these students over the past couple of weeks how much of a hacker I really am.  I have always tried to bend tools to my will and often cobbled together different tools or api’s or even code to make things work.  More than one student has asked me how I learned what I know.  I hacked my way there.  When something didn’t work, I found something else that did.  Once there were such things as search engines, I used them a lot.  In fact, I do that fairly often with students sitting right there, mostly to prove to them that I’m not magic.  I mostly look stuff up.  Yes, sometimes you need to know what you’re looking for, but most of the information is there if you dig far enough.

It’s still amazing to me how many people think technology is magic.  Yes, it’s sophisticated and yes, it often hides its inner workings, but it’s not magic.  And yes I know: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.  But seriously, computers have been like this for what, 15 years?  The interfaces get slicker, but the concepts are still the same.  I guess I have my work cut out for me.

 

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Subtexts

03. February 2011 · 2 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,
Penguin, brrrr

Image by lorda via Flickr

While Educon is primarily a series of conversations about the impact of technology on education (and vice versa?), like any conference, there’s an undercurrent of conversation about other things.  They’re not primary issues necessarily, but they crop up as people mill about and talk to each other.  While one could ignore the subtext, I think it’s important to address them.

The first subtext had to do with popularity, with A-lists and closed circles and cliques.  I noted this immediately, before reading the conversation at George Couros’s recent blog post.   Whether Educon organizers or attendees like it or not, there are people who are better known than others.  I noted 20 or so folks whom I recognized from blogs and Twitter who all seemed to know each other.  And clearly, people wanted to get a piece of many of them.  Over the years, I’ve been in in-groups, outcast groups, alternative groups, and in some circumstances even in A-list groups.  When you find yourself part of the “popular” crowd, sometimes you don’t even know it.  Sometimes you don’t find out you were in that crowd until you go to your 20th reunion and someone points that out.  And you think, “Damn, why was I so miserable then?”

My sense was that educators, and attendees of Educon in particular, did not want to see this whole high-school drama play out.  People that mentioned it to me–and surprisingly many did–seemed downright surprised.  And, from some of the comments on George’s posts, it’s clear that some actually felt hurt and felt not invited.   I think George’s point in the post was basically, we all have something to say, something teach someone.  Don’t compare yourself to the guy or girl who gets 300 comments on every blog post.  I’ve gotten exactly one comment on the last three blog posts, but here I am, still writing.  Would I like to be a voice lots of people turn to?  Sure.  But my worth, my value to my kids, to my colleagues, to the world at large, is not tied up in whether that happens or not.  Or in whether Will Richardson remembers me.  I had some really interesting conversations with people I’d never met before.  Some are well known.  Some not.  Doesn’t matter.  I learned something from all of them.

But I get that it’s an uncomfortable feeling to feel like you’re not welcome.  I certainly didn’t think that anyone at Educon intentionally put out the unwelcome mat.   All I have to say is try going to the MLA without a job or Ph.D. or job from the “right” place, and then talk to me about feeling unwelcome.  I don’t think Educon is ever going to be like that.  No one glanced at my nametag, saw my place of employment and walked away as fast as possible.

The other related subtext was really more on the surface, because it had its own session.  Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach ran a panel discussion on gender diversity in ed tech.  She blogged it here. I have to admit that when I walked in and saw many of the A-listers mentioned above (many of them men) sitting at the front, I had a moment of pause.  At first I thought they were just being annoying because I didn’t know they were part of a panel.   I know, a little defensive.   But the conversation was great.  There was, I thought, a good mix of men and women at our table.  And I thought everyone really was interested in the topic and interested in trying to solve the problem.

I want to add to some of the things Sheryl and her commenters have said.  I think one issue is not so much that men treat women a certain way or that women are excluded just because they’re women, but that women are excluded because they behave like women.  Let me explain a bit.  I think society tells women to behave a certain way–submissive, not “bitchy”, service-oriented, putting others first, etc.  Some women have been lucky enough to be raised by parents that encourage more assertive behaviors, but sometimes, society breaks them of that.  I have seen in myself sometimes, behavior I recognize as “female,” meaning it compromises any position of power I might have.  And while I have, as some women at Sheryl’s blog have said, felt like “one of the boys,” at some point, I decided I wanted to be me, girl parts included, but I have sometimes brought along the not-so-good parts of that.  It’s a real internal conflict.  And to go with that internal conflict are often external ones–issues around child care, household responsibilities, even parent care.  In other words, it’s complicated.

Educon is a new conference.  The edcamps that have cropped up largely in response to it are really new.  The way we’ve been thinking about education and technology is also really new.  Other fields have been dealing with these subtexts for years.  The fact that they’ve come up for this cohort of people is a good thing.  It’s out there.  We can talk (blog) about it, and maybe make things better.

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Educon 2.3

30. January 2011 · Write a comment · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , ,

Educon 2.3 is over.   Last year was my first year attending.  I enjoyed it more this year than I did last.  In part, this had to do with my being firmly entrenched in K-12.  Though I got a lot out of the sessions last year, this year, they meant a lot more and I felt like I could take back some of the things I learned and apply them.  I could also bring some of my own experiences and expertise to the conversation.  Despite not being in K-12 for that long, I’m recognizing that my previous experience as a college-level teacher has not only helped me but is also valuable experience to share.

Some of my favorite sessions included Shifted Learning, a conversation about communities of learners, which looked at concepts such as PLN, PLC, and guild.  We used a lot gaming terminology and gaming experiences to frame our conversation, so I felt right at home.

Another of my favorite sessions was Diversify your Rolodex, a conversation about the lack of women as leaders in educational technology.  It was a fascinating conversation, one we keep visiting in the world of blogs, twitter, technology more broadly.  We keep asking where are the women?  I think they’re here.  I’m here, but I think they’re not here as prolifically as men are.  That’s not something that specifically came up in our conversation, but it’s a phenomenon I’ve noticed before.  The male “thought leaders” in this field (in many fields) tweet more and blog more than many of the women out there.  So they’re more likely to be noticed.  Those same men often comment on each other’s posts, retweet each other, retweet each other’s work, etc.  So again, more attention to those particular people.  I don’t think anyone has done a full on study of this, but they have for political blogs and I suspect similar patterns hold true.  The thing is, it takes some work to pay attention to people you don’t know and/or who are very different from you racially, gender-wise, etc.  I probably am more likely to tweet or comment on posts by middle-age moms than I am other things.  But I try to get outside my own demographic.  So, I’d say to those of you out there who are considered “thought leaders” in ed tech.  Make a point of looking beyond your usual suspects.  See what you find.

I also got a lot out of a panel on The Future of the Book and about Is the Internet Making us Stupid, where I argued that we shouldn’t adapt to our tools, but build the tools we need through Computer Science.   Of course!

Besides all the great scheduled conversations, I had many wonderful spontaneous conversations.  I met a lot of new colleagues, including finally meeting Audrey Watters of Hack Education and ReadWriteWeb.  I also got to catch up with old friends from UMW.  I’m looking forward to future conferences to share more with new and old friends alike.

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Cleaning the digital cobwebs

06. January 2011 · 4 comments · Categories: Uncategorized · Tags: , , , ,

Regular readers of this blog know that I’ve gradually retreated from the kind of gung-ho online enthusiasm I had previously engaged in.  I still find much of value online, but I find myself either easily overwhelmed in spaces like Twitter or Facebook, and now, Quora, or not stimulated enough by blogs and other longer form digital media.  When I started considering a move to K-12, I expanded the number of K-12 oriented blogs and Twitter users I followed and I gradually reduced the number of Higher Ed media I follow.  I no longer read IHE or the Chronicle, and I’ve dropped many Higher Ed bloggers who write primarily about their lives as faculty and complain about various issues in Higher Ed.  I’m no longer interested (sorry folks).  There are a handful of people in that category that are interesting enough writers to keep me reading or write on a variety of different topics.

But there’s still some culling I need to do, and I’m going to look seriously at the Twitter and Facebook friends I have.  The benefit of Facebook, for me, is keeping up with far-flung high school, college, and graduate school friends, many of whose lives I’m interested in not just for personal reasons but for professional ones.  Amazingly, I have many friends involved in technology even when they started out as poets or history majors.  But I don’t need 350 people.  My feed gets clogged really quickly.

Twitter offers a lot of interesting ideas and links, but there, too, I have too many people I’m following.  Now that I know what I really benefit from the most, I can eliminate the people who post things of little value to me.  I do like to be diverse in the kinds of people I follow, but I don’t want to have to cull through tons of unimportant or uninteresting tweets to find the good stuff.

I think a lot of this, too, comes from having less time.  I have 15-20 minutes increments where I can pop in and check my reader or Twitter.  I’m always looking for things that I can use in my own teaching as well as things I can share with my teachers.  I can’t waste the limited time I have.

I’m also trying to streamline many of my online practices.  The reason I liked delicious so much was that I had an easy way, via my browser, to save a link and then I had an RSS feed going to a page I curate for my teachers and the links also went to Twitter.   Some of that was, of course, for self-promotional purposes, back when I was trying to be a consultant, but now it’s so I can provide information to my colleagues quickly and easily.  I looked around the other day for an alternative to delicious and frankly, there isn’t anything I want to use.  Delicious is clean and easy, so until I get the word that it’s going to go down completely, I’m sticking with it.

But other accounts, I’m getting rid of.  I used to join every new Web 2.0 site that came down the pike.  Now, I wait to see if it’s worth it. 

Clearly, I’m keeping the blog, even if I read fewer blogs than before.  Unlike Twitter and Facebook, which have become like giant parties where half the people are drunk and half the people are people I don’t know, the blog feels like a quiet dinner party I’m hosting at my house where friends I’ve invited are here and a few random folks drop by to say hello.  I need that intimate feel more than ever now.  So here I go, off to reduce my connections, maybe down to the Dunbar number.

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