I never thought it would happen to me……..

Three guys walk into a pub. A physics teacher, a computer technology/ multimedia/ computer tech  teacher and a construction teacher. They sit down and continue building their F2F PLN. As the waitress walks away the conversation turns to work. The C.P.T./M.M. teachers asks, “what do you guys know about twitter?” The physics teacher pipes up, “I do not have Twitter, from what I’ve heard it’s a waste of time. Who would care what I am doing for the weekend or what I think about the weather, I know I don’t want  to know what everyone thinks about every minute of the day. Seems like a big waste of time filtering through a bunch of useless info. This is where the story gets weird. The C.P.T./M.M. teacher turns to the construction teachers and asks, “what do you know about Twitter?” The construction teacher replies,”well, two months ago I knew nothing about it, but since enrolling in ECI 831 I have found out quite a bit.A lot more then the CPT/MM teacher, that’s the punchline.

So we discussed the benefits and drawbacks to Twitter and how to organize all of the people that you are following with Tweetdeck. In the end the physics teacher was unconvinced that he needed to be a part of the Twitterverse. The CPT/ MM teacher on the other hand was intrigued and went home and started a Twitter account for his school and is using Twitter to relay information to students about events at the school ie. basketball tournament coming up, report card dates etc. As of yesterday there were only 4 followers ( one of which was me) but I’m sure the following will grow. We also discussed my QR code project and he was quite interested and is hoping to include a QR code on the posters that are printed advertising the basketball tournament. The QR code will take the people to a webpage that will contain the schedule as well as ongoing results, etc.Before my project I have had no experience shooting , editing, uploading video so it has been a steep learning curve. With the help of some of my students we shot a video describing the reason the project was useful. I told them what my project was about and they came up with the script. I let them have some fun with it and this is what they came up with.

After watching Alan Levine video 50 Ways to tell a Story I checked out  some of the other videos on youtube. One of which was a video of a 12 year old kid showing how to make a shooting  gun out of a pen. I was blown away, the video this kid made was great, obviously not his first. He just seemed so natural. After watching it I thought I really am out of touch with what kids are doing.  Are all kids his age doing things like this? I have never seen my daughter do this kind of stuff, but I know they have nade some videos for school. Then I did a search on youtube  for how to make a pen gun, I was shocked to again find hundreds of videos showing how to make a pen gun. This is stuff I really could have used as a kid!! As I said earlier I have been spending a lot of time editing video, it is going much quicker now, but still painfully slow even with the help of a multimedia student and teacher. I can imagined doing shooting it and editing it when I was 12!

Last night I was watching twitter in Tweetdeck and  kept seeing #OWS in various tweets and retweets. Not knowing what the hashtag was I searched for it and eventually found out it stood for the Occupy Wall Street movement. As I watched the tweets coming in I was amazed at the speed at which they were coming through. It really was a torrential river of information coming from all over the world. The tweets were coming in so fast I coudn’t read them fast enough.

At the beginning of the class I was similar to the physics teacher, unconvinced that I needed to get involved in this technology. As the class has progressed I have “seen the light”. There is a use for social media in learning and teaching. I’m still not sure where I fit yet. But, I know there are lots of great people doing great things all over the world who are willing to share their knowledge at the click of a button.

 

SHAREski presentation

This weeks class was presented by Dean Shareski. Having listened to his presentation and having watched his Sharing: The Moral Imperative I came to the obvious conclusion that he thinks online sharing is very important. I too believe that sharing is important. As teachers we share our knowledge everyday with our students. In departments with combine our knowledge and share it with others in the building. As staffs we again combine our knowledge and share it with communities. So why not become part of a global community and share with the world? Makes perfect sense.

I think Dean is passionate about digital sharing, and from what I understood from his Moral Imperative presentation almost fanatical about it. As a rookie in digital technology and sharing I find it hard to fully understand his passion. I find myself a user of the knowledge so far. I find what I need and extract it from the internet. It is a tool, one of many that I use in my daily life. I still value relationships built in face to face interaction. I find  nurturing the fewer close personal relationships much more rewarding than spreading a wide net of loosely formed ties on the internet. But, as I write this another voice in my head says, yes but, even personal relationships were started by loosely formed ties that grew stronger. So you can see my struggle. I guess as a person I still struggle with how much time it takes to seek out and build PLN’s on the internet( for me is it a wise investment). I’m starting to come to grips with the fact that there are many things I will never learn, but usually if there is something I need to know I can usually find it.

I respectfully have to disagree with Dean that it is our obligation to share digitally. My obligation for sharing is firstly to my students, secondly to other teachers in my school and thirdly to people within my school district.  If after I fulfill all my duties to those individuals then, I can choose to digitally share what I have learned with others. I would never refuse sharing with someone that needed help. But I don’t feel it is my responsibility to digitally share things I have done.

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