I saw a tweet (I can now say that out loud without smirking) about the stages of twitter use people go through, and while I didn't fully understand it...I do now. I joined twitter a few weeks ago, and immediately became obsessed. Every single night was learning and earning and bookmarking and panicking that I was missing something. I felt like I was in the best classroom ever trying furiously to take notes. I didn't want to miss a single site or thought or blog or who knows what. A strange thing happened...somewhere around my 200th "5 Ways to Incorporate the Top 6 New iPad Apps in Google Social Media...in Your Classroom 2.0" I got burnt.
My brain stopped enjoying and started just logging.
Logging what? Logging information and sites and processing nothing. I realized I had fully committed myself to knowledge-level learning for those few weeks and it suddenly felt empty. I had nothing original or new to offer, even as I sat perched and ready to tweet that retweetable tweet...that magnificent shredded tweet which would set the twittersphere twittering...instead I was just a twit...and I closed my computer and let my brain cool for awhile.
Is this a stage in the twitter process? I'm not sure. I am definitely not giving up, but (as with all things) some moderation and thought is needed. My pastor gave a speech this morning about the popularity of social media this morning and made some great points about our increased dependence on "surface relationships." We now have so many people that we "skim the surface with" relationship wise, that we may not take the time to dig deeper into those relationships which matter most. He is obviously referring to God and family, but if we frame this within the educational paradigm then we must never forget that "it's the people, stupid." We can tech the heck out of everything, but if we don't protect those relationships then we risk surface success instead of deep change.
I was in a hardware store today and saw one of my facebook "friends" at the checkout. We haven't seen each in years or even spoken on facebook, but we are "friends." As he came by I moved to have a conversation with him and he gave me a quick nod and kept walking. If we can't manage a simple conversation in the "real world" we must consider whether these are friendships in need of "social mediation" in the digital world. I came home and updated my friend list.
In other news, we continue to work and definite what it means to be moving to a 2.0 learning environment. We have some amazing teachers piloting not only a digital learning environment, but the teacher as a guide philosophy. Below is a blog post from @stumpteacher that definitely fits into the conversation my school system is having right now.
I Resign From Teaching
My brain stopped enjoying and started just logging.
Logging what? Logging information and sites and processing nothing. I realized I had fully committed myself to knowledge-level learning for those few weeks and it suddenly felt empty. I had nothing original or new to offer, even as I sat perched and ready to tweet that retweetable tweet...that magnificent shredded tweet which would set the twittersphere twittering...instead I was just a twit...and I closed my computer and let my brain cool for awhile.
Is this a stage in the twitter process? I'm not sure. I am definitely not giving up, but (as with all things) some moderation and thought is needed. My pastor gave a speech this morning about the popularity of social media this morning and made some great points about our increased dependence on "surface relationships." We now have so many people that we "skim the surface with" relationship wise, that we may not take the time to dig deeper into those relationships which matter most. He is obviously referring to God and family, but if we frame this within the educational paradigm then we must never forget that "it's the people, stupid." We can tech the heck out of everything, but if we don't protect those relationships then we risk surface success instead of deep change.
I was in a hardware store today and saw one of my facebook "friends" at the checkout. We haven't seen each in years or even spoken on facebook, but we are "friends." As he came by I moved to have a conversation with him and he gave me a quick nod and kept walking. If we can't manage a simple conversation in the "real world" we must consider whether these are friendships in need of "social mediation" in the digital world. I came home and updated my friend list.
In other news, we continue to work and definite what it means to be moving to a 2.0 learning environment. We have some amazing teachers piloting not only a digital learning environment, but the teacher as a guide philosophy. Below is a blog post from @stumpteacher that definitely fits into the conversation my school system is having right now.
I Resign From Teaching
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