I always enjoy a good double meaning in a title, so I’m pleased that this podcast, recorded during my drive home from NECC, is called what it is. I find myself driving at the moment, refreshed and recharged. That’s what I wanted out of the conference. I’m pleased it worked that way, and grateful to lots of folks for all the conversation and push back. It is good to be in community (or communities, or whatever) with smart folks. I wanted to get this podcast up, mostly for my own benefit, before I lost some of that momentum.
I’m off to the beach for a week, hoping to top off my batteries, and will be doing my best to be offline - but I’d welcome your comments here on the podcast as a way of keeping me driving and moving when I return.
Oh - and below is a piece of the conversation that I mentioned in the ‘cast. Thanks to Kevin Honeycutt for recording it and Darren Draper and David Jakes for facilitating the conversation. Not sure if a complete recording exists, but you’ll get the gist of the conversation, one of my favorites.
I’m writing this morning from the National Writing Project’s web presence working retreat, an event I’ve been fortunate enough to have been involved with as a facilitator since its inception last year. This is the second time we’ve run the event, which is an attempt to provide some time and structure for teams from writing project sites who wish to think strategically about their web presence. We’ll spend the weekend thinking through the identity of our respective organizations and what we can do online to both reflect and support that identity and the good work that all of us are trying to do in our various locations around writing and teaching and learning. That means lots of things to lots of people, but there’s plenty of intersection in the general trends.
The event is pretty intense, and, while designed for sites to think about their organizational web presences, is very helpful to me as I think about my personal and professional life online. One of the big questions that we’re asking people to think about is how their web presences are a reflection of and a lens into their work. My personal web presence should be like that, too. But I’m not sure that it is. I’ve got content spread around the web in a variety of places, everywhere from Flickr to Twitter to this blog to my wiki (which is desperately in need of an update or seven) to my work with other groups and schools and people. There’s plenty of personalmixed in with the professional, and I think the boundaries between those two areas of my life, never truly separate in “real, offline” life, continue to blur and fade and shift from day to day, week to week, month to year. (That’s a good thing, I think, for the most part.) How do I, as a blogger and a teacher and a learner and a father and a husband and a citizen, do my best to ensure a consistent presence across the Internet that reflects what I believe to be important? Just as essential - how do I bring all of that content that sits all over the place into some sort of a coherent whole? Or do I need to, so long as all that content in all of those places, and others, reflects the message(s) that I want so desperately to convey - that learning and writing and thinking and engaging and passionately working for the benefit of others are essential habits and skills for everyone, regardless of background, culture, or profession?
I think, too, about what “web presence” means. Having a presence and creating a presence are not necessarily the same thing. Being and doing aren’t necessarily the same, either.
These are some of my thoughts as I head into a pretty intensive planning process, where, if last year is any indication, I’ll learn as much, and probably a great deal more, than I’m hoping to facilitate. This summer, I’ll be doing a three-hour session on presence tools, a class of software that are about making one’s presence known in some formal and informal ways, Twitter being one of the tools that I’m most curious about at the moment. I also would like to explore more about digital identity, a conversation I sort of started here a little while back. My work this weekend will continue to influence that work. Lots to learn. Luckily, I’ve got plenty of smart folks here to learn from and with. We should all be so lucky.
One of the frustrating bits about working in technology rather than in language arts for the last ten months is that I haven’t really had a good reason to keep up on all the great YA literature out there. I’m not in a position to recommend books to students at the moment - so I’ve gotten a little bit out of touch with the YA world. I was reminded of this this morning when Philtweeted that he was headed off to a teen literature conference. I love going into the libraries in our schools and spending time with the displays of new and popular books.
But I really miss book talks with students. Those conversations in front of bookshelves where we try to match their interests with the right book or books are wicked intense and always a fun challenge. Talk about a rush.
While I can’t necessarily meet my need to talk books with teens at the moment, I can at least catch up on my reading. I happen to have a book store gift card and a desire to make a donation to a school library (after I read the book, of course).
So, dear readers and teachers of reading, what should I purchase? I’m looking for something newish - the last six months or so - and I’m aware of Twilight and the Uglies. I’d love something a little unconventional, perhaps ARG-ish (And I know that the sequel to Cathy’s Book, Cathy’s Key, comes out in May - so I’ll be getting my hands on a copy of that, too, I hope.), or a good graphic novel (I really enjoyed the Invention of Hugo Cabret, as did the students I shared it with.).
Please share your recommendations. What are you reading with students? To them? For you? Can’t keep on the shelves? Wish you had a copy or two of? I’ll buy the book that I like the best and tell you how it goes. Thanks!
Day 1 of my Twitter break began with . . . a quick glance through Twitter. Habit. (Although I did give myself the limit of not posting to Twitter - reading is still okay. I do find Twitter to be quite valuable. But is it much of a vacation if I still scan the site when I start the day? Hmm . . .)
Still, I pledge to not use Twitter until St. Patrick’s Day, just to see what that’s like. I’m certain I’ll miss things - but I am curious to see if that improves the blogging going on here. We’ll see.
We’re getting to a stage in the learning game where we should be thinking about ways to help students create connections to each other and to their learning. Handing students and teacher a device that connects students and serves as a platform for the teaching and learning in a system just makes sense, even though it’s not always a socially or culturally or politically accepted idea. That needs to change. Soon. I feel like the political climate for 1:1 (or even 1:3, or 1:10) continues to improve - but we’re still in a transitional place between analog and digital instruction. I can’t say that the iPhone is THE device - I couldn’t imagine writing anything of substance on the iPhone or any other tool without a reasonable keyboard - but I understand why they featured it, as I do think it’s a game-changer, in terms of its functionality and ease of use. Of course, there are plenty of othergame-changers coming to the table at the moment.
I tweeted this. Then Dean posted it. And he’s right to do so - I’m forgetting to blog in the wake of Twitter. And that’s a bad thing - worthy of a podcast in the near future. Will’s having the same trouble, it seems, as are others in my network(s). Things are getting ever-more complicated. And that’s a good thing. Anyway - I think this video is of interest to many - both because of the way it was made - which I like very much - as well as the accompanying post on the statistics behind its creation. What a great model for transparency in creation - as well as a good piece for conversation. Enjoy.
A few folks have already noticed the cute Twitter box that’s now on the lower left sidebar of my blog. An even rarer few might have noticed that it only works intermittently — seems that Twitter’s quite popular at the moment, and is not completely functional due to apparent server drain on its resources. I’m going to try to Twitter for a while. I am torn about it’s usefulness — seems like both a handy way to keep track of people that you’re interested in, but it also seems like a procrastination station. We’ll see. In case you’re curious, here’s my Twitter profile. Come along for the ride. If you want to live vicariously through the Twittering of others, then you might want to check out Twittervision. Now that’s got potential. Thanks to Dave for the link.
