Saturday, November 10, 2007

How do I tweet thee? Let me count the ways...

How do I tweet thee? Let me count the ways...


"How is someone writing their diary online, for everyone to read, going to help anyone learn anything? ...Why on earth would I be interested in the minutiae of someone's personal life?
How do you reply to people who feel this way? " -asks Darren Kuropatwa.


My first reaction to Twitter was: let's see what this hype is all about. I had no thoughts for or against it. Plain curious. Being a slow blogger of lengthy posts, I wondered whether the 140 character format could be expressive enough for me. Little did I know.

I gave it a try with a post you read and tweeted. I am forever grateful for that tweet which made several educators start following me. Alan quoted one paragraph to continue the conversation. With his graphs, he took my mind further where I could have never got thinking on my own. That tweet/read/reflect/write/tweet cycle unveiled the clockwork of blogging for me.

"Twitter is like the backchannel of the edublogosphere, but not its replacement" -as Vicky points out. True. But Twitter is a powerful connector underpinning it all. There is no momentous learning or conference these days that is not published in Twitter.

The main advantage I've found from tweeting is reaching a deeper level of conversing and learning. I've been able to get the attention of the bloggers I read and choose to teach me. I had commented on all of their blogs before, but the connection happened via Twitter. This closer link is essential to my learning. I can only make sense of changes if I am engaged. If my thoughts can be at the back of your mind and influence some line in the posts of my teachers, engagement levels soar. Otherwise, I am confined to be stats and flattering audience of a self-referencing network. That's far from our objectives of helping our students become unique contributors to the conversation.

Demystifying experts levels the ground for meaningful contributions to happen. But if there is no two-way interaction, if I cannot see that some tweeted thought of mine can make you think as much as you make me think... what is the difference between reading books and blogs? I think Twitter has been that leveller for me. I do not blog less because I tweet; much on the contrary, I participate more, which is the ultimate purpose of blogging.

Learning online/offline is about creating tailor-made zones of proximal development where you can interact fluently. It's about creating near-togetherness: if we cannot meet f2f, in what other varied ways can I interact with a like-minded learner? When I read a post that blows the top of my head off, I need to connect; grow a network. I seriously doubt blog reading on its own can sustain my learning. I need to meet the blogger.

To me, Twitter is as close as it gets. It's both professional and intimate, yes. I read and exchange on topics that do not always fit an edublog. I get a more complete intellectual and emotional profile of the people I admire. I get a kick out of the many trivial coincidences you find with people who see eye to eye in educational matters. I think that the day I meet those friends f2f, we'll talk about many things blogged, but many more things tweeted.

Apart from flat classrooms, we'll discuss nachos/asados with David, world dominance with Steve and perhaps tango with you, Darren. How bloggable are these topics in our edublogs? No, that's for silly Twitter. Now tell me, how much do those little things contribute to creating a proximal, friendly zone where you feel learning is unforced and a natural consequence of being there? How crucial is that to networking when homophily is so instrumental in forging connectedness? Many have thought Twitter can be used in the classroom. I still do not know if we need that tool. Not until we can explain what we can achieve with it that could not be done otherwise. Yet what I have learnt in Twitter School necessarily makes me reflect on classroom practices from a student's perspective. In my blog, I am the expert on my own point of view. In my classroom, I may be an expert in my area. In Twitter I can only be one more learner. Networked and engaged. I am experiencing first hand the participation path I would like to unlock for my most silent students.


This is just how Twitter works for me. There are countless other ways. Here a mosaic:
http://twitter-casts.wikispaces.com/edubloggers


Image credit:
Beauty=truth, etc.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/romanlily/177061593/

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Friday, October 12, 2007

UStream TV Powers the Network


UStream TV Powers the Network

In and out of the game, and watching and wondering at it. 
Whitman, Leaves of Grass

I cannot let this week go by without jotting down a few thoughts. I sense that with so many presentations awaiting from the k12online conference next week, I'd better write this down before the next wave of learning sweeps it all away from my mind with new shining concepts. 

This is not a finished post. These are the notes of the post I would like to have time to write.

Tools
We know it is not about the tools. But still. There is an essential sense of appropriation when we play and toy with the possibilities. I think there is an unnecessary sense of urgency sometimes. As if we had to justify the time invested. If we play, we must find an educational purpose for every tool. I fear this is not exactly so. We should play because the learning we extract is worthwhile.

The time to design educational uses is somewhere beyond the thrill of it all. It requires reflection and directed questions. It is not spontaneous, although the proximity of the network can accelerate your thoughts. I think that designing educational uses of tools is about understanding how things are sometimes an extension of what we know. And also identifying the spots when knowledge requires a change of paradigm.

Personally, I think we will not be able to establish any serious conversation with school authorities or administration that resist change until we can explain pedagogies without an overflow of enthusiasm.

Being-thereness
I have tried to follow the edublogosphere collaborative testing of live streaming tools -UStream and Operator 11. 
Chatting in UStream has probably been one of the most disruptive, social experiences in the last weeks. Reacting to the ideas of the participants or streamers and getting instant feedback seems as good as it gets while attending conferences online. The backchannel chatroom has an aura of privacy. Of whispering thoughts to unauthorized attendees (or gatecrashers). It is quite different from speaking up so that the whole room hears you. It is more inviting to reflection. Just like reading your RSS in isolation. Only you never get your RSS-ed edublogger answering you, or posing your questions to the presenter.

This is what I felt today as I participated in David Warlick's "Our Student's, Our World" presentation, from within John Pederson's notebook. So transparent, so seamless. I wonder whether more sophisticated technology is necessary to move ahead in the direction of the mission widely stated in so many pioneer edublogs: connect, converse, network.

What's in a network?
This is the key issue I believe. Here we are getting together via, blogs, Twitter. When there is a need to discuss together, we UStream. We need Skype in, we do it. This week we have had as much contact with the network as with our families. So what? What do we do with all of this? Why should we think of classroom uses before thinking of our own?

I sensed the network, solid and long ago built by some edubloggers suddently trembled. There seems to be a reaching out for feeds, then you are overfed and the day comes when you reduce it to 60. Or so I read in some posts. Is that a network? I wonder. After two years of close interaction with the same nodes, you probably become a group. Oddly enough, the same people who trim their RSS feeds will say that the more people in your network, the more you may know.
The point is that you do not need to know them personally to access knowledge. And this week, it was clear that you may find people willing to offer time and collaboration too. 

It is not the circle of the wise that counts. It is learning to connect with the ever shifting node in your network that will make your learning a different experience. Not connecting in a 1.1 mode as LinkedIn connects people. It is to be done in circles, closer and further away from you. To reach someone else, you need a node in between? Nope. Your network should be like a search in Kartoo, not like a Yahoo directory of good quality folks. You never know where depth of knowledge lies.

However, the closer circle takes you further more often.  But let's face it. The variety is only in the suject matter being taught. It is always educators we connect to. No wonder it is difficult to talk to people who simply don't get it.

A network should be peopled by diversity. Of all kinds, geographical, ideological, linguistic and discipline of expertise.

Vicky Davis in her TV show about the book Wikinomics said something about the network. We are about to realise how to accomplish great things. We are still thrilled at the hype of the new. At the getting in touch with so many like-minded voices -when schools still don't get it. 
If we have learnt something this week is that we are not islands of our own. We are a network.

What makes this network flock from tool to tool together and sit glued to a TV screen till late in the evening? Because we find value. Because learning together, discovering together makes us a network.

Even the concept of network has changed this week. Will Richarson mentioned in one of his Operator 11 tests that there were some people he kept in touch with everyday. Now these days he has been in touch with not so near nodes. And learning.
Mind blowing.

The need for Skype in the UStream
It is frustrating at times not to have the two way conversation. But the chat would be lost. If we all had a chance to speak we would not do so on top of each other. In a chatroom, you may identify two or three threads of conversation coexisting, intertwining. Some taking over others. But it is messy and progresses in bursts of inspiration or need to share. It has a value. When and to what purpose do we use one or the other (chat or Skype? What is the criteria to choose and plan?


I keep thinking how conferences change with UStream. Events will no longer be local or international. 
Glocal. 

It's late. I must stop rambling. Something ijohnpederson said in the chat comes back to mind:
Sleep is so 1.0

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Thursday, October 04, 2007

UStream TV -learning is so much fun

UStream TV -learning is so much fun
Yesterday evening was a huge learning curve for me. I did not attend any conference, but still. You could say I have already acquired some 21st century skills to run my blogs and wikis, then I should not be so surprised, but last night I was amazed again. Technology leaves me like a child at play sometimes.

There is always an element of unexpectedness that makes it all so powerful. I certainly did not expect anything out of the ordinary to happen yesterday after my day of lessons was done. Back home, computer, eat something and open up to learn with the whole edublogosphere at a tweet's distance. This is quite an ordinary thing these days for me.

It was certainly not in my plans to change TV or my night reading for UStream TV, and end up receiving a Skype call from David Jakes at a pub in Chicago to say hello to Steve and be introduced to Will Richardson. Pity the bar was so noisy and I did not know how to mute the sound from the website to hear only David's voice on Skype. Anyway, thank you guys. Pleasure waving to you (you did not see me, but I was waving to my screen!).

I was probably the only one from South America, yet I was not alone with other teachers (up to 40 towards the end of the show). You are never alone online, how could I with such a powerful network posting endlessly.

I lost most of the first part of the interview because I had to create an account to take part in the chat associated to the live streaming. It is far from fun to simply sit and watch or have a one-way conversation these days. It's a read-watch/write-talk web. Call it the result of my self-teaching of new literacies. I do not know. It does not make sense any other way. Nope.

Today I am catching up with the postings and the video to see and read what actually happened while I was frantically busy opening a UStream TV account. Here's what I found:

Dean Shareski's said,
Have you heard the one about the bloggers who go into a bar?

Will Richardson said,
The UStream Experiment (Con't)

So, what would I have said to Will Richardson last night if I had had the chance?
Hi Will. My name is Claudia Ceraso -of fceblog fame. I teach and learn from (not 'in') Buenos Aires, Argentina. I am incorporating more tools to my daily life and learning than I have actually tried to use in my classroom. I adopt quickly. For my colleagues I am a true pioneer (fancy that!). So why am I taking so long to use them in the classroom? Because I need to go beyond the hype to see the purpose. I refuse to assign a single blog post as homework. Because if it cannot be as much fun for them to learn with the tools as it is for me, or you there at the pub learning to live stream, I fear we have missed the point.

Yes, I guess this could have been pretty much it. An imaginary dialogue between Will and I. Maybe next time. Maybe some post sometime.



Source

It has to be like these three guys enjoying a beer together in a pub and naturally interacting with their network. A blend of f2f and distance interaction is, perhaps the most natural 21st century experience.They are supposed to be 'experts' in new literacies and they are still surprised. They are experts because they have not forgotten the fundamental rule of enthusiasm at the simplest discoveries when learning.

Pure enthusiasm underpinning it all. That's the state of mind a teacher needs to plan a lesson. It can be contagious, viral enthusiasm. Plain fun. Let it be so. Amen.

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Saturday, September 22, 2007

Back Channel

Back Channel
The back end of the conversation is the beginning of the conversation.

Twitter so far has been the best ally to conferences, unconferences and the tearing down of walls. It has brought more interconnectedness than we had probably imagined possible the day we wrote our first blog posts.

The edublogosphere is becoming more open to different circles of contacts and except for one or two star edubloggers, they all -including this star- tend to open up to hear from a wider circle of 'friends'.

Distributed Conferences
We seem to be experimenting with being closely linked to an ever-growing and far-reaching circle of contacts. We all want to create experiences as synchronous or near synchronous as possible. We are far from the days when blogging was writing the quiet, lonely reflection and then press publish to reach others. Now the reverse is happening, valuable ideas arise when like-minded people strike up conversations which will, in turn, prokove thoughts that will be perpetuated in blogs or wikis. A kind of everlasting conference springing from a muted chat conversation at the back of the room.



Back channelling (chatcasts)
As the Twitter tool has limits for this new need, so Skype chatting came into the picture and the Chatcasts were born.

What have we learnt from the experience?
A few good things:

-There is a unique added value to the just-in-time, in-the-moment connectedness. We need more of that.

-In spite of the speedy style of a chat with 40 or more participants, it is an opportunity to share deep reflections for those who have been reading each other for a long time.

-Chatcasts, just like face-to-face conferences, are also a chance to make new connections with like-minded people, who could perhaps have met anyway -at a much slower pace- in a blog comment thread.
Perhaps not an experience to suit all learning styles, but meaningful conversation can spring from people looking over the shoulders of attendees. Streaming and archiving the chat can be as valuable as the presentation podcast itself.

The back channel comes to the fore
People will simply not stay silent at the back. They want to take over the conference and connect to have instant feedback from their wider network. When you need to reach 30 people, Skypecast is not enough... We need to simplify issues of how to:

-access (direct access vs finding the Skype user name who captains the chat)
-archive (a unique URL you can quote and link to)
-search
-share

So? What is next?
Twitter is also the starting point for on-the-fly ideas which may turn into something big...

Chris Craft writes,
Edublogosphere.com, a future centralized back channel?

My thoughts.

It is the word centralized that makes me wonder. I agree we need another venue for informal back channelling. But not a mere alternative to Twitter. I think we have to review our chatcasting experiences and try to push them to the next level.

What were the drawbacks of chatcasts?
Perhaps the number of steps and formal organisation required to make it a success:
-Someone must captain the chat. This person will be somewhat overworked.
-There is a limit to the number of people you can join in the conference mode.
-You need to have the Skype contact name; get it on time.
-A privacy issue. It is necessary for the captain to add new contacts to his Skype, which he may or may not be interested in keeping afterwords.
-How do you get to know if the next conference you cannot attend will have a back channel option of some sessions? The first announcement of a chat could come from anyone in the Twittersphere attending an event somewhere in the world. Unless it is your own presentation and you announce it in your blog ahead of time, it takes good luck to come across a tweet with an invite.

All in all a fairly formal process to get to backchannelling. I think that part of the success of these online meetings is that the enthusiasm you experience resembles a face-to-face encounter at the coffee break in a conference. Lively and mostly informal.

What do we need for future synchronous conversations?
Announcing an event
About creating a site which can be the 'centralized' place to announce events... I believe a calendar in EdubloggerWorld is a far better option. It is open to groups in other languages and we can probably profit from interchange with an 'interpreter' and captain making the back channel of a conference in another country. Backchannel could be a way to go beyond barriers of place, time and language.

Making anyone, anytime a chat Captain
But the marvel of it all -so far- is how simple it is for anyone, to put people in conference mode. It only takes a Skype account, plus Twitter. Choose a tag and you continue conversing in blogs; paste the script to a wiki and let readers (even those who missed the sync chat) start forum threads. So flexible and distributed. You do not even need a conference as a starting point. The need to chat could start with any collaborative task.

More than a need to centralize it, there is a need to make it as open as possible. That is what http://worldbridges.net./ achieves.

We also need to make it transparent. Something that tells you who is there with you, as a meebo chat or a Google doc that tells you who is editing.

Facilitating Openness
-No passwords. No sharing personal IDs unless you want to.

-Ease to integrate to other online 'events' -not just conferences- e.g. provide the archivable chat that a google docs does not yet have.

How will this communication need translate into a form and content?
That is, it would be great to separate form and content. Tool and venue. I think we need a place on the one hand and a tool on the other. That's why the word centralized leaves a bug buzzing in my head. The tool could be the centralized aspect; but conversations are, by nature, distributed.

After all, isn't the whole idea of back channelling a conference a way of shifting the conversation focus to the attendees and their blogs instead of the speaker at the conference centre?




Related Reading

Previous ELT Notes post on Chatcast

Chatcasting: A Summary. By David Jakes, August 26, 2007.

A chatcast I took part in... This is a chatcast example archived in a wiki.
Learning the Guitar at the ACSD14 Global Learners. By Darren Kuropatwa

Some reflections on that experience by the chatcast 'Captain'.
Chatcasting from a Management Perspective. By Terry Freedman, August 15, 2007.

Follow-up on this in my del.icio.us
http://del.icio.us/fceblog/chatcast


Image Attribution
Jakes Rolling out the Chatcast by Shareski
http://www.flickr.com/photos/shareski/858483919/

BLC07_1 by torres21
http://www.flickr.com/photos/torres21/864182814/

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