Following #EdTech RSS Feeds in Twitter

Last spring I conducted an experiment using a second Twitter account (@anderscj2) to publish RSS feeds that I could follow with my primary account (@anderscj). The experiment was to see simply if this would be a useful way of keeping up to date than managing both a RSS reader and a Twitter account. What I found was this second Twitter account was extremely valuable. I found myself reading blog posts through links that were generated by this account far more often then the content pushed to my Bloglines account. I also found that many other people ended up subscribing to this account and those who I introduced to Twitter and recommended they follow this account ended up with perceptions of Twitter being a valuable place to find up-to-date resources for professional development.

Perhaps the most valuable reason I found for following RSS feeds this way was it put me in contact with content in real-time. I would often discover content within a few minutes of when the author posted it. Reading a blog post so close to when it is still fresh in an author's mind makes for a more lively exchange of ideas. If you see someone has just written about a topic the chances are pretty great that now is a time they are interested in discussing it.

Finally, one fear I had was that I would miss something important. But, I found that when I did return to my Bloglines account that I rarely found anything there that I was interested in but missed. One reason for this was my network would retweet things that were really important or profound. If I missed something important I could always look at the list of retweeted articles.

Earlier this fall my @anderscj2 account went silent. I had used a service that shut down unannounced to push RSS to my Twitter account. Friday I started working on reviving/rebuilding this account and it is now up and running with 76 education and technology related RSS feeds from blogs and journals. Additionally, I am including the author's Twitter username in each post so people following this account can also find and follow the authors on Twitter. I know I have missed some pretty important feeds that I really ought to be following. If you have a recommendation, or if you follow @anderscj2 and would like me to add a feed to it please post a link to that feed as a comment on this post.

As of the time of this posting what follows are the feeds I am currently publishing through this account:

		Techno Constructivist
		Dangerously Irrelevant
		Weblogg-ed
		SpeEdChange
		Ideas and Toughts
		Practical Theory
		The Blue Skunk
		The Strength of Weak Ties
		2¢ Worth
		iLearn Technology
		Dreams of Education
		The Clever Sheep
		Grin and BEAR "I.T."
		Higher Edison
		Edina Technology Integration
		Educational Insanity
		Technology in the Middle
		For the Love of Learning
		Moving at the Speed of Creativ
		Huffington Post|Education
		Mind Dump
		Education|Evolving
		Constcting Meaning
		Stager-to-go
		Bud The Teacher
		Minnesota 20/20
		The Tempered Radical
		Blogush
		Cumulative Knowledge
		Remote Access
		Larry Cuban on School Reform a
		elearnspace
		Beyond School
		Synthesizing Educaiton
		Around the Corner-MGuhlin.org
		Free Technology For Teachers
		Gary Woodil
		Teaching as a Dynamic Activity
		The Edge of Tomorrow
		Education|Change.org
		Open Thinking
		The Nerdy Teacher
		Borderland
		Thumann Resources
		TipLine - Gates' Computer Tips
		Cool Cat Teacher Blog
		History Tech
		CogDogBlog
		The Fischbowl
		Successful Teaching
		The Innocative Educator
		Be Playful
		Ewan McIntosh's edu.blogs
		Blogging About the Web 2.0 Con
		My Island View
		It's All About Connectivity
		Science Teacher: Breaking out
		A Retrospective Saunter
		The eJulez Perspective
		Reflections From a K-12 World
		Journey with Technology
		Spencer's Scratch Pad
		ThesisLand
		Nashworld
		Generation YES Blog
		Teacher Reboot Camp
		Education Week|Technology
		Educause
		THE Journal
		Learning & Leading
		National Journal
		The National Academies Press
		Eduflack
		ASCD Smartbrief
		November Learning
		Sir Ken Robinsion.com

Frintr

I just discovered Frintr, a new fun photomosaic tool that lets you create photomosaics out of the avatars of your followers on Twitter, Myspace, or Facebook. Aren't these fun?


Of course, if you want a higher resolution image you have to pay for it. But, I could see myself possibly forking over the $13.99 for a poster created with this tool if I had a classroom or an office.

Twitter Book Club - Seymour Papert's "The Children's Machine" Chapter 4

"School has evolved a hierarchical system of control that sets narrow limits within which the (cont) http://tl.gd/2lskigless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

I see this all the time. Our current new superintendent is a prime example. I have heard her introduce herself as a teacher three times now and it is clear she longs for that role. I also had a former principal who would from time to time stop by and trade roles with teachers for a class period or two. This was both empowering and informative. It also reinforces my opinion that teacher professional partnerships are necessary for the future of formal education.

"As soon as she decided not to control the students, she took away School's established way of controlling her." Papertless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

I had the pleasure one year of experiencing this when the ALC I worked for decided to go to a student-led project-based model. The district did not know how to deal with it. I found this year of work to be one of the most rewarding. The following year they crushed what magic we had created by forcing us to put it into clearly defined boxes that could be mapped according to established curriculum.

RT @anderscj: "As soon as she decided not to control the students, she took away School's established way of controlling her." Papertless than a minute ago via SeesmicDarcy Moore
Darcy1968

@anderscj source? :O)less than a minute ago via SeesmicDarcy Moore
Darcy1968

@Darcy1968 Paper's "The Children's Machine" Ch 4less than a minute ago via webanderscj
anderscj

RT @anderscj: "As soon as she decided not to control the students, she took away School's established way of controlling her." Papertless than a minute ago via TweetDeckShani Hartley
shhartley

"The question has moved from how power is distributed within the educational hierarchy to whether hierarchy (cont) http://tl.gd/2lsn1pless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

Silly iPod, keeps turning Papert into Papery.

"The learning of a dead subject requires a technical act of carving the knowledge into teachable bites so (cont) http://tl.gd/2lstilless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"Most of the work he made his students do was too boring to entice him to join in!" Papertless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"School does not have in it's institutional mind that teachers have a creative role; it sees them as (cont) http://tl.gd/2lt6qaless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"The major obstacle in the way of teachers becoming learners is inhibition about learning." Papertless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"In education, the highest mark is not having imitators but inspiring someone to do something else." Papertless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"As long as there is a fixed curriculum, a teacher has no need to become involved in the question of what is and what is not math." Papertless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"The problem for society is to give teachers the same pluralist support that the best of them give their students." Papertless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"The practical consequence is that change cannot come about except pluralistically." Papertless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

I found this chapter about teachers to be highly instructive about many common issues I face when it comes to doing technology integration with teachers. Our biggest challenge to overcome is a hereditary concept that learning and content can be neatly put into boxes. The result of this is dead subject matter and a misguided belief that the teacher has no active role as a learner in the classroom; the teacher is only a technician in the Schooling process. All of which is shadowed by a singular view of teaching and learning that only assimilates other ways of knowing and does not accommodate them. Thus, I get asked on a continual basis when working with teachers, "How does this help me teach _________." or "What content standards does this help me address in my classroom?" instead of, "How does this change learning?" or "What kind of learning does this allow to happen?

Corral all your computers into a "computer lab," get them out of your classroom, close your laptop, put your cellphone away, make computers a subject of its own to be examined (not used), give it a curriculum, assign someone to teach it, and kill it before it erodes our assumptions about how students learn. "Why should I devote my time to learning about technology? I have so many other subjects to learn about that I have to teach."

Weekly Tech Tip - Social Media & Social Constructivism

Weekly Tech Tip:


Related Links:

• Twitter Book Club - Seymour Papert's "The Children's Machine" Chapter 1
• Twitter Book Club - John Taylor Gatto's "Dumbing Us Down: The hidden curriculum of compulsory schooling"
• The Real Disruptive Innovation

Link Stew:

• Personal Learning Networks By Will Richardson (2007)
  
• Story of Stuff, Full Version; How Things Work, About Stuff
• 7 Tips for Building Collaborative Learning Spaces

Retweetable Tweets:

Can You Copyright A Tweet? http://j.mp/aGBgeb and http://www.canyoucopyrightatweet.com/less than a minute ago via HootSuiteTweetSmarter
TweetSmarter

Jon Becker shares a list of education researchers on Twitter:

@pcwoessner 10 to start: @mcleod, @SchlFinance101, @edjurist, @shermandorn, @mkbwsu, @courosa, @schwier, @gsiemens, @asbruckman, @ksquireless than a minute ago via TweetDeckJonathan Becker
jonbecker

@pcwoessner there's also @WayneDLewis, @punyamishra, @marclamonthill, @chrisemdin, @dumilewis...I'm sure I'm missing some...less than a minute ago via TweetDeckJonathan Becker
jonbecker

Being remixed is an honor...much like being quoted in a newspaper, a blog post, a podcast. #blc10less than a minute ago via TweetDeckJeff Utecht
jutecht

Blog Carnival:

• The Importance of Mobile Phones in Education Teenager Ethan Davids describes how essential his phone is to him. on ICT in Education

• Family education or homeschooling as a commons-based economy by Michel Bauwens on P2P Foundation

• Least Restrictive Environment By Chris Lehman on Practical Theory

• Beyond Gutenberg by Kelly Tenkely on Dreams of Education

• bandwagonesque: homophily, vuvuzelas, and the rhetoric of lists By Scott Schwister on Higher Edison

• Let kids use the Internet for non-school purposes By Doug Johnson on The Blue Skunk

• Web 3.0 By George Siemens on elearnspace
  

Twitter Book Club - Seymour Papert's "The Children's Machine" Chapter 1

Last night I started reading and Tweeting Seymour Papert's, "The Children's Machine: Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer." This book has been on my short list for quite some time but I finally decided to read it. I have read a lot of Papert's research but little of his writing of this kind. Boy have I been missing out! What follows is a record of my live Tweeting and reflections on the first chapter of this book:

"Why, through a period when so much human activity has been revolutionized, have we not seen comparable (cont) http://tl.gd/2kf53vless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"Many individual Yearners--from parents to teachers to administrators--simply find ways to get around (cont) http://tl.gd/2kf76oless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

I guess I have to consider myself a Yearner. My whole career I have spent working in alternative programs, swimming upstream, and I fear for my very inquisitive daughter who is starting kindergarten in a little over a month that schooling will extinguish her natural inquisitiveness.

"Any adult who thinks these (video) games are easy need only sit down and try to master one." -Papertless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"there can be little doubt that a child treated with respect & encouragement rather than threatened (cont) http://tl.gd/2kfc41less than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

RT @anderscj: "there can be little doubt that a child treated with respect & encouragement rather than threatened (cont) http://tl.gd/2kfc41less than a minute ago via UberTwitterTeacherReality
TeacherReality

"In trying 2 teach children what adults want them 2 know, does School utilize [how ppl] most naturally learn in nonschool settings?" Papertless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

@anderscj Almost never.less than a minute ago via TweetDeckRandy Rodgers
rrodgers

@anderscj At least after kindergarten.less than a minute ago via TweetDeckRandy Rodgers
rrodgers

"In the past, children may not have liked School, but they were persuaded to believe that it was the passport to success in life." Papertless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

This statement perfectly answers a question I was asked yesterday about why there seems to be such a difference between how kids respond to teachers presenting information 30+ years ago and today.

"2 the extent that children reject School as out of touch with contemporary life, they become agents in creating pressure 4 change." Papertless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"Will the change 1st enhance the lives of the children of the wealthy & powerful & only slowly (cont) http://tl.gd/2kfhioless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"Will School continue 2 impose a single way of knowing on every1, or will it adapt 2 an epistemological pluralism?" Papertless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

This, for me, is the primary question and one that is most threatening to the current education system.

"No technological obstacle stands in the way of making a machine that puts the power 2 know what others know in [a 4yr old's] hands." Papertless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

I read this just after spending an hour with my daughter and her over-sized kid's atlas. We have a ritual lately of looking at the maps in the atlas, her asking questions, and us using the iPod Touch to look up more information about places. That night she asked why she couldn't see our house on the map of North America so I took out Google Earth to show her why. No amount of explaining could possibly have made the concept of scale so immediately understood by a 5 year old than zooming in on our house and looking at satellite pictures of houses, cars, swing sets, and fences on this device, this Knowledge Machine.

Papert, in 1993, imagined a Knowledge Machine that would extend immediacy of information needed 4 exploratory learning. (the Internet?)less than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"The prospect of the Knowledge Machine suggests that this basic assumption (that knowing how to read and (cont) http://tl.gd/2kfqfaless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

I think this is definitely going on my Digital Fluency reading list.

"Becoming literate means thinking differently than one did previously, seeing the world differently, and (cont) http://tl.gd/2kfsnbless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"movement from letteracy 2 media-based knowledge acquisition may b more important than the movement from prelettetate 2 letterate culture."less than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"I have always yearned for ways of learning in which children act as creators rather than consumers of knowledge." Papertless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"My driving ? was whether 'exceptional children' learned differently b/c they were exceptional or whether (cont) http://tl.gd/2kg3i7less than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"It is simply double-talk to ask children to take charge of their own learning and at the same time order (cont) http://tl.gd/2kg75dless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"The central problem for math educ is 2 find ways 2 draw on the child's vast experience of oral mathematics. Computers can do this." Papertless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"Giving children the opportunity 2 lrn & use math in nonformalized way of knowing encourages..eventual adoption of formalized way as well."less than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

"The entire point of the Knowledge Machine would be lost if it were conceived solely as a device for teaching children to read." Papertless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

YES YES YES! This is exactly what we are seeing with our continued drive to focus primarily on reading, writing, and arithmetic in this standards movement we are currently in the throws of. My prediction is this current focus on the 3Rs is the death throw of what Papert calls the letterate society (letterate being the literacy of reading & writing printed text).

"Geometry is not there for being learned. It is there for being used." Papertless than a minute ago via Twittelatoranderscj
anderscj

@anderscj what are you reading? Sounds good!less than a minute ago via TweetDeckDarren Mead
DKMead

@DKMead Seymour Papert's "The Childern's Machine: Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer" (1993)less than a minute ago via Twitterrificanderscj
anderscj

Wow! I have read a lot of Papert's published research and many articles but nothing as powerful as the 1st chapter of this book.less than a minute ago via Twitterrificanderscj
anderscj

This book reads like prophesy. Almost religious. I almost expect him to predict some sort of edtech messiah.less than a minute ago via Twitterrificanderscj
anderscj

Enough Book Club for tonight. Tomorrow's bedtime story: ch 2 "Personal Thinking" & ch 3 "School: Change & Resistance to Change"less than a minute ago via Twitterrificanderscj
anderscj

We r 2 years away from Papert's predicted date of a move 2 media rich literacy being dominant form of knowledge acquisition. R we there yet?less than a minute ago via Twitterrificanderscj
anderscj

Gotta love a bk that School Library Journal describes as, "Educ w/a vested intrst in status quo will hate this book.Its bout their demise."less than a minute ago via Twitterrificanderscj
anderscj

@anderscj I've got that book on my desk. Keep going back to it.less than a minute ago via Tweetie for MacBud Hunt
budtheteacher

@budtheteacher I have been meaning to read it for years. I've read a lot of other work by Papert but this one is different. It's prophetic.less than a minute ago via Twitterrificanderscj
anderscj

@anderscj the vision #Papert had of Ed is sadly as yet unrealized. Sorely needed. Good idea for summer readingless than a minute ago via Twitter for iPhoneTom Fullerton
tomfullerton

@tomfullerton I don't think it will ever be fully realized. I do think it has been realized in isolated cases but that was true then too.less than a minute ago via webanderscj
anderscj