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:
It has been quite a long time since the kick-off session for Web 2.0 & Connectivist Learning last May. Our next session is scheduled for November 23rd 8:00am-noon (Central Standard Time). In our first session we examined Blogs, Blogging, RSS, and Microblogging. In this next session, titled Cloud Computing & Web 2.0 Tools we will explore social bookmarking tools, social networking tools and web applications. Please visit our course wiki for instructions on how attend this session, how to view the recording of our "kick-off" session, and for links to resources related to the course.
Web 2.0 & Connectivist Learning is a combination online open course and traditional face-to-face professional development cohort. Our sessions may be attended online by anyone for free. Online participation in this cohort may also be applied to one semester continuing education credit from Hamline University.
If you are interested in taking this course (either "for credit" or not) or are interested in learning more about this open course please fill out this form:
Thanks,
Carl Anderson Hamline University School of Education
Over the past few months I have had a number of conversations on Twitter with educators from MN, WI, and IA about holding something like an Edcamp or Educon event in our region. Events like these which are described as unConferences have come to be an emerging phenomena in recent years and a growing trend. However, no one has organized an unConference for educators in our region and the discussion has always been, "We should get something started..." but then it never happens. People get busy and no one ever gets around to taking the reigns and leading such an initiative.
Well, someone did finally take the initiative and finally organized an unConference in St. Paul, MN this November 11th-13th (thanks Jill!). The event is called the Collaboration Convention & unConference MSP 2010 and will be focused around the topics of education, collaboration, web 2.0, and connective learning. I am happy to be involved with this event and think it will be a worthwhile experience for all who attend. Registration is open. Click here for more information.
I happened to run across this Tweet by Beth Still a couple of days ago and I can't help but think some of my own activity, and that of some people I have great respect for, on Twitter contributes to this perception. I may be wrong but I am going to venture to guess that some of the following tweets are examples of what she is referring to (at least as far as #edchat is concerned):
I have stated it many times and I will state it again, I think #edchat is wonderful and I fully support teachers who use it to connect with one another. I also think #rscon10 is fantastic and should be held more often. In fact,
I think so highly of #edchat that I think it is a mistake to say it only happens two hours a week on Tuesdays. I think this kind of connectedness has exponential potential for real education reform and I think we need to involve more than just educators in the discussion. The problem is, for many who are introduced to the PLN concept and get "connected" primarily through #edchat or a Ning like "The Educator's PLN" or even "Classroom 2.0" there is a danger of something that is inherently pluralistic and hard to define in nature (a PLN) will be perceived as (the PLN).
When #edchat becomes "the PLN" or when "The Educator's PLN" becomes "the PLN" or any other monolithic bohemith in this network grows too big we risk doing to our ability to affect systemic change what happened to the ability for the computer to transform learning when school made it its own subject. The strength in connected learning comes from it's independence. Each and every PLN has a leader, that person is YOU. There is no such thing as "The PLN," only individual PLNs. The PLN is a term that describes the meta-relationship between the PLN creator and those who they include or whom influence that individual's learning. It is hard to define because in any useful or categorical sense it doesn't really exist, not as a thing at least.
Its not just me, many others noting that something is wrong have been making this or similar arguments lately. @nashworld went on a tweeting rampage on the topic July 25th, @JonBecker proposed at Edubloggercon that we stop using the term PLN and instead call it PC (Professional Colleagues), @sschwister wrote about his own observations of this phenomena, and @djakes has been pretty vocal about this topic. What appears to be happening by getting more and more people "connected" to their own PLNs is it is starting to take on the trappings of systemic institutionalism complete with a schedule, an agenda, and a curriculum (of which I must admit that I have been partially to blame for).
But, this thing that does not really exist has many believers. I suspect that this has a lot to do with dualistic vs pluralistic thinking. The PLN concept embodies the epitome of pluralism. Our traditional systems of education tend to reject pluralism and find ways to assimilate or quarantine that which calls into question it's dualistic view point. We take kids who don't follow the script very well and place them in special education or in alternative programs, we jump first to blame kids for misbehavior instead of asking ourselves why they were misbehaving, we tend to view education as a linear function with nice start and stop dates, and we tend to overvalue learning experiences that can easily be measured and assessed quantitatively. It is a systemic expectation that most teachers have internalized that we do what is best to protect the system. Even in our conscious attempts to reform the system and be subversive our subconscious actions often, if not most of the time, sabotage those efforts.
So, when rhetorical dialog doesn't work to bring people to see or pay attention to something you find incredibly important, what do you do? What do our students do? Typically they act out. The other day I overheard in the hallway at school a defiant student say, "What do you mean I can't go to my locker? I just did." The teacher's response was to send the student to the office for being disruptive and defiant. But, could this student really be doing something instructive? Had this student not been able to articulate or had not been able to capture the attention of the teacher to focus on an issue the teacher was undervaluing? If so, by acting out in class they break the normal nature of student-teacher relationship and create moments of potential change. That change can be a chance to put the student "back in their place," a chance to, "make them show some respect," or it can be a chance for the teacher to reassess what is really going on here. Perhaps the teacher was viewing the situation wrong.
Disruptions in our classrooms represent a reminder that our equation is not perfect. Disruptions, or student misbehavior and defiance, is evidence of the flaws in systemic dualism. How you deal with them matters. How you interpret them matters. In any case, the disruptive or defiant student opens a relational policy window that allows for the conversation about why they were acting out to happen. If the message were heard in the first place there would never have been a need for the disruption. The same is true for snarky behavior and sarcastic remarks that are just as common in professional development sessions and staff meetings with adults as they are in the classroom with kids.
So, if anything, snarky remarks, sarcasm, and perceived "trash talk" by people on Twitter about #edchat and #rscon10 are attempts to open a discussion (or at least in response to attempts to open a discussion). How do you respond to your students when they act out? Do you dismiss them or do you question why? I very much like @budtheteacher's reply to @BethStill's tweet:
If there is one force today that I believe can break our cycles of status quo hereditary practices in education and bring us to someplace better a key to it lies in our ability to communicate and share ideas in real-time between educators and education stakeholders. The networks of individuals using tools like Twitter, Blogs, Wikis, YouTube and other social video, Skype, and countless other online communication tools that have come to be commonly known as Personal Learning Networks (PLNs) carry with them a method to let good ideas spread and take seed in even the most draconian of learning environments. Teachers who have plugged themselves into these networks and become actively involved in their own learning have felt this power for transformation. This is truly a grass-roots mobilization machine. However, for school systems to change it requires more than just enlightened educators, it requires enlightened students and parents who will support the change.
Time and again we see true reform efforts fail because the new model doesn't look enough like the common conception of school in the public eye. No matter how rooted in sound theory and philosophy the school will fail if reform efforts do not bring parents and community members with us. So, what we end up with are perestroika efforts at reform like we saw today in President Obama's speech on Education Reform. Changes that are not real change. More testing of students or more rigorous testing of students is not real change. A focus on teaching and instruction is not real change. The spread of a back to basics drill and kill model of schooling like Mastery Charter or KIPP is not real change. The spread of a "put the rich privileged (mostly white) Ivy League graduate who was successful in school in front of the classroom for students to emulate" model that is Teach For America is not real change. These are bureaucratic changes that in the end will only further to strengthen the definitions and delineations between groups of the emerging American Caste System complete with high school dropouts at the bottom "untouchable" level. Schools like Mastery, KIPP, and TFA, by the way, don't have to count their dropouts among their students and therefore can claim higher levels of success since by nature they self-select students. We all know there is a better solution, a real change that is possible. We have examples of it in schools like Minnesota New Country School and the Science and Leadership Academy in Philadelphia.
Educators, perhaps Obama and Duncan are right to beat up on us. This situation may be our own doing. By focusing so much on ourselves and our students we have neglected to invite a very important stakeholder into the fold, parents & community members. So, what follows is what I propose every Teacher Tweeter, EduPlurker, and Edublogger come this school year send home with their students, an invitation letter to parents (altered to include your information) to join in the discussion:
Dear Parent or Guardian,
I am excited to begin a new school year learning with your son or daughter. I say learning with because I have found to be a teacher today requires one to also be a learner both in and outside the classroom. It is undeniable that the world your child is growing up in is in many ways different than the world you or I grew up in. Much of these changes mean necessary changes in school. For one, we did not have the Internet and fingertip access to the wealth of human information when we went to school. Having such a device in my classroom has meant my role there has been altered. It has removed the necessity for me to always have the right answers for the students and has created a greater need for me to help them develop strategies for finding the right answers on their own.
Things in school are different now than they even were when I went to college. Nothing in my teacher training addressed some of these issues we face in education today. Therefore, I have found a community of other people interested in helping each other find their role in this new world through tools like Twitter, blogs, and YouTube. This community consists of not only teachers but also school administrators, education researchers, graduate students, and other parents. In this space I make my learning about education transparent and you are welcome to follow me in my exploration of new technologies and new ways of thinking. I also invite you to join the conversation. The real education reform happens because of what happens in the classroom and for your son or daughter's classroom what happens will be greatly influenced by the shared dialog happening in this digital space.
I invite you to follow me on Twitter, read my blog, or watch my YouTube videos and join the global conversation influencing your child's education. There are a few things you should know first. This digital space is my learning environment and as such community building activities both serious and lighthearted occur. We have fun in this space and we are serious. The fun elements hold us together and maintain our community and the serious elements help us to progress our learning. Both are necessary for learning both online and in the classroom.
It has been two days since the ISTE 2010 Conference ended and the drive home gave me a lot of time to reflect. Especially since the majority of that time I was the only conscious person in the car driving across Eastern Colorado and Western Nebraska.
This was my first "in person" ISTE experience. While I have been following ISTE and finding ways to attend from home the past four years this was the first time I actually went myself. I left home on Saturday with no reservations (both about what to expect at the conference and for a hotel the first night). In one sense of the word this turned out to be a big mistake. We had hoped the first day to drive from Rochester, MN to Lincoln, NE and spend the night before making our way to Denver on Sunday. Unfortunately, the little one got car sick just before we hit Council Bluffs, IA and what do you know, we got the pleasure of spending the week enjoying the wonderful aroma of regurgitated apple juice and fruit snacks all over the back seat of the car. What we didn't plan on was that there would be no hotel rooms anywhere in Eastern Nebraska due to the College World Series. To make things worse, the gas station we managed to find in Council Bluffs to clean up after the disaster sold us expired milk which we didn't notice until after we gave it to the kids and the older one said, "Daddy, this milk smells yucky!" (Add regurgitated sour milk to the aroma bouquet). It wasn't until we reached Kearney, NE after 3:00 a.m. that we were able to find a hotel with vacancy. Ah, the prototypical family road trip.
Sunday morning we woke up refreshed and ready to head out again. We arrived in Denver, checked into our hotel, ate dinner and I headed over to the conference to catch the opening keynote. The "no room at the inn" theme carried through to the conference since arriving late the auditorium was full. I ended up finding my way to the Blogger's Cafe where the reception of the opening keynote, piped in via closed circuit TV, was not unlike that of the aroma bouquet we experienced on the drive up. The speaker lost us at his first slide then proceeded to violate every single principle of effective presentation. I wish I could critique the speech but the overwhelming roar of disapproval from the audience in the Cafe drowned out nearly all of what the guy said.
Like my car on the ride in, the opening keynote stunk, and just like my car on the ride in I was in good company and experiencing it with people I very much like and respect. There were nearly 18,000 people attending this conference and in this one space it seemed like the majority of the people I follow on Twitter, Blogs, and YouTube were there. A measurable percentage of conference session presenters were here as well. It was an amazing crowd and amazing company to be with. By far the highlight of the night was hearing Gary Stager finally tell his John Taylor Gatto story that he would not convey over Twitter.
I grew up in Nebraska and often took road trips out to Colorado so I was very familiar with this stretch of I80 and I76. You might say that the experience of driving from Rochester to Denver provided nothing new for me. It was the same thing I saw numerous times taking this trip as a kid. I found a similar experience at the conference. I hoped to be blown away by amazing presentations but unfortunately I found myself walking out of a lot of great sessions, not because they were not good but because, much like my drive in, I had seen it before. I suspect this was true of a lot of people who follow edtech closely. Also, many of the sessions I was really excited to see were either scheduled for the same time I was presenting or just like there was no room in the inn on our drive out there was simply no room in the session by the time I got there.
The hotel we ended up staying in in Kearney was 1/2 the price we would have paid elsewhere, it put us very close to Denver, and had many more amenities and perks than we expected. This unexpected change of plans, while not easy, ended up being good for us. The same was true of not being able to attend all the sessions I wanted to. I ended up spending a lot of time in the Blogger's Cafe where arguably, for less cost I got more. This was the "hang out" place for most anyone who is anyone in the edubloggosphere and being there afforded me the opportunity to have lengthy one-on-one conversations about teaching, technology, and learning with the same people I otherwise would sit in a crowd of 200+ and listen to. This happy accident provided for me the opportunity to discuss informal vs formal/traditioanl vs online education in depth with Steve Hargadon, discuss school filtration policy and social media with Bud Hunt, meet with Chris Lehman, Scott McLeod, Richard Byrne, Dean Shareski, Will Richardson, Doug Johnson, and many others. It was as if not making it to the session in time I was given a backstage pass.
Photo by David Warlick
While I was attending the conference during the day my wife took the kids to attractions around Denver. In the evening I joined them. They went to the Children's Museum and the Aquarium by themselves then I joined them and took them one night to The Garden of the Gods and the other night to Casa Bonita. I am glad I took my family with me to the conference. Nothing will replace in my mind coming back to the hotel on Monday and hearing my two little girls yell out the hotel window, "Poopy Butt Cheeks!" to try and get funny responses from passers by or the look on their faces when we drove up into the mountains for the first time (both were asleep for the drive up and woke to an environment completely foreign to them).
While my ISTE experience is over the connections and relationships forged and/or strengthened at this conference I will carry with me. Just as I could take my family with me to ISTE I keep these people with me via social media and my web 2.0-enhanced personal learning network. I leave feeling a bit more connected.
While at the conference I posted this reflective Tweet that seemed to generate some argument:
Its been nice meeting so many ppl in person at #iste10 I normally only mt online but somehow f2f cd nvr replace depth of online interaction.less than a minute ago via Twitterrificanderscj anderscj
I stand by that statement and would like to clarify what I meant a bit. What I was thinking was, if you had a choice to keep events like the ISTE Conference but do away with our online interactions (via Social Media) or do away with face to face conferences but keep the networks we have built, which would you choose? I choose an ongoing networked relationship.
Prior to the conference many bloggers were posting their irrational fears about meeting people from their PLNs in person for the first time. The fear was that somehow finally meeting people you have a strong online personal and professional relationship with would cause that relationship to sour. While I think for most of us the face to face meetings only strengthened this connection for many it was awkward. When we mediate our communications with digital tools we free ourselves of many of the barriers we put up in person. There is no body language that gets in the way, we don't have to worry about our appearances, our age, or any of the other physical baggage we carry with us. Our connection online is closer to a connection of thoughts which for many is more efficient, more comfortable, and somewhat more pure. I also think I have reached a point where I learn more in the digital space than the physical, at least as far as edtech is concerned.
In lieu of a Weekly Tech Tip this week I am publishing the final report for an NEA Foundation Grant I received last year. I received this grant to fund a year-long exploration of mobile devices in education with 22 teachers from Goodhue Public Schools. The grant money provided each teacher with an iPod Touch. In exchange they agreed to participate in monthly PLC meetings and asynchronous involvement in our iTeach Mobile social network (recently moved to http://grou.ps/iteachmobile). I highly encourage you, if you are a teacher, to apply for an NEA Foundation Learning & Leadership Grant. The experience has definitely been rewarding. And, if you are interested in exploring the potential mobile devices have in the classroom I invite you to join our social network.
Last fall I wrote a post where I asked this question:
So, at the very least, here is the rub: Why is it that I can get 1 continuing ed credit for sitting in an hour-long presentation by an obviously biased corporately-employed presenter and not engage myself meaningfully in the topic at hand but for an hour of reading and meaningful career related reflection in my PLN I get nothing institutionally recognized?
How do you take all the great informal learning that happens online through personal learning networks (PLNs) and fit it into the institutional framework of schools, colleges, and universities? I think I finally have an answer. Drawing heavily upon the work of George Siemens, Stephen Downes, and Alec Couros I will be offering an open course through Hamline University beginning May 28th titled, Web 2.0 & Connectivist Learning.
I just started a new position in March, funded by an ARRA grant, with the East Metro Integration School District in St. Paul, Minnesota. This position is closely linked to my adjunct position at Hamline University in St. Paul. A big part of the grant is to offer, for teachers in our district, two graduate courses on technology integration. One of these courses is this course. The grant stipulated that this course was to be a small course sustained over 4-6 four hour sessions spread throughout the school year and focus on web 2.0 technologies and personal learning. Hamline will be able to offer this course in two methods: East Metro Integration School District teachers will have the option to take this course as a co-sponsored course, anyone else interested in taking this course for graduate credit will be able to take it as either an online course or as an individualized study. We also hope to have in place a method for issuing continuing education units (CEUs) for those wishing to take the course but not pay for the credit.
If this goes well we hope for it to be an ongoing offering. We also hope to make this scalable, as open courseware, so other Universities can take what we are doing and replicate it in their own institutions. The ultimate goal is to have a network of schools of education hosting their own PLN courses with common meeting spaces online and provide a method of getting PLN engagement recognized as high quality professional development for teachers through accreditation.
There already exists within online communities of educators a wealth of high quality professional development opportunities that we intend on tapping into for this project. Steve Hargadon, through Classroom 2.0, offers a wide range of high quality presentation sessions in Elluminate each week, the Educator's PLN engages their members in reflective dialog through their Twitter conversations using the #edchat hashtag, and groups like the Edubloggers Alliance provide welcoming support for educators blogging about their profession just to name a few. These opportunities ought to be recognized by our institutes of learning as valuable, high-quality professional development.
So, this is my invitation to you. You may participate at any level you like. We will kick things off on May 28th. The "for-credit" registration does not need to be done or decided until our November session and everyone is welcome to participate at any level. If you are interested, please fill out this form so I can estimate how many online seats I will need (If we go over 50 I need to to switch live streaming methods).
This makes so much sense for marrying the CMS AND PLN (but the question is, will the traditional institute of learning be expendable/replaceable under this model?):
While this year's TIES Conference had one of the most impressive, valuable, and thought provoking lineups of any conference I have attended in recent memory, perhaps the most interesting thing was not on stage or formally part of any particular session. For me the most interesting aspect of this conference was what was happening on Twitter. Many of us used Twitter this year to take notes and share resources related to sessions. This allowed six powerful things to occur that were not as effortless in the past. I thought it would be worth some time today to identify these six things and reflect on their impact.
Five Things Twitter Made Possible at #ties2009:
1. Networking 2. Sharing Resources 3. Reflective Practice 4. Amplification 5. Outside Influence 6. Extra Innings
Networking:
Networking is a huge reason people in any field attend a conference. It is important from time to time to convene with colleagues from other places to share ideas, gain contacts, and establish relationships. It can even be argued that in the information age this is the only meaningful reason to justify the cost of attend a conference. Before Twitter I would go to a conference and only establish meaningful relationships with a hand full of people and the majority of those people just became another card in my Rolodex. Following the #ties2009 Twitter stream people were able to find other people to connect with with similar affinities. When meeting these new people in person many times we had already been engaged in a conversation so the time from hand shake to meaningful dialog was greatly reduced. Twitter also provides an integrated ability to contact other people, so if you make the connection there you already have an instant connection to that person. Goodbye Rolodex, hello Twitter follow stream.
One of the most concrete applications of this tool is as a platform for sharing resources. During keynote speeches and sessions participants often shared links to related content online. This is essentially a Google Jockey technique applied to a backchannel. These resources could either be set aside for reference after the session or brought up to add value to session goers experience.
Twitter facilitated many instances of reflective practice during and after sessions. It allowed attendees to re-contextualize ideas, pose questions to the group, and discuss topics.
Each Twitter user has their followers, their followers have their own followers, and the web of relationships spreads out from there. Having our conversations on Twitter allowed the conference to be amplified beyond the Hyatt Regency in Minneapolis to a global audience. Tweeted notes from the sessions reached people both in regionally and globally who could not attend in person. It undoubtedly brought awareness of the conference to a broader audience. The thoughts and content of the sessions reached a much larger audience and will likely have a greater impact than if the message were only heard by those in attendance.
Tweeting notes from sessions allowed people not attending the conference to follow what was going on and what was being said in real time. Essentially this allowed conference Tweeters to become proxies or conduits for those not in attendance. These proxies could ask questions posed by the network. These outside voices also could also make attendees aware of additional or contradictory views other than those presented in the sessions.
Because the #ties2009 hash tag will outlast the conference indefinitely the conference has the potential to live on indefinitely in this space. For as long the TIES Conference Twitter users are engaged in conference discussion the conference can live on. This has enormous power especially for teachers otherwise relatively isolated either by geography or by school culture. The conference lasts only four days (if you include the weekend workshops) but the conversations regarding the conference could go on forever.
Additionally, each conference session is only so long and often session-goers are left with questions for the presenter or each other that time does not permit. For those of us connected, Twitter allowed for those questions to be answered and the conversation to continue well past the hour set aside for the presenter's session.
Thanks to @gsiemens, I came across this fantastic Twitter visualization tool today. Mentionmap allows you to enter any Twitter username and it generates a relational map based on recent retweets. I have to admit it swallowed up too much of my day playing around with this. However, I consider it time well spent since I was able to connect with many brilliant people I never knew existed. New brilliant tweeple: I look forward to value your nodes will add to my PLN.
Click on image to enlarge
P.S. I am going to start playing around with how I title my blog posts. Since these get pushed to Twitter adding a #tag to the title will hopefully ensure that this post is shared with #tag communities.
I like my ever expanding PLN. I find both intrinsic value in participating in it and extrinsic rewards for what it does for me professionally. I know that there are growing numbers of people in all fields and domains experiencing the same kind of learning revolution. The problem I am struggling with is how do we find a way to accredit this kind of learning. I arguably have done the equivalent of all the coursework for an additional degree or two in the past three years in this online environment comprised of the sum of my interactions in the Edublogosphere (both posts and comments on others posts), the Twittersphere, the Tubes (YouTube, TeacherTube, Blip.TV, Vimeo, listening and writing about podcasts and vodcasts (iTunesU, TED Talks, Big Ideas, etc.), attending virtual conference and workshop sessions and webinars, and countless other communities gathered around web2.0 tools.
This seems like it is a problem that needs to be solved. But, how does one apply a formal accreditation to open access online networked learning? Traditional degrees and diplomas are things people work for with attaining them as the ultimate extrinsic reward for their hard work. There are a few exceptions of individuals getting so engaged in their studies that the reason to study, research, and explore becomes more about the education than the degree but for the most part, if the degree did not matter an individual would just jump online or visit a local public library to get their learn on.
The problem with motivation does not reside solely with the individual but even more so within formal degree granting institutions. What motivation does a 4niversity or public school have in granting credit for informal learning experiences? The closest I can think of this happening is when a college or university bestows an honorary degree on someone for a lifetime of achievement. But, what can a person use an honorary degree for? It is not like having an honorary degree is going to help you get a job. Chances are, if you had an honorary degree you would not need whatever job it would theoretically qualify you to do.
So, this begs the question, "How did our society come to value diplomas and degrees?" At some point in our past we did not have these institutionally concocted branding devices. Could we be starting to see the birth of a new form of distinction online? One hallmark of nearly all social media sites is a ranking feature. For example, YouTube allows users to rank videos by giving them 1-5 stars. It also keeps track of how many views a video has, how much of the video gets watched every time a visitor comes to the page, and how many people have saved it in their "favorites." Google Analytics tracks how many people link to your website or blog post, how may hits your site or page gets, how long people stay on your site, and how often they return. Technorati does the same and gives bloggers a rating. The web is full of these kinds of markings but by these measures a thought-provoking article by Ira Socol, Scott McLeod, Doug Johnson, or Clay Burell ranks far below "Sneezing Panda," "Leave Brittany Alone," or LOL cats.
So, at the very least, here is the rub: Why is it that I can get 1 continuing ed credit for sitting in an hour-long presentation by an obviously biased corporately-employed presenter and not engage myself meaningfully in the topic at hand but for an hour of reading and meaningful career related reflection in my PLN I get nothing institutionally recognized?
Could an institution be formed to grant formal distinction for meaningful work within a PLN? Would people apply for this sort of credential or would it be bestowed upon them like an honorary degree? Would either of these even be desirable? Would trying to get that credential be the same as getting it as a result of work you have done for other more intrinsic reasons? How would you feel about getting a credential bestowed upon you from an organization you have philosophical or moral disagreements with? Perhaps an institution could approach a those who they would like to bestow this upon and ask them if they accept. But then, what would that person be able to do with that credential? Who will value it? Who is going to invest int the human capital to research and track potential candidates? Perhaps a portfolio of ongoing PLN work could be submitted to formal institutions for review and credit be applied based on the degree of a person's involvement.
What do you think? Is this a problem that needs solving? What are potential solutions?
I posted some of these questions in Twitter this morning. The following is a record of the conversation that followed:
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.
