The Jolaus Lifestream

I’ve been blogging since 2000 and can attribute a numerous positives to this activity: I was hired at University of Manitoba because of my blog and bi-weekly newsletter. I was hired at Athabasca University for similar reasons. I have traveled to over 30 countries and delivered over 200 presentations in the last decade due to my transparent online presence: blogging, writing, teaching. What has Twitter and Facebook done for me? Nothing, really. Other than perhaps attending to my emotive needs of being connected to people when I’m traveling and whining.

1. Help students use educational networking tools to solve information problems and communicate digitally with experts, peers and instructors.
2. Know the major Web 2.0 categories and tools that are useful in the K-12 setting. Know which tools are provided/supported by one's school.
3. Use educational networking sites to communicate with teaching peers, students and parents.
4. Navigate, evaluate and create professional content on networking sites.
5. Use online networking to create, maintain and learn from a personal learning network - AND their students.
6. Know the district networking guidelines, follow netiquette, conform to ethical standards and interact appropriately with others, especially students, online.
7. Understand copyright, security and privacy issues on social media sites and share these understandings with students and professional colleagues.
8. Understand the importance of identity and reputation management using social media and help students understand the long-term impact of personal information shared online.
9. Create and follow a personal learning plan to stay informed about developing trends, tools and applications of social media.
10. Participate in the formulation of school and district policies and guidelines related to educational networking and social learning.

Diipo.com (no relation to Diigo as far as I can tell) is one of those social networking sites you should try out and perhaps monitor its development progress. Here’s why:

• It’s just for teachers and students
• It’s free
• Teachers can set up class sites where they can post announcements as well as assignments along with links and attachments for students in that particular class site.
• Students can be added to class rosters, upload files, post entries like a blog, contribute to other group projects, and more.
• Like Twitter, there’s even a Ning-like virtual teacher’s lounge where educators can interact. The biggest selling point here is that it’s easy to share documents (lesson plans, ideas, etc) a la Google Docs… something which is still not super simple on Twitter.
• It’s in beta testing now (just opened actually) so sign up here if you want to kick the tires on this new social network.

Horizontalism has become endemic because technology makes it easy: it kills vertical hierarchies spontaneously, whereas before - and the quintessential experience of the 20th century - was the killing of dissent within movements, the channeling of movements and their bureaucratisaton.

Tornant a l’exemple de les primeres xarxes, en els primers moments de la telemàtica educativa hi havia no poques distraccions. En els primers moments de Pangea, perdre’t per les news de l’Associació per al progrés de les comunicacions (APC) o de l’Institute for Global Comunications (IGC) era una temptació en la qual sovint queia. Recordo que en aquells primers anys dels noranta, accedir a notícies d’agències alternatives i trobar-hi notícies que no apareixien als informatius ni als diaris em tenia fascinat. Sempre trobaves aquella mitja horeta en què et perdies en aquests llocs sense buscar res concret.

A mesura que internet s’ha anat popularitzant, el creixement dels que podem anomenar elements de distracció ha estat desproporcionadament superior als continguts de qualitat. Amb l’arribada del web 2.0 ha aparegut un terme molt ben trobat per definir la navegació sense rumb, quan ens distreu de les obligacions. La procastrinació és, així doncs, un trastorn de la conducta força present a la xarxa. El responsable, en bona part, que navegar per la xarxa tingui sovint un component més elevat d’oci que no pas de creació de coneixement. Només cal deixar-se caure pel Facebook per adonar-se en quines tonteries perd el temps moltíssima gent. Com comentàvem a l’apartat anterior, cal facilitar una bona educació en aquest sentit.

En el cas dels ensenyants és fàcil caure en la temptació d’anar afegint alumnes al Facebook. A vegades per descuit, a vegades per compromís. Les xarxes socials són espais de comunicació en què cal ser molt endreçat i disciplinat si no volem que se’ns escapi de les mans. Hi ha xarxes professionals específiques (Linkedin, en el moment d’escriure aquestes línies, és la més interessant a nivell professional) que eviten interferències que, com en el cas del Facebook, conviden a la procastrinació. Alguns mestres opten encertadament, en aquests casos, per separar vida personal i vida professional. I ho aconsegueixen tot utilitzant dos comptes específics.

Compared to last year’s report, most of the activities Pew Internet has covered in its report have increased in popularity in all age groups, especially social networking, which is hardly surprising given Facebook’sFacebook stellar growth to 500 million users and beyond. Interestingly enough, blogging is not one of them, as only half as many online teens blog compared to 2006, while users ages 18 to 33 also blog less than before. Blogging did see a slight uptick among older generations (ages 33 and up), but still accounts for a relatively small number of total users.

Overall, virtual worlds and blogging aren’t very popular in any age group, which probably indicates that tools such as Facebook and TwitterTwitter – which also enables users to express themselves online – have substituted blogging for many users. E-mail, on the other hand, has become nearly ubiquitous, even among adults ages 74 or over.

But I’m learning that just because I’m in control of something doesn’t mean that it’s healthy or beneficial. I’ve never actually taken the time to add up how many minutes each day I spend managing my RSS feeds, filtering through my twitter timeline and managing the in-and-out of communication that’s essential to my job. I’m afraid I won’t like the answer if I did, though. I spend too much time disconnected from reality for the sake of being connected to the illusion of reality.

No es que sea una moda, no es que quede bien... Es que dado el panorama que tenemos por delante, la empresa que quiera permanecer oculta, no sólo no está aprovechando las ventajas que ofrece el social media, sino que se arriega inútilmente. El nivel de conocimiento compartido, la aparición permanente de información y opinión sobre tu empresa, la posibilidad de que internamente puedan producirse 'filtraciones', etc, etc son circunstancias propias de nuestro nuevo entorno, por así decirlo.

El tiempo que nos toca vivir es el tiempo que nos toca vivir. Ocultarse, no involucrarse, huir de toda la ola que están provocando los medios participativos no solo no es recomendable, sino que empresarialmente es un objetivo a alcanzar aunque sea en el medio plazo . La terrible fuerza con la que está creciendo la web social ya les podría valer a los más temerosos para replantearse su estrategia.

Mi opinión: Internet es una academia a distancia “per se”, y como en cualquier formación, hay que ponerse a la labor. Sólo hay un detalle: no se otorgan títulos ni certificados. Por lo tanto, privan los resultados por encima de todo. Es decir, obtendrá reconocimiento, el que por boca a boca demuestre ser el mejor.

Hay personas que prefieren aprender Social Media mientras van haciendo, y que (como hice yo antes de recibir formación) pueden aplicar sus conocimientos académicos (formales) previos complementándolos con los conocimientos que van adquiriendo de forma autodidacta.

Y hay personas que prefieren sentarse en un salón de clases y frente a un profesor/a (incluso online) que les enseñe como aplicar estrategias de Social Media.

Lo único malo es que ambos grupos no se toleran y de forma independiente piensan que su técnica de aprendizaje es mejor y que sólo se puede aprender de una única forma: la suya… invalidando así a la otra, y es por eso que tenemos tantas opiniones encontradas.