Culture

An Online Identity Crisis of Sorts

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A few weeks ago I took my life into my own hands and faced certain ruin and potential eternal consequences.  I sent a tweet from church.

My wife had to leave service to take care of our young son, and I was left to my own devices.  Quite literally.  I decided to try an experiment and extracted my iPhone from my coat pocket.  I began innocently enough by using the Bible program I have loaded for reference, and then the forbidden fruit dangled enticingly in front of my eyes.  I thought twice, twitched slightly, opened TwitterFon, and sent out this nugget of wisdom.

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Inspiring, I know.

Coincidentally, almost immediately after I sent the tweet, I remembered that I have Evernote on my iPhone.  I used the application for the rest of the service to take notes, and I am quite convinced this is something worth continuing in the future.  In fact, I’m going to be writing a guest post on our church’s blog about using technology in service in the near future as a result of the experiment.  I’m sure it’s going to touch off a great conversation with those in our congregation who are a bit, how should I say it, traditional?

I also later confessed my sin to my wife, and a fascinating conversation ensued.  Much of it was centered around recent discussions regarding how presenting to an audience who is Twittering or backchanneling changes the presentation dynamics for a speaker.  This conversation likely merits its own post at some point in the future as well.

But the most telling outcome of this experience didn’t come from my digital note taking in church or the discussion with my wife.  It came a few hours later when I got home and checked my Twitter feed.  The responses to my tweet in church were both entertaining and intriguing.  It was this tweet that really got me thinking.

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I wondered what would happen if I did actually start sending out updates from my church’s service.  Would people who know me on Twitter for my educational focus want to hear me talk about my faith?  I then sent out this question.

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The responses ranged from unequivocally “I would unfollow you” to “I think you should do it as I prefer people to be all of who they are on Twitter.”  It was quite a range, and it was quite interesting to ponder exactly who we’ve let ourselves become in the social networks in which we run.  Perhaps even, who do we want ourselves to become?

I think of the growth of many online social networks and what this means for the community.  I’ve noticed as Twitter increases in popularity, I have more friends and acquaintances outside of education following me.  I’ve also had our local newspaper, businesses, and past professors add their name to my list.  It begets the question, “what do we do with this?”  I have to wonder if my friends really care about my thoughts on Marzano and his recent research on interactive whiteboards.  Do they care I don’t care for the overused and abused 21st Century nomenclature?  Do they care that I persistently pester one particular Canadian?

This question isn’t restricted to only Twitter.  It applies to all social networks.  What do you do when your mom wants to be your friend on Facebook?  Or your students?  It makes me wonder if we have to start setting up multiple accounts for all our networks.  There have been suggestions that it would be better to have a separate “professional” Twitter account and a “personal” Twitter account.  Would the bifurcation of my life result in a dilution of my personality in both spaces?

Personally, I like some of the inane chatter that happens on Twitter.  I like knowing when Dean spills on his shirt, or what Jon is cooking for dinner, or when Jen is engaged in an epic battle to get Z to bed.  It’s the sum of the small things in our lives that make up the whole of who we are.  I also know, however, that it’s tough to sift through all the chatter at times.  I’ve heard that complaint from several people as of late, and it makes me wonder about the merit of having two accounts.

I’m really not sure where to go from here.  I know this process will likely work itself out in an organic manner as these things tend to do with emerging technologies, but what will that process yield for us at its conclusion?

To end, I’ll have to go back to the beginning, and ask a question.  If I started letting more of my life into Twitter, would you stop following me?

*UPDATED CONCLUSION: March 28

After posting this yesterday, I’ve come to realize I did a tremendously poor job ending this post.  My intention was to frame the question more in a global fashion, and instead, I managed to focus it entirely on myself.  I apologize for that.  Please give me the chance to take a mulligan on the closing.  Here is what I really meant to say.

To end, I have to go back to our beginning.  Well, the beginning of an end to some regards.  We’ve been enjoying many of our social networking sites in the comfort of the audience with which we grew.  For Twitter, that was somewhat of a niche audience focused in technology and social media.  Now, as people from all walks of our lives begin signing on and joining in, the question becomes, “What do we do as our worlds collide?”  Thank you, George Costanza for that classic episode.  As Matt said in the comments, he’s long wondered what he will do when his parents join Facebook.  That’s how I really meant to end this post.  How will our expectations and experiences change with social networks as they begin to aggregate people from all areas of our lives in one location?  I remember what George said.

Thanks to Vanderlin for the Flickr image.

What if…

What if we stopped for just a moment, took a step back, and asked why?  Why are we engaging in education the way we are right now?  Why is it that the modern construct of education not only looks the way that it does, but why are we using it?

Maybe a better way to frame this would be, if we were to stop and start over entirely, what would that look like?

I was sitting with a group of educators recently, and I paused for a moment and looked around at who I was with.  There were teachers from different districts, different grade levels, different experience levels, and different philosophies, but they are all working toward a common goal.  At least I assume they are.  They are trying to educate our youth.  But what exactly does that mean?

I recently read a tweet by someone I can’t currently remember that said students of today are more equipped and prepared now than at any point in history to be successful in the Industrial Age.  I believe that’s both true and alarming.  And it means something.  It means we might not be getting it right.

I return to one of my original thoughts.  If we were to start over, what would it look like?  We’re currently so stuck in our paradigm that I fear we can’t remove ourselves and look objectively at this question.  We are so entrenched with our current infrastructure, our teaching structure, and even our institutional structure, that to really move away from what we’re currently doing might turn out to be too large a Goliath to fell.

Focusing briefly on American education, and I don’t mean to be too American-centric, but that’s the system I’m most aware of, we see how change has happened quite incrementally over the past 350 years.  In the mid-1600′s, the focus of education was almost exclusively on writing, reading, and religious education.  From there, we can see a history of slow, incremental changes from a system where students were largely taught by one schoolmaster, who focused on the aforementioned subjects, to the system in which we currently find ourselves immersed.

This time line accentuates the point nicely.  I think it’s quite telling that there were several attempts at reform throughout our history, but I’d argue none were truly successful.  Of interest is the founding of the Progressive Education Association in 1919, where a major effort was launched to create an educational environment in which students were the center of education, and by so being, should be allowed to express themselves more creatively and independently.  Sounds like we’re still working on that 90 years later.

When looking down the time line, it’s readily apparent that despite all the efforts, research, hours of labor, and investment in improving our educational model, all we’ve really accomplished is the perpetuation of all that we’ve previously done.  There hasn’t been a true reform.  There’s been no revolution.  There remains largely that which has always been.

The most difficult part of all this is determining what has value and what has been done because that’s what we’ve always done.  If we really started over, what would we keep because it’s worth keeping?  What would we cast away because it doesn’t have relevance in our emerging system?  And most importantly, what would be our goal?

I think that’s the starting point.  It all begins with a question.  What’s the goal of education?  I don’t ask that flippantly, but rather quite honestly.  If we have any hope of making true change, this is where it starts.  At the core.  At the foundation.  At the very center of all we do.

So I say we try it.  At least in conversation.  Let’s rebuild our educational system.  And let’s start with a question.

What’s the goal of education today?

Thanks to CoryMarchand for the Flickr image.

It’s Not About Technology

Sometimes we experience things that just won’t leave us alone. Something profound will leave an indelible mark, and later, we’ll be engaging the routines of life, and our minds will bring us back to the thought we assumed we had forgotten. A thought we can’t seem to leave alone. This week, that thought was brought on for me as I was experiencing an incredible, beautifully sad website.

I’d try to capture the essence of the site in a summary, but I know that’s an impossibility. You honestly have to take ten uninterrupted minutes of your own life to see for yourself. I promise it will be worth every second. The site is original in its navigation, and it takes a couple seconds to get oriented, but once there, I’d highly recommend you read every word and take in every image. When you’re done, come back to discuss the implications on education if you have the time. Here’s the site. Days With my Father.

The thing that I can’t shake about the website and the experience I had with it is the fact that somehow it’s entirely about technology, yet absolutely not about technology all at once. The site is ingenious in its design and layout, and the pictures are stunning. But it’s the story I can’t stop thinking about. And there’s the issue.

Without the technology, it isn’t likely I would have ever read the story, or stopped to reflect on what I’m doing to make my days with my family count. I wouldn’t have been entirely captivated by the haunting image of Toledano’s father with his eyes closed as he experiences a moment of absolute melancholy and understanding. But for all its ingenuity, the technology simply isn’t the point here.

I’ve heard too often lately that technology is the point. I don’t think it’s ever about the technology. I think it’s always about the story. Everything we do with technology is done to communicate information. Think about every great technological advance that has changed the course of our culture. It has done so through the communication of information. We communicate more effectively and on a more massive scale now than ever before. The very fact that you’re reading the writing of a traditionally unpublished person you’ve not likely met is evidence of that.

Technology pundits will tell you we have to focus on integrating technology in the classroom. I find I’m getting integrating fatigue. We certainly need to utilize technology in instruction, but I think we need to find a different way to communicate with teachers, students, and the community how technology fits into all this. We don’t use technology so we can check off a box saying that a student knows how to execute some skill in isolation like delete files from the desktop. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a teacher mark the “effectively uses pencil eraser” field on any report. Technology is just a tool that gets us deeper into the richest part of learning where we want our students to be.

Obviously I’m still working through the implications of all this. Like I said before, sometimes we experience things that just won’t leave us alone. I’m there right now, and it’s because of technology and one really incredible story.

Image used with permission from Phillip Toledano.

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The Revolution’s Cliff

So here we stand. All of us. Together. We’ve shuffled up to the edge of the cliff, and the timid are leering over with great trepidation, the curious have started toeing pebbles over the edge, and the impatient, emboldened ones are heaving boulders over just to see what might be hit below.

It’s more than just something we can see. We can feel it. Something is in the air, and we all know it. There’s change coming, but no one can predict exactly what shape the change is going to take. It’s exhilarating and terrifying equally at the same time. Our culture is about to shift. Learning is about to become radically different, and beneath it all, I have this sneaking suspicion that technology will be the impetus. Keep throwing the rocks and peering into the haze below. It won’t be long now until we start seeing something real taking shape down there.

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