My network has networks

Is it just me or has it gotten really hard to manage an online presence? I know we are all busy with holiday stuff and kids and paying the bills and all that good stuff. It all takes time. And then we try to squeeze in time to read a few blogs, comment on a few, and update our own.

But that's just the tip of the iceberg! This blog is just one blog for me. I also have two that are part of my job. In addition, I help maintain numerous parts of a large website for our school. But even those big pages are just the beginning.

Let's talk blogs. How many do you read? My Google Reader tells me I'm subscribed to 162! Some are for fun. Some are for work. But it takes time to read them all. Google tells me I've read 1,193 items in the past 30 days. There were way more that I didn't get time to read. The problem is...I wanted to! I wanted to read them all. But there just wasn't time.

Then there is e-mail. At the moment I've got eight (yep...EIGHT) e-mail accounts. Many I don't have to check cause they are just associated with work things and all the e-mail gets routed to one inbox. But I do check four accounts several times a day and try to respond to all the mail I receive.

And Twitter. Do you tweet? Did you have to download and try Twitterific and Spaz and a variety of other desktop applications so you could easily read the stream of tweets?

Facebook? Yep...got a page...visit it about once a month. MySpace. Got a page...never go there.

And don't even get me started on things like Ning and delicious and bloglines and all the other social networking possibilities!

I guess what I'm saying is...how do you manage it all?? Do you even try? Or did you narrow things down to a simple e-mail and blog?

I want to be in touch. I love being in touch. I love the social networking phenomenon. But damn, it sometimes seems like a lot of work to have fun!

Learning about technology

I spent today at a very cool conference - the annual gathering of the Computer Educators of Connecticut. It is always a great opportunity to see the latest in tech stuff, to hear how other educators are using technology in their classrooms, and just to get a good pep talk about technology.

Today's keynote speaker was David Pogue, technology writer for the NY Times. In spite of his own technical difficulties (a problem with the equipment at the convention center, not anything of his own doing), he presented a very interesting and entertaining keynote address. He then followed it up with a presentation to a smaller group on Web 2.0 technologies. Both had a lot of great information. Both shared a lot of new things. And both were very funny.

The rest of the day was spent listening to other leaders in technology education as they shared about using blogs, podcasts, video, Google products, and other great resources in their class.

And I'll certainly get to take some of this back to work tomorrow and start applying it to what I do.

The only downside of the day was that there just wasn't anyone to share it with. If I talk about technology too much, my wife's eyes start to glaze over. I mean, she doesn't even have an e-mail account! (I know, I say that like it is the mark of satan! LOL) At work, since we work with kids with severe special needs, the integration of technology into our curriculum is challenging and limited. We utilize a lot of adaptive technology, but not a lot of what I saw today. So there just isn't anyone there to share it all with, either.

So yes, I'll take some of it back and share it and find other, unique ways for staff to utilize the technology for their own professional growth. But it sure would have been nice to have someone there to look at and say "did you see that?!?! I can't wait to try that tomorrow!"

Oh well, missing out on that certainly doesn't change how much I learned nor how much I enjoyed it.

The Power Of The Pick

So everyone knows my kids got Nintendo DS Lites for Christmas. And we bought them cause they asked (begged, pleaded, made promises they can't keep, etc). But I did not truly understand the power!

The first day they played Animal Crossing Wild World and Mario Kart and Bust A Move and Nintendogs. They were happy.

And then came the day after Christmas. They wanted to go online.

Huh? I mean, they had mentioned during one of their scheduled begging sessions that they could play with each other wirelessly. I thought that was a good thing...brother and sister both preoccupied so I could focus on my own idle pursuits. But no, they didn't mean wirelessly as in...within 20 feet of each other. They meant WIRELESSLY. Talking to the world!!

And they were ready to go. Would I help? Sure...let's get that manual and see what needs to be done. Well, the manual had me take that little plastic toothpick (the technical name is 'stylus'...but we all know it is just a plastic toothpick) and tap the screen a couple of times. That was it! Couldn't be easier. Now they could actually connect to anyone in the world who had a DS...play games with them...invite them to come and appear right on their little hand-held game! It was very cool.

I'm now hiding the extra toothpick for myself. I'm quite certain that toothpick contains the power to rule the world!!!

(Insert evil, mad scientist laugh here!)

Blogging can't be bad...can it?

I mentioned recently, after going a week without posting while my mom visited, that I really missed this. In only a few weeks I've found that I really enjoy blogging. I like trying to be a bit creative with my posts. I pay a little more attention to routine events of the day just in case I can find a fun angle for a post. And even though I really am doing this for my own creative outlet, I really have enjoyed getting comments and establishing a bit of communication with several other bloggers.

But in addition to exploring this for my own fun, my job as a technology coordinator for a school has given me the chance to create a couple of blogs for our staff. Those blogs have different areas of focus, providing opportunities to share and collaborate on research and other information. This seemed like a perfect solution for staff members who don't always have time to get together for professional development. But then I read this article with this comment:

Our bias toward groups is counterproductive. And the technology of ubiquitous connectedness is making the problem worse.

Hmmm...technology is making us more reliant on group collaboration...and this is a bad thing? He continues with this comment:

As for the Internet and our newfound ability to tap into the masses, a more subtle form of havoc arises. Simply put, when you make it easy for everyone to put in his two cents, with little filtering or accountability, the scum tends to rise to the top.

Scum? Improved communication leads to scum? Blogging won't save the world. It may not solve many problems at work. But can better connection really be a bad thing? I have to disagree with the article. There are a few jobs where you want someone to make a decision without stopping to chat. If I'm on the surgical table, I want a doctor with enough skill and confidence to do the right thing without having to call a meeting. But in many situations, I still believe that collaboration is a good thing. And as our jobs and our lives push us in directions that make face-to-face meetings more difficult, I have to appreciate a technology that makes it this easy to share.

And on a personal level, I really do like this. It may not make me a better person, but I am having fun. And that's a good thing!

Communicating In A Global Society

That's the title of the conference I'm attending today. And while I eat my lunch, I wanted to drop in a thought or two.

While the focus of the conference is on educational uses of technology and how we can use this with our students, I'm also interested in the personal and professional uses of Web 2.0. Even more importantly, I'm thinking about how critical the use of this medium is now - and will become. One statistic from the morning...a UC Berkeley study of 2003. In that year, globally, we generated 5 exabytes of new information. [pausing a moment while you look up 'exabyte'] The stunning part of the research is that only 0.01% of that information ever got printed. The rest is digital. Amazing.

Obviously, not all of that new information is crucial. Just like this little blog. This is good for me and perhaps a few others, but generations from now students and professionals won't be looking at Notes From My Corner as a key source of information. But that drives home the point...how do we know what is important? How do we choose which information has meaning to us as individuals, parents, professionals? Some information is important to all of us - such as the fact that we are down to eight planets now. Some information is important to groups of like-minded or like-interested folks. And some is just good for me because it entertains me, makes me think, or helps me get from Point A to Point B.

Learning how to find it, how to analyze it, how to make that information come to me....that is the new literacy. And the title of the keynote today. Redefining Literacy for the 21st Century was about those skills. I thought, being a geek in general, that I knew a lot of that. Now I know I have a lot more to learn!

The Passion of Connection

What is it that makes this whole internet/blogging/wiki/podcast thing so cool? First I'll admit, I'm a geek. I love computers - can't live without my Mac. Love the internet and the fact that so much is waiting at the click of a mouse. And I love browsing web sites, IM's, chat rooms, and all that stuff.

So now that the confession of geekdom is out of the way, what else makes it fun?

It's not the technology, but the connections it makes possible. In little about little, the author comments that he can write about everyday events for him to read in the future. I totally understand that. But I also get embarrassingly excited when someone reads my blog and leaves a comment. The connection with someone I don't even know is fun.

And this week I had an experience that took it to a new level. I watched an online pre-conference keynote video podcast by David Warlick, a well-known educational technology guru. And in his podcast he asked folks to leave comments on his wiki. I did. And then someone in Texas left a comment about my comment. So, of course, I went to check out her blog. And she listed her favorite blogs. Turns out, one of her favorite professional development blogs is also one of mine! So I left her a comment, of course! And she commented on my comment. Video podcast>wiki>my comment>her comment>her blog>mutual blog>my comment>her comment. Now THAT is fun!

The opportunities for learning, exploring, and sharing are exciting. The very fact that I'm in sharing with this person and other folks whom I will never meet is still almost unbelievable. And yet, it is commonplace to my three kids. What astonishes me, they take for granted. Some part of me wishes they shared my awe. But a huge part of me is envious of what opportunities they will have.

Metablogging

I read two blogs today that posed questions about the act of blogging. In Little About Little, the blogger wonders about the etiquette of blogging:

Is there blogging etiquette?
And if there is, who made the rules? I just read my blog and found, much to my delight, comments on several of the entries. It was great. I want to say thank you, and I certainly now will comment more often because I know how it feels to be acknowledged on some level. But it would be interesting and fun to find or formulate an etiquette.

And in Decisions and Revisions, Sara asks about the future of blogging:

will videos replace much of the writing in blogs? Will the attitude be: If you can show it, why bother writing it out?

The first comment got me to thinking about some writing I've done for my job on emergence. At work I've focused on how the unrelated efforts of each individual in the workplace contribute to the success of all of us.

Is the same true in the blogosphere? Will the etiquette of blogging emerge simply as a result of all of us blogging, reading other blogs, and commenting on blogs? I think so. But I think it isn't the etiquette, but rather, the etiquettes. Plural. Blogs are so varied by topic and style. I love some. I'm bored with others. Some are political. Some are porn. Some are funny. And each genre seems to have its own etiquette emerging as a natural by-product of the blogs themselves. And I like that type of etiquette. It comes from the users rather than an authority. And in that way, it is the style that is most pleasing and beneficial to the users of those blogs. And that, in my thinking, will be the etiquette that serves the blogosphere best.

As someone who loves to read and write, Sara's question is more troubling to me. YouTube (GoogleTube?) and other video sites are surely popular and fun. Vlogs are visual and compelling at times. But will that mean the death of the written blog? I hope not! And I have faith that it won't happen. For a couple of reasons. First of all, television and movies and VCR's and DVD's offer high quality entertainment, but it didn't mean the end of the publishing industry. Borders and Barnes & Noble didn't chain their doors. People love a good read. Secondly, some of us love words and love to write. I took a long time for me to start blogging. But I know I would never start videotaping my entries. As the old saying goes, I have a face made for radio. But more importantly, it just doesn't appeal to me in the same way. I like the act of composing and linking and quoting and putting my ideas down on 'paper'. I don't have that same good feeling inside with video. So Sara, as long as there are good blogs out there like your blog, I think the readers and writers of the world will have plenty of good things to read.

To Blog, or Not To Blog

The question of the day...should I start my own blog?

TO:

Transition. A life change is always a good time to begin something new. Earlier this month, my youngest (Daughter13) became a teenager. That makes me the proud dad of three teenagers. Of course, it also means my hair is turning grey at a faster pace than ever! Later this month, I'll turn fifty. That's right, the big FIVE OH. I'm not freaked out by that. But I'm very aware of where it puts me every time some survey asks me to check off my age group!

Addiction. I read my first blog about a year ago. I was so innocent at the time. And for six months or so, it was a gradual process of finding blogs I really enjoy. It was a casual pleasure. But then I started to need more blogs. And I added RSS feeds so I didn't have to wait around to know the latest posting. Now I find reading (and sometimes commenting) has become part of every day. And I figure, if I'm gonna be playing in the blogosphere anyway, I might as well go ahead and dive in the deep end.

The Geek Factor. I love computers. I love the internet. Creating a blog tweaks the geek deep inside.

NOT TO:

Enough already! One estimate is that 75,000 new blogs are created every day. Another estimate put it this way: a new blog is created every second. EVERY SECOND!! Do Google and Wordpress and the others really have servers that big??? And can all those blogs find an audience or do they just add to the muddle? On the other hand, I'm not really writing to find or entertain a particular audience. I'm writing for my own pleasure. If someone comes along, that's cool. If not, that's okay, too.

SUMMARY

Transition + Addiction + Geek Factor > The Muddle

So I created my little corner and this is where I'll be.