Tot Ziens Facebookiens

goo.gl/squnwG

Sitting in the shower this morning I realized that I had been sucked into the Facebook political maw. It has been months since I have actively used Twitter. Instead of engaging with incredibly diverse people with a focus on all things Education or PBL or Design Thinking (on Twitter), I am engaging with (mostly) people with very similar views and the collective is shredding the notion that our current president is anything other than an ignorant, womanizing, narcissist!

Meanwhile, sitting in the Facebook forest, hearing our berating of this person and his followers, are family and friends who either (a) voted for the guy and don't understand our problem with him or (b) just want to have friendly conversations with their other friends and family and stay away from the politics. If any of them are still following me I am both amazed that they have stuck it out and I am grateful to know that they are willing to listen to my rants.

Until about a year ago I used to tell people, "Twitter is for work and Facebook is for fun." Well, since I don't seem to have time to be on Twitter these days, when am I going to "sharpen the saw?" All I am doing is dulling my mind with impassioned screeds from others or ones I have found coming out of my keyboard right before I hit "Enter."

 

https://memegenerator.net/instance/65770937

Twitter I miss you! I haven't participated in a Twitter chat in months. I haven't shared thoughts, ideas, questions, or fun with the incredible people who are but a computer screen away. Fortunately, between my BIE National Faculty friends and my DTK12 (Design Thinking) friends who I have connected with on FB, I still get a smidgen of education related content on FB. But I crave more.

And so I will be taking a short break from my FB platform. Unfortunately, I am an incredibly terrible communicator away from social media. So I worry I won't know anything about my friends and family by stepping away. Maybe, at 59, it is time to get over my fear of the phone. I look at the phone; I, occasionally, pick up the phone and look at the numbers; But, ultimately, I come up with some excuse like "Oh it's too late/early to call. I'd hate to interrupt anything." 

 Tot ziens! I really miss living in the Netherlands. I love the Dutch. And Tot Ziens is just a simple way of saying "until we meet again." Aside from the incredibly wonderful/amusing "Let Op Drempels," Tot ziens is probably my favorite expression I brought back with me. I will be checking my FB periodically because I will miss my friends and family. Especially Andre and Jim and our "daily awesome" image or video. But, at the same time, I am friends on Twitter with both of them and I expect we will continue that over on the other platform. 

I pray that our president has a safe and meaningful presidency. I pray he doesn't hurt too many people with his actions. I pray other countries, like many of us in this country, are able to make it through the next four years so we can reestablish sensibilities at the end. And, I pray that my friends and family who are actively speaking out against the things that we are seeing and hearing can continue to be strong for the long haul.  [Sorry, I am too angry to totally leave the politics behind.]

If You Borrow It, Tell Someone

https://www.flickr.com/photos/kittiesmademedoit/

Those are words of advice given to me by my Father. Actually it was more like, "Hey, I don't mind if you want to use my tools but put them back - in the same spot - when you are finished."

Isn't that really the point of attribution? You are borrowing someone else's words or pictures. You may not be able to "put them back in the same spot," but you can send others back to the spot where they were found.

Too often on Twitter and Facebook I will see something that I know I have seen before. Almost invariably I do some digging and I find the original news article, blog post, or image that it came from.  Sometimes it is in a re-tweet (RT) and the person who originally tweeted it is the guilty party of not giving credit where it is due.

So, what should you do before you re-post something? My immediate answer may surprise you after my intro here. I say it depends. If you are in the middle of a twitter chat where 50 to 100 tweets are flying by every minute, then you may miss  hundreds of tweets with great nuggets by researching that one tweet. Just favorite the tweet prior to RT'ng it and then you can go back and give the original item the proper attribution after the chat.

If, on the other hand, you are seeing a tweet outside of a chat or in a slow moving chat then take the time to check it out and if the original person wasn't mentioned in the tweet take the time to include "via @originalperson" in your RT. If you need to modify the original tweet prior to RT'ng it to fit the "via," then remember you are now tweeting a Modified Tweet (MT) not a re-tweet.  Just use MT instead of RT and everyone will know what you did.

Finally, if you are going to be the original person putting something up on Twitter or Facebook, then take the time to craft your tweet or post so the attribution is included. If you can't find the person's Twitter handle through the twitter search do a web search using the person's name and the word twitter - "chris fancher twitter" for example.

If that doesn't immediately give you what you need, then research where this person works. Is he or she with a business, at a school or university, or in a school district? If nothing else find a twitter handle for the specific place of employment and include that.

Take the time to do the simple task of giving recognition to the originator of whatever "tool" you are using. You owe it to them and to your followers to do it right.

You Want to See Power of Twitter?

Official Skyrim Logo

At approximately 9:40 PM I opened Twitter and saw this tweet from my friend Bianca Hewes in Australia:  "Gonna buy an X-Box and some games for English faculty to help us teach games as texts. Can anyone suggest games with strong narratives?"

I stepped away from the computer and talked with my 14 year old son about this question and he LOVED the fact that I was asking him this. He was, actually, online playing a game with a friend and they both discussed it and gave me a recommendation that was PS3 only. So I  told him it had to be XBOX. He did his teenage boy discussion about how "all the good games are on PS3," and then said that Skyrim would be a good choice. I suggested L.A. Noire but he didn't agree with me - (I almost sent it to her anyway)

So, just before 10PM I tweeted: " @BiancaH80 my 14yo son suggested Skyrim and The Last of Us for great story lines but Last of Us is PS3. #wenttothesource "

Then I remembered that one of my best high school buddies has been writing for video game magazines for about 30 years and has been very influential in the business. I also knew a friend that I had met here in Austin a few years ago. Both are living in California but are in the video game business.

So, a couple of minutes later I tweeted: " .@vidgames, @TallGamer friend of mine and tchr in Australial looking for XBOX game with Great Narrative for English Class - cc @BiancaH80 "

In the matter of 30 minutes a teacher in Australia had asked a question. She had gotten information from me: a teacher with a son who plays a lot of video games in Texas. And, she had gotten in contact with two professionals in the video game industry.

Well, as I was writing the first part of this I returned to Twitter to see if there was any other action on this tweet.  I saw this exchange between @Tallgamer and @BiancaH80:

     "@cfanch @vidgames @binacah80 what age students? " from @TallGamer

     " @TallGamer @cfanch @vidgames ranges from 12 - 18 boys & girls. Thanks :) " From @BiancH80

     " @cfanch @Vidgames @BiancaH80 I am going to say Mass Effect, the only issues are that it is rated Mature because of language and sex and viol " From @TallGamer

     " @cfanch @vidgames @BiancaH80 the other I would suggest is Bioshock it's a great narrative about a man with to much power and greed " From @TallGamer

This conversation continued with a suggestion from @TallGamer to subscribe to his Youtube channel and a discussion that they should talk via Skype. As I was talking with my wife and writing this, I said "You can't make this stuff up - it's writing itself!"  This is just one example out of hundreds (thousands?) of exchanges that happen between educators on Twitter. 

If you need more examples, just go onto twitter and tweet: "Anybody have great examples of teachers using Twitter to get great answers to questions?" Then sit back and wait for answers to flow in. Just don't forget to thank them for their help. Who knows you might even make a friend and start your own PLN.

PLN's Help When You Least Expect It

On October 3, 2007 I opened my Twitter account. My wife had been on for a while (since it was introduced to the public the Spring before at the SXSW conference).

If you go onto Twitter and look me up (@cfanch ) you'll see that I have one list of people to follow: Edpros.  Most of the people on that list were in my original group of people I followed or who followed me and a majority of those names have been on Twitter in excess of 5 years now.

These educators were my original PLN (Professional Learning Network) before we used the term on twitter. I can still count on them to provide great insight into all things education and when I need an answer to a tough question I will send it their way.

During the years from 2008 to now, I have tried to get teachers, who I work with, to get onto Twitter so that they can glean knowledge from educational experts. At Manor New Technology High School I was totally unsuccessful.  I stopped trying and would just send links of great blog posts I had read because of my friends on Twitter. Or I would share a tech secret that I had learned about because of people sharing stuff on Twitter. But, as far as active users, I (again) was totally unsuccessful at showing them why it was a must to be connected to a PLN.

Now I am at a new school where the number of tech savvy teachers is at a minimum. Those that are good with technology are doing really great things. But there really is only one teacher (out of about 50) who are active on Twitter for professional reasons and a couple who have Twitter accounts but don't understand how to use them to help their teaching skills.

I have given up (or at least I think I've given up) on encouraging teachers to try Twitter.  I am sharing blog posts, occasionally, with my fellow teachers at school but I rarely mention that I found the post on Twitter. And, to be quite frank, I have gotten pretty darn bitter about not being able to share information with anybody I work with.

This leads to today and an exchange I had with a wonderful person I met on Twitter a few months ago and was able to say hello to at an Edcamp in Waller Texas. {Don't even get me started on getting teachers to go to Edcamps. I ran my own Edcamp 2 years ago that about 25 people came to and only one of them was from my school or school district.}

There was a time when I was always on Twitter - sharing things, having great times with my PLN buddies, learning things.  Now I get on occasionally but I feel like an outsider and not in on all of the jokes and innuendo.  And so I noticed a group of people talking about creating a Twitter for Educators panel for next year's TCEA conference.  Everyone on the list in the tweets is connected, doing great things with education, and are forward lookers in all things new and cool in education. I feel that that's where I was 3 or 4 years ago.

And so I said, " @RafranzDavis After 5 + years on here, if they havent' figured it out they won't ever figure it out (Twitter for PD), #mrnegative " And I meant it.  Why even try to get people interested in this stuff they'll just ignore you and laugh and call you "Mr. Twitter." But Rafranz didn't give up.  She replied " @cfanch which is why this "super panel" is needed !!!:) " She continued " @cfanch all that we can do is show how we use it. We can"t force people into changing how they learn best. However, we can't stop trying :) "

She's right of course. I just wonder if I have the energy to keep up the fight.  At this Edcamp I heard teachers asking all kinds of questions about how to get onto twitter and how to use it. Part of me wanted to yell "Where have you all been?" But I smiled and helped people get through the beginning steps of getting connected.

My wife is in the business of showing people in the travel industry how to use social media and she has the same reaction when one of her clients asks how to do something that is (for me and for her) very basic. But she keeps reminding me that there are people who aren't connected. There are people who really don't understand how to use the space. There are people who are afraid of looking dumb.  There are people with all sorts of excuses on why they haven't gotten connected yet. And they need people like Rafranz and people in her PLN - and, yes, they even need Mr. Cranky Pants.

Even though I knew everyone of those people she was talking with about the "Super Panel" for TCEA, I don't feel connected to them. Maybe I need to get back on Twitter and connect with them so I can feel like I'm a part of a PLN again. Because you're never really NOT a part of a PLN.

Chat Overload!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/andresmusta/

The other day I saw a great tweet and noticed the hashtag for a 1:1 educators chat.  Then I saw another great tweet with a hashtag for a Nebraska Educators chat.  And then I saw 2 or 3 other chat hashtags fly by and I realized that what was once just "Edchat" has really just gone bonkers.

If you aren't on Twitter then you may not be familiar with chats.  In a nutshell, if you want to have a topic that others can comment upon then you use the pound sign ( # ) followed by a word that describes the topic.  In the Twitterverse we call the #-sign a "Hashtag." With limitations on the number of characters and with people wanting to emphasize that they want to have a get together (a chat ) there are many abbreviations for these.

The oldest chat I became involved with was the Educators Chat or #edchat.  It was (is still) on Tuesday nights and there really weren't many others.  During the first year on #edchat I saw a handful of other chats pop up but none made me say "I need to follow that hashtag!" Then #edchat started to  explode with hundreds of people "chatting" during the hour.  This lead most people to use other dashboards besides the regular Twitter page. { Dashboards such as Hootsuite and Tweetdeck allow you to create columns which makes it easier to manage the chats. }

Then came my favorite Twitter application - Tweetchat.  With Tweetchat there is only one column and it is totally devoted to the hashtag you want to follow.  It even puts the proper hashtag at the end of your tweet.  About this time I looked over at my favorite gatherer of information, Jerry Blumengarten (also known as Cybraryman (@cybraryman1)) His list of chats had, probably, 20 chats listed and I was amazed by that fact.  Today there are well over 100 education chats listed.  If you have an area of interest, there is probably a chat for you. Jerry just happens to be on the #edchat team, so he knows a thing or two about chats.

So where does this chat obsession go from here?  Well the good thing is that there are educators learning from each other and helping each other all over the world and at all times of the day.  But there are many of us who are amazed at the huge number of tweets with hashtags.  Some educators are moving on to other means of getting together.

The one most talked about is Google Hangouts.  With a Hangout you can have up to 10 people and you can share your screens.  But then you can share the hangout with the world.  So, even though 10 people are "talking" others can interact with the conversation through various means including, get ready for it - Twitter!  Just think, you could have a google hangout and everyone outside of the initial 10 could be using a hashtag for the hangout!  Makes my head hurt ( but in a good way...)

Don't be surprised when you see the following hashtag:  #rthanded55yoeducoachchat.  The chat for 55 year old education coaches who are right handed.

Thoughts on Vendor Areas at Conferences

http://www.flickr.com/photos/techxas/

{NOTE: After writing this last weekend I started putting in links and realized it was almost identical to my post from Feb.7 .  Guess the thoughts in that post resonated with me. }

Last week was the Texas Computer Educators Association (TCEA) annual conference and I was fortunate enough to have an understanding principal who let me off on Tuesday and on Thursday afternoon to go to the conference.  And, unlike other years, my district even paid the cost of my admittance: $180!

Like most teachers I don't get to too many great conferences because of the cost to attend.  For example I attended Educon Philadelphia and I, literally, used that as my Christmas and Birthday present.  The bottom line?  Over $1200 for 3 nights lodging, airfare, food, and admittance.  But I'm worth every penny.  Thank you to my wife, son, and daughter for such a thankful gift.

So, why was I willing to shell out $1200 to go to Educon?   The level of conversation, for one, is priceless.  The discussions, both in sessions and before and after the sessions, went from breakfast to midnight each day.  I learned a ton and got to meet people I had wanted to meet face to face for years.

Another, usually unmentioned, cost was the cost the school district had to pay for a substitute for my two days I missed to attend Educon.  And then there was the cost of me not being in class to be with my students.  Even PBL students with a set agenda and a project to work on become normal kids around a substitute.  If the substitute is going to sit and watch movies on his or her laptop my kids aren't going to be motivated to work.

So last week I ended up getting a substitute for Tuesday and I asked teachers, who were on their conference period, to watch my afternoon classes on Thursday.  Only one totally lost day of learning there.  And, since I was driving from home, no real cost for transportation or lodging.  Pretty reasonable.

Tuesday I immediately went to the Lone Star Edubloggercon (LSEBC12) in the Web2.0 area.  I could have gone to this without the full pass (and I did that last year) but it was nice to know that later in the week I could go to a few sessions and I could visit the vendor area with my pass.  But, again, I could have gotten into this area for free.   That's important.

If you notice the picture at the beginning of this post.  It is the schedule of sessions (free) to attend during the day at LSEBC12.  This schedule was put together by Scott Floyd and was done like an Edcamp.  As a matter of fact Scott knew I was coming and had put down a session for PBL (notice the 1:30 time slot) and as I walked into the room he, literally, asked if I wanted to do a session on PBL.  When I said yes he said good thing because he had already put me on the schedule.

The first session in LSEBC12 featured Kevin Honeycutt who I  have known through twitter for years but had never met in person.  He gave a wonderful presentation on encouraging music and got the whole group involved in making music (see my last post).  I learned about some apps that I didn't know about and I found out more about apps that I had heard about but had not played with.

The whole day was like that.  I got to meet people who are active in social media, true, but they are also passionate about many varied educational topics and we could engage in conversations (there's that word again) in a relaxed, open environment.

When I came back on Thursday I had physically missed a day and a half of the conference.  But, really, I had been able to follow the twitter stream and I knew the interesting (and the not so interesting) sessions that had occurred on Wednesday.  I had been involved in conversations with people at the conference and felt connected to the conference without having to be there.

The first place I went on Thursday was the Web2.0 area and I found many of the same faces from Tuesday along with some others who I hadn't been able to meet on Tuesday.  A bonus was that Ben Grey did a session on digital story telling that had a large audience and I could X off another twitter person who I'd always wanted to hear speak and, again, I saw it for free.

When that ended I decided to head to the Vendor area.  What a mistake.  The place was surreal.  People yelling and cheering.  People trying to "scan me."  Hundreds of people sitting in front of boards, looking like used car salesmen, hawking their wares.  It was very unnerving.  I knew of two places that I wanted to see, the Splashtop guys and the Smart IWB people.  The rest of the experience, as I wandered around looking for them, was awful.  And, as I looked at the names of the products there were few that I wasn't familiar with.  I could tell you what was good and what was bad about them just because I'm active on twitter.

In 2012, people don't need to go to vendors to hear their spiel.  I hear about products every day on twitter and I then look at the links of anything that sounds like I might use it and I read for myself.  If I think I might be interested I seek out people on twitter who have used or are currently using this product in their classroom.  Then I send out the information to my fellow teachers to see if any of them might be interested.  Then, depending on cost, I get the product and start using it so I can put out informative tweets so others can see what I think.

As I said earlier, I was looking for two vendors at this conference.  I wanted to see both of them about the same problem.  I was able to find the Splashtop guy but not the Smart people (even though Smart was a major sponsor of the conference.)  He wasn't able to help me, but he wants me to screen shot the problem and send it to him so they can look into it.  I could have gotten that same result by tweeting to @splashtop and telling them my problem but, hey I got to interact with a real human being!

I know that vendors allow us to have conferences in big fancy convention centers.  I know that it's important for people to compare products in one central area.  I know that this is the one chance, each year, for tech folks to get out and see what the latest products are.  I also know I shouldn't be so cynical about the whole experience.  But it is really hard to see all of these salesmen with the same outfits, the same haircuts, and the same sales pitches and not be dismissive of the whole process.  If more people could see the power of twitter and Google + to spread information about products then we wouldn't need these vendor areas.  And, maybe we could have smaller more intimate conferences built around the art of conversation and not the sale of technology.  Next time I'll make sure I pass on the Vendor area.

Maybe 2012 Is The Year

     This morning I opened my laptop and within seconds I was reading a thought-provoking blog post by one of the hundreds of educators I follow on Twitter.  When I clicked on the link I didn't know whether it would be silly, serious, strange, or salient.  But, because it was posted by someone in my circle of "friends" on twitter I clicked that link.  And poof,  I was transported to a learning portal.  


     When I finished reading the post  I went to twitter and tweeted " I love the fact that I can open my laptop 365 days a year and learn things from people here on twitter."  Within seconds a teacher friend from the Dallas area tweeted, " @cfanch i was just thinking the same thing."  And, without leaving my home I could feel like I was sitting in a coffee house discussing the morning news with a friend.


     These people are my friends, my co-workers, my peers, my professors, my students.  They are all of these things separately and all of these things collectively.   I can comment on a post and discuss a topic like I am talking with a co-worker about how we will use it in the classroom.  Then, they can become a subject area expert and I am learning from them as though I am sitting in their classroom.  Without blinking an eye a comment might spark a related topic in which I am the expert.  Back and forth we go teacher becomes learner becomes teacher.


     I have suggested that fellow teachers join me on twitter to no avail.  Yes, there are about 20% of our teachers with a twitter account.  But, I would say that less than half of them are active on twitter.  And, I know of no one who uses it like I do:  for personal and professional growth.


     Maybe this coming year I can get 2 or 3 others to investigate twitter.  Maybe this coming year I can get 1 or 2 to investigate the various "chats" that are so powerful for finding and sharing relevant items of interest.  Maybe this coming year our staff can investigate topics that have been discussed on twitter and which improve what we already are doing in the classroom.  Maybe....(sigh).. but I doubt it.  I've been talking about this for over 4 years and most of them just shake their head and laugh.  But, I refuse to give up.  Maybe 2012 is THE year!

When You Need Insentive

http://www.flickr.com/photos/51035610542@N01/

     I started the night beating myself up because I had written 44 posts this year but it had been over a month since my last post.  I even stated in on Twitter: " Beating myself up for not posting on my blog in over a month. I had 44 posts this year and just ran into a buzz saw called life."   


     That's when Laron Carter (@laroncarter) called me on it with his tweet, "So you're another incredible human surfing the Twitterverse. Bravo! Now write that 300 word post bruh!"  And, here I am writing a post.


     I'm always having teachers asking "Why Twitter?"  They don't get it.  I can give them links to items titled "50 ways to use Twitter in the Classroom," or " Social Media in the Classroom"  and they aren't swayed.  I can give them links to great magazine articles or newspaper articles I read because I saw the link on twitter and they aren't swayed.  I can send them links to insightful blog posts written by people I follow on twitter and they aren't swayed.


     Well, here's an intangible reason to be active on twitter - Instant Motivator.   I have used twitter to give (or receive) encouragement while getting back in shape.  I have used twitter to give (or receive) encouragement with classroom issues.  I have used twitter to give (or receive) encouragement with the loss of a relative or pet.  You get the point.


     When you have hundreds of people who you interact with on a regular basis someone will be having a bad day.  Someone will be grieving.  Someone will be facing an uphill battle that seems insurmountable.  Your PLN will be there for you and you will be there for your PLN.  


     You may never have met some of these wonderful people.  You may never MEET these wonderful people.  But they are there.  And, it may be someone like @laroncarter who gets you off your butt to start working on something that you enjoy doing but just need that push to get back in the saddle.   Twitter isn't just for the sharing of great stuff for the classroom.  It's also for the sharing of motivation.  Now, get off your butt and start doing whatever it is you have been avoiding doing.  You can do it!


NOTE:       Well, sigh...my wife pointed out to me that I, the knucklehead, misspelled Incentive.  And, she pointed out, there might be some English teachers reading this. Well, if I change the title now I'll totally mess up the SEO and Search Crawlers.  She assures me that "everyone" has done that mistake before.  That's why I married her 22 years ago. Sigh...