I have had a number of questions in the past couple of weeks from my Facebook friends who are trying to figure out what in the world I’m saying in some of my Facebook posts. I’ve considered posting a message in FB to explain, but decided to blog about it instead in case any of my vast audience is interested. OK, maybe there are only about 5 of you, but you are important to me. Then I will tweet a link to the new post so you can see how it works.

“Wait…what’s tweet a link” you say? Oops…there I go making up words again! Yes, the title of this post is one of the questions I have received, but here is the one I received from a friend this morning that prompted me to action:

“Can you explain exactly what ‘RT @paulawhite’ is? Is it a way to give credit for what you are posting?”

And the answer is:

I have my Twitter account and my Facebook account tied together, so every time I post to Twitter, the post is automatically re-posted on FB. That way I don’t have to post it in both places to get the info to my different networks of friends. So what I’m really using is Twitter shorthand.

Since users only have 140 characters to post a message in Twitter, shorthand is very important. When you want to send a message to another Twitter user’s attention, or to give them credit when you share something you got from them with your own network, you put the @ before their username. On Twitter, each post is called a “tweet”. To send someone else’s tweet out to your followers is called a “retweet”, shortened to RT.

So “RT @paulawhite” means “retweet from user paulawhite”, or “I got this great information from a tweet by Paula White, and I want to share it with my friends, too”, leaving me onlly 39 characters to send her message…not nearly enough.

Why would I want to send the tweet if Paula already did? See…only the people who follow Paula on Twitter get her message. Some of the people who follow me also follow Paula, but not all of them. I think her message is worth passing along, so I will retweet to my Twitter followers and Facebook friends, and some of them may decide to do the same with their followers and friends.

Thus, as my friend David Jakes would say…”the network wins again!” Translated to Tweetspeak: RT @djakes “The network wins again!”

OK, I admit it…I’m not sure Tweetspeak is a word.

Sheryl first commented on how much technology has changed even in the year since she was here at Tech Forum SW 07.

She used the Cisco clip “Welcome to the Human Network” as the theme for the keynote.  “We drag and drop people wherever they want to go’.

Are we ready for 21st century learning?  We are 8 years into it.  She is the 3rd year of a Microsoft Partners In Learning grant in Alabama.  Sheryl picked 10 of their best schools…went looking for “where they are” getting ready to begin the 4th year of the grant.  She found the teacher excited and using the technology.  The kids, not so much…they were still watching, not participating.

Sheryl talked to the kids, and asked these 2 questions:

• What teacher stood out to you, and what was the lesson you walked away knowing you had really learned?
  • Teachers with passion
  • Teachers with competency
  • Teachers who allowed students personal choice.
  • Teachers who care.
• What is the worst teacher, lesson, experience in your learning?
  • Teachers who give nothing but notes
  • Quotes to Sheryl from students:
    • “I’m a teenager…I don’t like to read…if you give me 20 pages of notes, I’m going to skim it, plug in the words, not learn it.”
    • “I want lessons with purpose so I can retain it.”
    • From a 4th grader: “You know the word teacher, it has the word ‘teach’ in it”.

Participatory Culture-Henry Jenkins

1. Relatively low barriers for engagement
2. Strong support for sharing creations with others
3. Informal mentorship
4. Members believe their contributions matter.
5. Care about others’ opinions of self & work.

2 years ago…were kids producers of content?

Clay Shirky…Here Comes Everybody: Four stages to mastering the connected world:

• sharing,
• cooperating,
• collaborating, and
• collective action.

The magic happens when the kids collaborate.  Students publish their work and even share with other groups, but what happens when someone from around the world comments on their work?  We have then moved from cooperation to collaboration.

Trend 1-Social and intellectual capital are the new economic values in the world economy.

If we are going to prepare kids for their “right now”, we must make these shifts.  Are we teaching kids to be good digital citizens–to use the tools they are already using responsibly?

Moving from mandated accountability to mutual accountability:

“By the year 2011 80% of all Fortune 500 companies will be using immersive worlds” –Gartner Vice President Jackie Fenn

“Learning to be creates passion.” –Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach

“Schools are only one node on the network of learning.” –Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach

When we were in school, learning stopped an started at the schoolhouse door…today, learning can take place any place and anywhere.  We have done a great job of preparing kids for the present…the rules have not been created yet for preparing them for the future.

Sheryl shared the following example of true collective action:

Laura Stockman-share, connect, collaborate, collective action.  Laura was a 10 year old who created a blog when her grandfather died called 25 days to make a difference.  She wanted to do and record 25 days of good deeds.     It became an international project, and is still ongoing, almost 2 years later.  WOW!!!!!

Types of communities:

• place
• memory
• interest or passion

Personal Learning Networks

Community–in and out of the classroom

Are you “clickable”-Are your students?

Moving from classroom metaphor to community metaphor.

“They come to you with a chip in their head anyway!”  Tony Wagner-The Global Achievement

Learning Ecology:  http:/www.elearnspace.org/Articles/google_whitepaper.pdf

The tools are not the point…becoming a participatory culture using the tools is the point.

In the I knew this, but it really hit me when she said it department:

“We are the last generation of teachers who have the choice whether or not to embrace technology.”