Facebook profiling

This ties into what I was writing about the other day. A friend of mine mentioned this article about Facebook on, of all places, Facebook. I swear, I read this AFTER I posted about Twitter the other day. If you have the time, or if you spend any time at all on FB, you should read this. It's funny, true and a little embarrassing because we are all probably guilty of doing some of these things at one time or another. This article, and my recent post about Twitter, have really prompted me to think about how innovations cause us to constantly reframe the world. I have been telling my ed. tech. students for years that we (humans) create technology, then technology creates us. My classic example is highways. Highways were created to facilitate faster, smoother commutes from one place to another. Over time people have become dependent on highways, and as the population has grown they are getting more and more crowded. Now, instead of technology working for me, I have to arrange my life around the constraints of the technology (i.e., roads that can't handle the number of cars). Thankfully, I don't live in a city with traffic problems anymore, but that really isn't the point.

The point is, people create technology and technology, in turn, begins to shape us. Some people are dependent on their smart phones. Some people won't speak in public without presentation software. Some people feel compelled to share every minute detail of their lives. The list could go on forever.

Human personality traits have probably not changed all that much in the last 10,000 years. I knew sympathy-baiters and town-criers well before FB or Twitter existed. What's interesting is how a simple little tool -- the ability to write what's on your mind from any place at any time -- has pushed these personality traits to the forefront. Perhaps folks who fall into these categories had other outlets before FB came around. Maybe they were the chronic mass-emailers of the world. But I tend to think that technologies like this have amplified these traits in people that otherwise wouldn't have been labeled in this way.  I used to get relatively few forwarded mass emails before FB, but I receive dozens of FB invitations every day. Who has time for all these games, causes, lil' green patches, farms and mafia warfare? I barely have time to be writing this. And now that Griggs has given these personalities labels, I don't think I will ever see my FB friends in the same way.

This phenomenon is also true of the online teaching I've done. The online environment pushes some personality traits to the forefront that I otherwise wouldn't have noticed. On one hand, it's nice to see a different side of students. I actually get to know my online students pretty well, and a lot of them thrive in the online environment. But I'm also tempted to label students in different ways. And if I can label someone, it makes it easy to dismiss them. I constantly have to resist the urge to label students as ignorant because they misspell everything in the discussions or lazy because they do everything at the last minute. These particular traits aren't really that evident in the classroom environment. I find it ironic that an environment that is, inherently, more private removes some of the hiding places students use in the classroom. While I am able to conduct class in my pajamas from the kitchen, certain aspects of my personality that I can hide in public are suddenly exposed.

Just some thoughts. I'm sure this will come up again. Until then, I will go lurk around on Facebook.

I actually used Twitter today

As an avid TechCrunch reader, I have a history of creating accounts for tools they mention without really thinking about what the tool does or whether I will actually use it. One such tool was Twitter. I honestly cannot remember when I created my Twitter account, but my inaugural tweet was almost a month to the day before my twins were born. I honestly have no memory of writing either of the two tweets recorded in my account, and I don't know why I decided to post a random comment about watching my twins play on the floor in late March of 2008. I have a really good memory, and both of these events, while permanently archived in Twitter, have completely dissolved from my mind. As if this can't get any stranger, I have 22 followers. I'm practically Ashton Kutcher. It's just weird to me that 22 people either saw or searched for my name and clicked the "Follow" button. I'm sure they are very disappointed. I can't say for sure, but I'm pretty confident the lack of activity in Twitter can be attributed to two things: a) I don't have a cool phone that lets me tweet at anytime and any place, and b) I find it kind of obnoxious. (I try not to think that some people actually consider what I do on this blog essentially the same at tweeting.) When I see status updates on Facebook that are obviously from Twitter (e.g., @, #, bit.ly, misspelled words, etc.), I actually get annoyed and don't read what the person actually wrote. More than that, however, is the fact that I don't really have time to read up-to-the-second updates about what people are doing. Do I really care that someone I kind of knew in high school needs more coffee? Personally, I don't feel the need to tell the world that I am sitting at a traffic light or that I just ate too  much for lunch. And I am suddenly feeling the need to confess that the most chronic Twitter addicts in my Facebook network have either been de-friended or hidden. Wow, that feels better.

However, today things changed just ever so slightly. It all started when a web tool I like (Google Calendar) wouldn't load. I tried refreshing several times with no luck. I went to the Google Dashboard, but they don't even have today's date up yet. So, I had to look in the only place I knew would have realtime information on this. And I found out that some people are experiencing the same thing. There is no explanation or clue as to when it be available again, but at least Twitter let me find out that I'm not alone. It seems that this is not affecting everyone, by the way. So, rather than obsessing about this and trying to see if the problem was caused on my end, I could let it rest and get back to work.

Twitter can count this as a score in their favor. I still refuse to tweet, but if a widely-used web page won't work for me I will likely look on Twitter first. This is by no means comparable to the protests in Iran and the subsequent military crackdown, but I did get to experience firsthand the benefits of realtime data. I'm still trying to get my head around the implications this has for children growing up in the 21st Century and how these technologies will shape how they define "news." But it's an interesting thing to think about. And one more thing from curbyalexander @somerandomdude: We're all tired and ready to go home at the end of the day. But thanks for sharing.

And your homework for tonight is ... Facebook?

I've been thinking a lot about this post from Will Richardson. On one hand, I agree with Will. There is tremendous potential in using social media for learning. I have personally had this experience while trying to learn something new, such as CSS, PHP, digital video, guitar riffs, how to clean my lawnmower's carburettor, etc. In most cases, someone else held the key to a problem I was struggling with, and had I not been connected to a large pool of folks with similar interests and extensive knowledge, I would either be stuck in a rut or would have bailed on the whole thing altogether. The distinct characteristic from these learning experiences and those of K-12 (and undergrad, in most cases) students is that I was personally driven to learn something new. Students are personally driven to learn new things as well, but in many cases their personal interests don't align with the learning objectives established by their teachers. So, in the case of this 20-year old University of Missouri student, he probably is learning a lot by engaging in social media. He has probably learned a slew of new terms from the Urban Dictionary. He has learned how to be witty in 140 characters or less. He has learned how to keep tabs on his high school girlfriend. And I wouldn't be surprised if he has not only learned how to get free music from YouTube, but also discovered music he otherwise would have never heard of. The challenge for educators (and professors) is a) to convince this kid that most of these "skills" (minus the stalking) can cross over to his academics and make learning a much more personally rewarding experience, and b) to venture into this scary territory where they relinquish control over the learning environment without drenching it in a cheap, imitation school-scented cologne.

In response to Will's question, I'm not sure the blame for this kid's lack of vision lies with anyone in particular. Perhaps the blame lies with anyone who believes differently and doesn't do anything about it.