Twitter ye not

This time yesterday I searched Twitter Groups to see if anyone had created an Edublog group I could join. I didn't find one. So I created one myself called Edubloggers. If I hadn't done so, it would only have been a matter of time before someone else did. It was very interesting to watch as people joined the group, shared their profiles and blogs, and then began to link to other like-minded people they didn't even know existed. That's the power of the social network. I have made more than 20 new friends on Twitter in the past 24 hours, and the group membership already stands at over 50 members, some of them well established and respected edubloggers.

The along comes AJ Cann to challenge the concept. Alan has created a debate and posted a motion to the effect that 'Twitter groups are unnecessary'. He writes:

Twitter groups are not necessary. The power of Twitter lies in filtering a personal network rather than in preformed groups which you do not have control over. Groups generate unnecessary noise, which is already the biggest problem with Twitter. The power to create temporary ad hoc groups (for conferences or events) already exists in Twitter via hashtags and the search function. Even if you want Twitter groups, Twitter is working on this "feature" as a top priority after stabilization, so it would be better to wait until the official implementation arrives rather than Balkanize the Twitter community with a plethora of Facebook-style groups. Twitter is not Facebook. Ladies and Gentlemen, please vote for this motion by leaving your comments below. Thank you. And yes, I was Chair of the school debating team. Wanna make something of it? ;-)

My response was as follows:

The concept behond Web 2.0 tools (and I assume you believe that Twitter is a part of this spectrum) is that all activities, including groupings, is spontaneous. All you are doing by advocating that Twitter groups are not necessary is imposing a structure upon the social web that should not be imposed. By making a rule (I know it is a proposal) that you 'shouldn't do something' you impose a hierarchical constraint. We want folksonomy not heirarchy. You are right that Twitter is not Facebook. That's why they have different spellings. But both have the same underlying principle that people can connect and communicate using them. That is exactly what Twitter groups can do - and they can boost your following very quickly because all those who group together informally (because they choose to do so) can see those who have a similar interest much more clearly. The group is not pre-formed - it continually forms itself. Don't impose rules on the social web. (Er, and fyi, I'm not the slightest bit scared of ex-chairs of school debating teams). :-D

There have been several responses to Alan's motion, but it's a little like debating whether you should take an apple or an orange to school in your lunchbox to eat before your school debate, isn't it? All social web tools have their own affordances and constraints. Not everyone subscribes to Facebook or Twitter. How many of us like Twitter Grader, or Qwitter for that matter? It's all about personal preferences, but to claim that something is 'not necessary' before it has been tested out is a little premature, I feel. And should we measure the worth of something merely by its utility? Twitter Grader may not be 'necessary', but it can be fun. That's enough of the soapbox from me. What do other people think?

It's only me

Several people have asked why I use the name Timbuckteeth on Twitter, Flickr, Plurk and Slideshare. Others wonder about my use of the blue astronaut picture as my buddy pic. I haven't really answered in full until now, so here it is - my response about my own digital identity. In the light of this, and the excellent Wordle map which Marga Perez created from her analysis of all the tweets at this year's Online Educa Berlin conference, here is my considered response. I hope it resonates with you.

Timbuckteeth is a play on Timbuktu - a city in the African nation of Mali. In ancient times Timbuktu was both an intellectual and spiritual centre and a meeting place for many nomadic tribes and was located at the intersection of two great trade routes. It was quite simply the place to be. For me, writing blogs and tweets, academic papers, poems or fiction, or indeed anything that other people are likely to read (and I have done them all), requires that you are either intellectual or thougthful in your approach, or spiritually aware (and hopefully both). I strive in some way to bring both of these attributes to my writing, whether it is an 8,000 word book chapter, or a 140 character tweet. And like Timbuktu, I want my blogs, tweets and other writings to be places people want to come and visit. Actually, most of this paragraph could be seen as pretentious claptrap - If I'm really honest, I simply want my blogs and tweets to have some 'bite'

That I hope explains the name, but how do I explain the blue astronaut? Blue has always been my favourite colour, and when the buddy pic comes up, it is easily recognisable because it stands out. But that is mere trivia. The image itself is a little more esoteric, yet still holds significance for me - it's all about dates. Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke is involved (the astronaut image is lifted directly from the Kubrick film '2001: A Space Odyssey' - an adaptation from one of Clarke's novels - it's the actor Keir Dullea). So is the concept of satellites. (See the connection yet?) In 1945 Clarke proposed the idea of geosynchronous satellites. His vision was not long in realisation because just over a decade later on 4th October, 1957 the first satellite - Sputnik - was successfully launched, ushering in the global communication revolution. The day, the month and the year of Sputnik are all significant to me. You see, I was born in 1957 (I'm the same age as Sputnik, but we didn't go to school together), and I was married on 4th October (1986). When Arthur C. Clarke died on 19th of March this year, it was a sad day for me, but it was also the day Timbuckteeth was born, and from that moment on my tweeting and flickring and plurking have been done under this identity. Note: On Facebook it's down as 1 January (because he hates birthday cards and wants to put people off the scent).

A lot was discussed around the idea of digital identity at Online Educa Berlin this past week. The important ideas that came from these discussions for me was that digital identity - they way you represent yourself in digital environments, is an extension of some essence of your persona. You digital identity is your vicarious presence in that place where you are unable to be physically embodied, but where your emotional bandwidth can still be fully exploited. Digital identity has elements of your personal life and memories invested in it, and is the way other people online view you, so it should bear some personal significance for you. To borrow from Erving Goffman, digital identity becomes the channel through which you manage your impression and present yourself in everyday (online) life. So Timbuckteeth is a growing part of my digital identity and will be with me for a while yet, because after all.... he's only me.

Splendid bloggers

I was surprised and delighted to hear I had been nominated in two categories for this year's Edublog Awards - the 'Eddies'. I'm not sure exactly how this works, but apparently people post their nominations on their own blogs and fill out a form. These are then collated and posted onto the Edublogger Award site, after which there is a short period of voting and then the winners for each category are announced. There are 16 categories in total, including one for lifetime achievement.

I have been nominated for the best individual blog Eddie, along with several very notable bloggers including Ishmael Pena's ICTlogy blog, Sarah Stewart's Sarah's Musings, Kim Cofino's Always Learning and Newly Ancient (which has now ceased blogging I'm told).

I have also been nominated for the most influential blog post of the year for my Edupunk rant 'Monkey Business', which has received much attention in the form of responses, supplementary blog posts and even a live panel discussion which has since been podcast on James Clay's e-learning stuff. I am in competition here with the likes of Stephen Downes' mammoth post entitled 'The future of e-learning: Ten Years on' (which is actually more like several books chapters) and Jim Groom's 'The Glass Bees' post - also about Edupunk. I don't stand a chance against these guys to be perfectly frank, but it is very gratifying to be cited in the same company as all these splendid bloggers.

So get in there dear blog reader, and vote for your favourites at the Edublog Awards site! (You know you want to!)

Interview with a ...

Just been interviewed by two groups of people, both on video. Cristina Costa did a brief interview with me based on my recent Web 2.0 research and the forthcoming Plymouth e-Learning Conference which can be found at the Pontydysgu site. Also met three lads from the University of Umea in Sweden who pounced on me for some vox pop. You can view that interview here. Getting ready now for my afternoon breakout session at Online Educa Berlin. I will be speaking in the Web81 session, chaired by Dai Griffiths, and shared with Peter Sloep, where I will be talking on 'Learning 2.0: How students are using social software in their learning'.

Official twit

I'm here in Berlin for day two of Online Educa where there are 2064 delegates from 91 countries. After the Germans, the Brits are by far the largest delegate contingent with almost 300 members (hurrah!!) Yesterday was frenetic to say the least. From a very early start to a very late end, concluding with another Edublogger meeting, there was so much to see, do and enjoy. There were several highlights in the day, including a live radio podcast by Pontydysgu team including Graham Attwell and Josie Fraser (who grabbed me for an impromptu interview in front of a few hundred people who were all patiently queuing for their coffee at the break. (pictured above, Josie interviews George Roberts from Oxford Brookes University). Several interesting conversations developed throughout the day, and I seemed to bump into just about everyone I had met previously at other events around the globe over the previous 18 months. Educa is like one massive people aggregator.

One of the best sessions I attended was the breakout session entitled 'MUVEs for the 21st Century', which in some ways was a follow up of last year's session we did as the Second Life team. Chaired by Shirley Williams (Reading University) and presented by a host of stars including Steven Warburton (Kings College London) and Graham Hibbert (Leeds Metropolitan University), it was a tour de force of all the latest activities and research into immersive and virtual learning environments. Themes included design issues, formal and informal learning and digital identity (avatar design). I was roped in to act as 'official twit' for the proceedings, and must have sent around 150 tweets out during the two hour session. I think I lost about a dozen followers as a result (I guess they resented what they considered to be spam) but gained an awful lot more on Twitter.

The evening was capped by the edublogger meeting where we discussed microblogging in all its guises. Issues included the question: Is microblogging eroding people's use of Facebook and other social networking tools, what can and should Twitter be used for, and networking through microblogging. I will say more about today's events when I have had a chance to catch my breath...

Go Wesch young man

Everyone today was impressed by Michael Wesch's keynote speech to the Online Educa Berlin conference this morning. Wesch is considerably younger and more dynamic than I expected. He also comes across as self-effacing and certainly does not play up to his image of mover and shaker of the social media scene. Wesch spoke under the title of 'The Crisis of Significance and the Future of Education'. Wesch is probably best known for his YouTube videos including the oft used and quoted 'The machine is Us/ing Us'. I have used the video myself on several occasions because it says it all - we are teaching the web and in doing so, making knowledge and creating new learning possibilities. This was the theme of Wesch's talk - he regaled us with his hilarious experiences working in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, whilst at the same time convincing us that we are in a time of tension between the old traditional approaches to learning and the new ways students learn today. He quoted YouTube as a classic example of the ever increasingly primacy of user generated content. YouTube has broadcasted more content in the last 6 months, he claimed, than ABC has in 50 years. And all this without having to pay any producers or directors! The new mediascape is creating new possibilities, he said, and if we don't grasp these possibilities, we lose the opportunities.

Wesch set the tone for the conference, and to be fair, although the other speakers would have been fair to middling in any other context, they paled into lesser significance in comparison to Michael Wesch's masterly performance. As I write this blog sat in the Marlene Bar, I can hear people around me still enthusiastically discussing his ideas. I'm off now to sit in a breakout session to see what else I can learn that will inspire me today...

.. And now a word from our sponsors

It's bitterly cold here in Berlin, but the snow has gone from the ground and the skies here today are a clear pale blue. I'm sat in the Marlene Bar of the Hotel Intercontinental just before the start of day one of the Online Educa Berlin conference. After wading my way through a couple of dozen German policemen, I made my way into the main reception of the conference...

The first thing you notice about Educa, is that it is shamelessly commercial. Most of the space of this huge event is taken up with exhibition and vendor stands, more than 120, and everyone, it seems is trying to flog you something. I have just opened my delegate pack and out popped no fewer than 19 flyers and brochures from sponsors, around an inch thick. They are discarded on the side without me reading any of them - oh woe to the rain forests! Oh, and this wireless link is brought to you courtesy of Adobe....

Last night I spent a very enjoyable hour or so with some of the more notorious Edubloggers including Josie Fraser, David White, Dirk Steiglitz, Graham Attwell and George Roberts. We chewed the fat over the future (or not) of VLEs, residents and visitors, social software and German caberet. Yep, we aren't completely boring.

I will report back on some of the sessions here today and tomorrow as they take place and try to bring you some interesting images from the event. There is also at least one Twemes site hosting images, tweets and blog postings for the event. For now, I'm off to try and avoid the vendor stands and find the sessions.