Digital House of Mirrors

The digital house of mirrors we all live in.

It's early days, ECOO isn't until next October, and I'm reticent to say what I'm going to present on months ahead of time.  The digital learning landscape can change quite significantly in eight months.

My previous ECOO presentations have followed an interesting arc, from philosophy to specific action.  My first go with Dancing in the Datasphere talked about fundamental changes happening to us as we transition to a data driven world.  The mini-lab followed a year later, the idea there being that we diversify technology in order to develop true digital fluency in students.  Last year the final step was to work toward a digital skills continuum.  Only by integrating a developing skill set into curriculum will we begin producing students who have the technical skills necessary to survive and thrive in the digital age.

That trajectory, no doubt pushed by my transition to computer studies from English, had me looking at developing greater student familiarity with computing tools because I see a great deal of ignorance in the 'digital natives' I'm teaching every day, but that focus was technically biased.

For those of us who have lived as adults through the last twenty years of technological revolution, we sometimes forget where we've come from because we're so engrossed with where we are.  For ECOO this time round I'm thinking about what technology is demanding of us as people. Our selves are being stretched and amplified in ways they never have before.  Nick Carr's The Shallows puts us on a pretty stark trajectory towards idiocy with what is happening to us.  The digitization of the self stretches us flat, making continuity of thought impossible and turning us all into distracted, simplistic cogs in a consumerist machine designed to turn us all into the lowest common denominator; none of us any smarter than our smartphones.

With the advent of social media we suddenly find ourselves existing in multiple places at once.  Our self is no longer geographically focused.  Our influence spreads across the internet. We are able to affect change in people and places formerly unconnected to us.  The people we communicate with (albeit in a minimalist way) are far flung and many.  The people we spend deep, attentive time with are fewer and diminished.  

Our digital selves are perceived in many different ways.  The aforementioned digital native tends to not differentiate between online and real world action.  They often consider social media as just another conversation they are having, and are then shocked when something said publicly is responded to by the public.  The generation of kids (our students) growing up in this ongoing social experiment never look at privacy settings, have little idea of the differences between social networks and tend to broadcast online what is on their minds in much the same way they would while hanging out with friends.  The veil between the physical and the digital, between public and private is all but non existent to them.  

Digital Footprints & Always On Teacher Faces

A more professional approach to managing the online self is to adopt marketing theory and develop your online brand.  Companies and celebrities approach social media in this manner, often using marketing firms to manage and run their social media presence.  I can't help but think that this lack of genuine presence games the system and ultimately fails.  It's exhausting to maintain if  you can't hire marketing monkeys to run it for you, and ultimately, it's fake.  I'd much rather read my favourite author's tweets from his own fingers than follow what someone trying to sell me something thinks I should be seeing.  Many teachers fall into this trap when tentatively stepping into online presences.  Spending your weeknights and weekends being mister or missus Teacher is nothing more than working all the time, forever.

The Cult of Done

If there is a positive future to a digitally enhanced self I'd hope it is through a genuine sense of self expression.  We should be aware of what the tools are and how they work, and then we should use them to empower our access to information, our ability to mine deeply into details, to collaborate and develop community, to share our own creativity, interests and sense of discovery.  The technology should not only allow us to do these things, it should be pushing us to maximize our effectiveness as thinkers and doers.  Any technology that produces distracted idiots will doom the people using it.  Evolution should still be eliminating the irrelevant, even in the digital realm.

It's early days in this sea change of how we deal with a digitally enhanced self.  In the future the hybrid intelligence of a digitized human will evolve toward a higher order of effectiveness.  Those made useless by digital tools will, much like those weakened by an inability to read, become marginalized.  Those able to harness information literacy will enjoy those advantages.  Those who ignore it will find themselves increasingly unable to compete.

What that effective digital self looks like in students, in teachers, in people in general is where I'm currently thinking about pushing my research this year. How we adapt to these changes now will establish effective habits as the technology rapidly spins out of its infancy and into maturity.  There is no better time to consider what a digitally enhanced human being should look like than now, when we're in the process of inventing the very idea.

The idea of Web3.0, or intelligent/self organizing information suggests that the future of digitized humanity will inherently push toward greater effectiveness.  The opportunity to be passive or stupid in a digital context will actually work against what the data wants to do for you; you'll learn in spite of yourself, you'll know what you need to know when you need to know it - the data itself will ensure this.  It would be interesting to show the evolution of digital humanity over the past three decades, and where it might be going in the next twenty years.

The era of stupid/passive information is ending. The people that it has created will have to adapt to technology that demands more of them, or risk being made irrelevant by it.

Digital Footprint 2.0

SOURCES

The source(s) of this post (and a good example of the richness of thinking you can get out of an online PLN):

@MzMollyTL's Digital Footprint discussion from ECOO last year that stirred up the new teachers in my AQ.

@melaniemcbride's comment on the sweatshop mentality of the always on teacher:

https://twitter.com/melaniemcbride/status/230841214180683779

@dougpete's blog on edublogging:
http://dougpete.wordpress.com/2012/08/03/this-week-in-ontario-edublogs-27/

...which led to some interesting questions about online presence:
http://dougpete.wordpress.com/2012/08/05/dont-hurt-yourself-with-social-media/

Phew!  That is a lot of build up!  Here I go...

DIGITAL FOOTPRINT 2.0

I think we're ready for an evolution in what our expectations are around this.  Diana's original presentation suggested that teachers need to familiarize themselves with online media, and that is still true.  However, since that presentation there have been political upheavals supported by social media, underground poltical movements powered by social media, and I'm currently watching the  'Twitter Olympics': the first really social media powered Olympic games.  Even the forth estate is grudgingly trying to manage the tidal wave of social media.  Merely familiarizing yourself isn't going to cut it anymore.  Ignoring it will make you irrelevant to your students with astonishing speed.

Social media is becoming mainstream and there are increasing expectations that people know how to use it.  Only in extremely staid, conservative situations (educational administration) is social media being shunned.  Even the very conservative family reunion I attended recently wanted to start making use of social media to keep in touch, and these were people who play banjos.  Social media is becoming ubiquitous, even unhooking the Ontario government's ability to manipulate media into justifying its agenda.  This is a powerful force, not something to be trifled with or poked at tentatively.  If you're going to do it, do it honestly, and be yourself.  You'll find the ability to expand your interests online empowering if you don't try and game it.

POCKET NETWORKS

The social networks we see spring up like mushrooms in the rain are being prompted by the miniaturization of computer hardware.  Smartphones are increasingly common, and since 2010, the vast majority of 'phone' use has been in data, not voice.  We use our mobile computers as interconnected computers, not as phones.  Our students do it, we do it, even boomers are doing it.  Like the telegraph, then the telephone after it, this is a revolution in how we communicate with each other, and almost everyone is carrying around the means in their pockets.

Our classrooms have more processing power in the pockets of students than desktop labs did ten years ago.  Their ability to communicate is unparalleled in history, and disregards geography like no other telecommunications system before it.  Just hoping that everyone considers doing something with their online presence is no longer enough, and ignoring or banning the hardware that is causing this is turning a blind eye to a profound shift in social communications.  Schools that ban smartphones should be banning other new inventions, like electricity, telephones, televisions... which very quickly starts to look backward.

GENUINE ONLINE PRESENCE

Being online offers you an opportunity to be anonymous, but this requires a great deal of work on your part.  The nature of the internet means you're always leaving digital bread crumbs about how and where you're communicating from.  Anti-web types will use this as an excuse to harp on privacy issues, but when have we ever been able to communicate privately?  Gossip has always been and always will, and what you say has always followed you, it just follows you in an amplified manner now.  Social media allows you to broadcast gossip.  If you were a gossip before, you're a digitally enhanced gossip now.  It's never been more important to be the best person you are in public; there is a record now, and I've seen students constantly bitten by this as their Facebook updates land them in the VP's office.

Trying to be someone else is exhausting!

The genuine self as an online presence offers an opportunity to meet others beyond your geographic situation that share your interests.  You quickly find yourself a part of an online community that reflects your predilections and offers you a sense of collaborative discourse that might be missing in your workplace, or your immediate geography.  If you're genuine in expressing your interests, you'll create a genuinely satisfying social media ecosystem.  If you fabricate yourself, or limit yourself to specific identities (your teacher self comes to mind here), you won't be exploring the actual usefulness of this new medium.

The other advantage of being genuine online is that you attract meaningful dialogue.  If you're one dimensional, you tend to attract n00bs, marketing interests and bots (who are also one dimensional).  If you're genuine and human in your presentation of self, you'll attract a richer class of connection, one that offers powerful insights regardless of where you are in relation to each other on the planet.  You're harnessing the true potential of social media when you are multi-dimensional and human in your approach to it.

Developing a digital footprint is no longer about simply participating, or creating a cardboard cutout of your professional self, it's about honestly expressing your own views in a genuine manner.  The myriad of apps and means of communicating in a social network allow you to express yourself in simple (twitter), complex (blog) or focused interests (Google+, Facebook) ways.  Knowing how to use the tools effectively is key.

If you're fabricating a professional appearance, well, that's just work, and doing it all summer, 24/7 is not going to do you any real good.  Ultimately, you're doing an awful lot of work and not exploring this new medium effectively, probably because you're scared of it.

School Leadership 2.0

Several school administrators made comments in Doug's blog about the need for restraint.  In a leadership role, you're not free to fly off the handle whenever you have an opinion.  You always need to consider the working relationship you have to foster.  Having said that, George's comment about social media being a useful tool in fostering a team based on real knowledge of each other suggests that social media can be a means of allowing people who might not otherwise to know each other better.

The tendency has been for management (union, board, ministry, and any other ed-based management you can suggest) to shy away from social media.  They fear the de-centralization of power, and see it as a threat to their dominance.  It's nice to know some administrators are fighting this tendency, but I've heard of many more who don't hire the best candidates because their online presence creates unease, and in worst cases not considering hiring a teacher at all because they are familiar with the social web that most students spend their lives in.  Why they think that hiring belligerent, intentionally irrelevant teachers is a good idea is beyond me.

What I love about social media is that it is democratizing information.  No longer do we have to succumb to the broadcast media's idea of what is true.  Twitter told me about Bin Laden hours before broadcast media would, or could.  As a social media-ist, I'm responsible for vetting my own information feed, and broadcasting my own truth.  As both a leader, and a professional, this means not being a jackass, but being a meaningful social mediaist requires this from the get go.  If you're going to do social media well, being a gossip, spreading untruths, will eventually turn the crowd on you.  Generating drama and controlling spin doesn't work very well in a democratized information medium; the truth just bypasses you.

Social media is an opportunity to build a more ideal information medium, one without favoritism or fabrication, one that does not favor the status quo in order to maintain it; the crowdsourced truth is dangerously unmanageable... and free from spin.  

As a member of that tribe I try not to let invective and one-up-man-ship dictate my actions, I try to be collaboratively engaging.  This isn't contrary to any professional or leadership role I may have; in fact, it should enhance those roles.  When you broadcast your actions, it behooves you to it well.

CONCLUSION: THE REVOLUTION IS HAPPENING, REGARDLESS

The social media revolution has harnessed mobile electronics and the internet to produce a democratized media frenzy.  Old-school, forth estate media is floundering, trying to manage their loss of broadcasting monopoly, but still seeing it as an immanent threat.  Other power structures are also frustrated by this decentralization of voice.  Where once a hierarchy could dictate the message, now social media swirls around these old-school broadcasting roadblocks.  

Unions are watching members broadcast their opinions directly, without being able to dictate a unified response.  Governments and corporations are finding that the dictatorial control they once had over traditional media is weakening, because traditional media matters less.  As social media responses bypass traditional censorship, we once again see the many assert their power.

There is no doubt that these changes will force a fundamental shift in how we work with each other.  This kind of radical, data driven transparency gives control freaks a nervous breakdown, but in the end, I can't believe that freeing the signal from the self-involved interests of the powerful isn't better for everyone; that it will result in fairer, transparent, more effective organizations.

As educators, we have to try and get a grip on this ourselves, and then be ready to try and (usefully) assist our students in effectively navigating this exciting, historical change.  It's no longer enough to pay some attention to what your digital footprint is.  It's no longer enough to do the minimum necessary.  If we're going to teach future generations how to survive in the rough sea of democratized data we've made for them, we need to adapt and master the waves ourselves.

A relevant educator is recognizing the radical nature of these changes and is doing their best to create a genuine online persona, one that accurately reflects the public persona they demonstrate in their physical life.  What's private isn't at issue here, but our public selves are changing, and it doesn't do anyone any good to try and game social media by making cardboard cutouts of themselves online.


Some things to consider:
Dancing in the Datasphere: a philosophical look at where we are going
The Singularity: an inside look at what Silicon Valley believes is coming

Don't kid yourself, you're living in the middle of a revolution!

ECOO germination

Whole responses on each to follow, but right now here's what the ECOO 2011 Conference germinated for me:

• thanks to a question during my Dancing in the Datasphere presentation (which almost 500 people have viewed now!): "has anyone thought though this from a how it harms the students perspective?  Or are we all just rushing to ipad up each child?"

I'm now going to research into how tablet displays affect people, especially children, after long term use...

http://www.computer-realm.net/ereaders-vs-tablets/

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20009738-1/kindle-vs-nook-vs-ipad-which-e-book-reader-should-you-buy/

http://www.bit-101.com/blog/?p=2722

If using these devices is physiologically hurting children, then people need to settle down on the 'ipad is our savior' angle and start pushing for a healthier alternative; I know Apple (and others) will deliver.

The ipad at high magnification:

ereader at high magnification:

Late night screen time with children.

We need to pay attention to what long term screen use does to children... especially if we're going to push for it on a one screen per child basis, which most people at ECOO seemed to be longing for.  Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge screen geek, we have no less than... 9 screens in our house, but some intelligent analysis can guide us to best use policies with this stuff.

There is a solution to this, but not if we think the ipad is the second coming. A tablet with a screen that can alternate between the benefits of a tablet touch screen and an e-ink screen for ease of reading on the eyes is what we should be demanding in education; if we care about the health of our students.

• The mini-lab still has a lot of interest behind it.  If we're going to de-centralize school board IT access, this is a great first step that puts digital literacy back in the hands on teachers.  We need to reclaim digital literacy if we're going to own and direct it in the future.

• Diana M's digital footprint seminar provoked a great deal of discussion.  Someone said that they aren't going to give the internet to lunatics and perverts in Royan and Zoe's seminar on a similar subject, and I'm all in with her.  Fear will not guide us in developing coherent digital pedagogy; something I think we need to seriously develop if we're going to meaningfully adopt social media in a useful manner.

• The idea of decentralizing school teaching and using technology to adopt student focused and driven learning is divine.  But we're never going to have it mean anything if the ministry keeps mandating standardized testing and the strictly adhered to curriculums that feed into that testing.  Finland, the number one school system in the world, doesn't use standardized testing but sets very high standards for its teachers.  Until we do the same, we're going to stay stuck in third place looking for ways to cheat test results rather than teach students meaningfully.

I've still got a lot of ideas swirling around.  More will pop free as the weekend opens up my mind.