I thought I'd share some of my love for the great books I've been reading lately (and further back), in a semi-occasional book review.
The first one up comes from someone who, over the years, has become a strong online friend, despite the fact that we've only ever met a half dozen times at various random cities across Europe. He was one of a merry gang who helped change my life, too, back in Copenhagen in 2007 when he and Mrrs Moore and Semple suggested that I should set up my own company.
Antony's premise then was that the things we were doing online as an added extra created enough value, eventually, to employ them in the centre of everything we do.
His new book, Me and My Web Shadow: How to Manage Your Reputation Online
Antony set about writing Me And My Web Shadow to help inform the kind of person "who doesn't quite get Twitter yet", or who thinks privacy issues on Facebook are a good enough reason to avoid it. It was for his wife, amongst many others. It's pitched in the kind of way that wouldn't patronise a proficient user of social media but which is also accessible to newbies. If there were a French translation I might even purchase a copy for my mother-in-law, to help her understand the grey areas between private and public, friends and Friends.
Despite having risen through the ranks of PR to a Senior Vice President position at iCrossing, the world's biggest SEO company, he talks his reader through privacy and openness in a blog-like, non-corporate, friendly way. This book reads for itself, combining practical tips and examples of people getting it right (and wrong), along with some Thinking Man's theory of why all this is so.
And his tone of voice means that Me And My Web Shadow is the ideal starter book and reference tool for people both in education and in the corporate world. It's a tough balance to strike, and Antony's nailed it.
If you want to provide some quick, light, intelligent reading to parents or colleagues who don't quite get all this malarky yet, then Me and My Web Shadow (UK)
Follow the book on Twitter or, if you prefer humans, Antony himself.
Me And My Web Shadow: How To Manage Your Online Reputation is launched May 15th in the US Store: reserve your copy now in my book store.
edinburghmsc: via @jar: 19 May, UK seminar on Improving Assessment and Feedback Practices in Tech-Enhanced L&T Environments http://bit.ly/9ph97i
edinburghmsc: via @suchprettyeyes: RT @doggyb: Details of 3rd Digital Cultures Workshop here: http://bit.ly/9KSdJH Deadline for submissions 31 May 2010
edinburghmsc: via @flittleton: RT @henryjenkins: Podcast version of my farewell address Sat 24th April at MIT http://bit.ly/a80fJT
edinburghmsc: via @sbayne: A Critical View of Identity and Subjectivity in New Virtual Learning Spaces. Special journal issue. http://bit.ly/bw8Dc9
BBC news journalists have been told to use social media as a primary source of information by Peter Horrocks, the new director of BBC Global News who took over last week. He said it was important for editorial staff to make better use of social media and become more collaborative in producing stories.
"This isn't just a kind of fad from someone who's an enthusiast of technology. I'm afraid you're not doing your job if you can't do those things. It's not discretionary", he is quoted as saying in the BBC in-house weekly Ariel.
Our country's spies and spooks are also under pressure to learn how to use, publish and research on these tools, too. Presumably that means that schools teaching youngsters English, politics, geography and history are doing them a disservice if they don't teach them how to write for the real world, social networks and all. What's your school doing to teach writing and research in the real world, as arguably the world's greatest broadcaster and news provider sees it?
Pic from Luc
This Wednesday, April 21, I'll be hosting the second of my GETinsight Office Hours, this time taking some of the inspiration from Game-Based Learning Conference in London and exploring how leaders might approach supporting colleagues in schools in some of the most exciting learning going on these days. The session is at 12 noon/PST; 3:00 p.m./EST; 8:00 p.m. GMT), and you should register your interest beforehand.
Why bother?
The last event we had was small and beautifully formed - and the participants got a great deal out of it, me included. The discussion is of a high level, with people informed from their personal experience or perhaps just popping in for the first time on a particular subject, using my blog post as a starting block.
What time?
If you're wanting some East coast US lunchtime professional development, some after-school discussion on the East Coast, or post-dinner rants in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, please join us to share your own strategies, findings, great stories from the classroom, and importantly let us know what the barriers to innovation in your classroom might be and what leaders could do to make more game-based learning happen.
How do I join in?Register your interest now. This takes only a couple of minutes. At the time of the event make sure that you are near a mobile or landline telephone, as this is as hi-tech as things need to be - you'll be called back so you can take part and pose your questions to me and other participants. The computer will let you see the chat and any web links participants share.
Try to join the chat a few minutes before the conference starts and make sure you share your name and location with me in the chatroom so that I can bring you in on the discussion.
Hope to see you there!
edinburghmsc: via @jar: RT @suchprettyeyes: My prezi on social media and metadata, "I Buzz Therefore I Am" is here: http://bit.ly/cbZHbF
edinburghmsc: via @flittleton: MSc students might like to complete the "Taught Postgraduate Experience Survey" run by UoE and HEA. https://www.survey.ed.a
David Randall's epic journey from Italy back home to England worked where thousands have failed because he believed in doing two things:
There is no moral to this story other than this: keep moving in the right direction and talk to people.
In the last three days of traveling the country the slow way, in 19th Century transport where my 20th Century wings have been forced to nest-down at sea level, I've found that the transport is not the only thing that has changed. People have talked more to each other than they ever do, stone-faced in airport departure lounges, sharpening their elbows to get to the boarding gate before anyone else, claiming under-threes as their own so that they can jump the queue and get a precious aisle-window seat.
When people travel by train when they didn't expect to, en masse, something happens to their relationship with each other.
When we travel slow, we have the opportunity to take it in, talk about the journey, for sure, but also discover that the woman next to you is part of a group of 30 over-70s taking the train from Aberdeen to London to perform their keep-fit dance routine at the Royal Albert Hall, something they do every five years, that the man in the aisle, who's been standing for three hours already and will be standing for three hours more, is trying to get home from the north of Scotland to his home in Brittany, because he's got a flight out of Nantes Sunday morning to head on his Easter vacation (and how little the oil industry actually looks after its employees when they're stuck at the end of their shift).
All this has got me thinking that I might start adopting (and encouraging others to adopt) a more 19th Century approach to collaborative working and communication. I already hold most business meetings in cafés, so I'm part way there. But they key is talking to random strangers sharing a similar experience in order that new connections can be made, stories shared.
But imagine if learning could learn to slow down a little. Fewer (or no) tests we have to meet (like unpredictable timetables and trains to new, uncharted destinations), and more talking to strangers who might be interesting, useful (or might not, and necessitate some diplomatic manoeuvrings onto the next conversation).
The last time this volcano erupted it kept going for two years. I'd have to change my business plan if it did, but I'd probably embrace the ash as a means to talk to more folk and learn something new. Would learning change its business plan, too?
Pic from Grapevine's Julia Staples.
edinburghmsc: via @claraoshea: Open online course (no fee) begins April 19, 2010 http://tinyurl.com/y3fozv3