PLENK2010 - Personal Learning Environments

Stephen Downes, George, Siemens, Dave Cormier, and Rita Kop are conducting a "course" in September that may interest you...it certainly interests me!

It's an experience centered around Personal Learning Environments Networks and Knowledge (PLENK); it's for the serious learner, from what I gather...and if my guess is right as to the reach of the participants, it's likely to result in some significant advancement and awareness of PLNs.

For information on how it works and what it's all about, start here. If it works for you, I'll see you there. I'll blog here through the experience; if you do, remember to include the hastag #PLENK2010 in whatever you create.

Finding Fellow Tweeters

Whether you are interested in e-learning or little league baseball, there are people out there who want to talk to you...whether you know it or not. Fortunately, there are some tools that will help you find each other so you can wile away the wee hours talking about things that nobody outside your virtual circles could quite possibly be interested in.

Here are some of the tools that bring like-minded Tweeters together:

Twellow - one of my personal favorites, this tool quickly returns lists based on location, industry, and keyword search, and lets you follow with a click. While I haven't personally used it for prospecting, it looks promising for that purpose.

Nearby Tweets - lets you find Tweeple near you...or anywhere really.

TwitterPacks - find Twitter groups by interest.

TwitterLocal - an Adobe AIR application that lets you filter tweets by location.

TweetMondo - cool visual application with a map (I like gadgety stuff)

ChirpCity - city-specific tweets and tweeple...good for a quick peak at the local twittersphere

Local Tweeps - find and get found

Another great way to find other Tweeters is by the conversation.

TweetChat - lets you follow any conversation by its hash tag.

Tweetbeep - gives you Twitter alerts by e-mail when conversations mention you, your company, your products...or anything else; so if you're tracking a hot topic, like "spot learning", you can find out who else is talking about it...quickly.

Where'd I Put My Brain?

Wouldn't it be nice to have a spare brain? What if your phone could take pictures or record audio and you could search either anytime you wanted to remember something...making a computer function as a memory capture and organization device?

Well, check out Evernote:



Here's a nice article that gives a quick overview...but let's think beyond that to the implications for learning:

• One of the best ways to trigger memory is through activation of episodic memory, which has to do with place (either virtual or real);
• All kinds of memory can be triggered by episodes.
• Generally, up to 80% of what we learn is captured visually.
• Generally, another 10-15% of what we learn is captured through hearing.

Hmmm...I really do need an iPhone. I wonder if, as people get older if it might be considered a medical device to assist with memory. "There's an app for that:" it's called Evernote.

The Ultimate Mashup

If you wonder where I've been the past few days ...and what happened to my post-a-day plan, well I've been Twitterized. I have been learning everything I can about Twitter and I've found that there is a quantum growth effect occurring. There is so much data on Twitter that it has become a destination of choice for all sorts of opportunists. Over the past few days, we've even seen Twitter become a vehicle for malware attacks.

But what is most intriguing isn't that those seeking to exploit are showing up; it's what is being done for good with the data. "Data?" you say. "I thought Twitter was social media." No, Twitter is a social engine. Consider what Clay Shirkey had to say at Ted recently:

Shirkey is the author of the book "Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations."

Clay makes a really important point in the video. Innovation really begins after we learn to use the tools and stop being enamored with them. The same is true of design. Some of you remember the early days of PageMaker. Remember when non-designers first got their hands on multiple fonts? Been there; got the t-shirt. You know, like when you got your first credit card and couldn't stop using all that free money--same thing as the bailout, only smaller and more personally painful (we hope).

Clay goes on to identify four key (revolutionary) events in the history of media: the invention of the printing press; telegraph & telephone; recorded media (photos, sound, and movies); television and radio. The irony is that the Internet on a whole is a sort of mashup of these technologies....and now we're mashing the mashup. The result is that we now have these dynamic ways to have real-time conversations irrespective of place.

The next wave is real-time collaboration. We have seen a number of incremental steps in this direction: file sharing, content management systems, real-time document collaboration, and the new kid in the collaboration hash: Google Wave. In my opinion, this (paradigm) will change everything.

A Formula for Innovation

Whenever you're up against a tough problem, whether you're designing visual information, social networks, or interactive learning, you'll find that these simple rules apply universally:

1. Don't fall in love with the technology...it's just a tool and someday you'll move on.
2. Don't fall in love with a single design. Everything has a time and a place.
3. Spend quality brain energy looking at the problem and be sure you understand it; validate that with others.
4. Ask others for input on how to solve the problem.
5. Listen intently. Ask questions as needed.
6. Make sure you hear what people are saying (listen for the patterns).
7. Put it all out of your mind long enough to take a nap.

I'm a firm believer that our brain organizes the stuff in our heads while we sleep. If you let me "sleep on it," oftimes, I can give you an answer in the morning. (If you followed the last link, do you see the irony? Meatloaf's micro-opera was all about a social contract.)

Problem solving and innovation are highly relevant to the conversation. They are the new social skills that we must bring to the table. We are, suddenly thrust into a world where our abilities matter more than our pedigree, our social status, our funding, or our location. It is here. We are used to it. Adapt.

The Twitter Social Engine doesn't need all of its parts to move for new realities to be effected. As these diagrams illustrate, there are many ways to look at the Twitterverse.

Today, about 17 minutes after it was first reported, I knew that Michael Jackson had been taken to the hospital. That's the viral effect of Twitter. Within a few more minutes, I saw the first tweet that he had died of cardiac arrest...then it snowed RTs. I probably knew before my local news station did. Real-time, in-your-face pop culture.

Now, I've never had star fever, so it matters less to me that Michael Jackson died today than if I learned that my neighbor's mean dog got out. One has immediate relevance. The difference is, unless one of my neighbors tweets it, I may not know about the mean dog's escape until I go outside.

Twitter is a sleeping giant. We are at a crucial juncture, when the novelty is wearing off and the wolfs are beginning to circle. Data is valuable and powerful, but it can be used for good or for evil.

Choose wisely.

Social Linkage

You may have encountered the interesting little list of blog links at the bottom of someone elses' blog and thought to yourself "that's cool...how do I do it?"

Quite simply, the Add This! API is all you need...and here are the details you need to do it: http://www.addthis.com/help/api-spec.

There are other options too, such as http://www.addtoany.com/buttons/.

Implications for spot learning include the opportunity to help content go viral.

One more tip: If you're just getting started with a brand, you may want to use NameChk to verify if your brand name is already taken in the most viable social networks.

What should you Tweet?

If you're asking yourself "What should I tweet?," this might be the clip to watch.

Tim O'Reilly, co-author (with Sarah Milstein) of "The Twitter Book" talks about the social implications of Twitter.

This is good for newbies, particularly...and those who are interested in the social value of Twitter.

Key Take-Away: "Create more value than you capture."