Hintonblogger

My previous post and Will Richardson's recent post about "Network Learning Practice" has fueled some thinking about how I manage the sources of learning I use. The other significant factor has been through my experimenting with a wide variety of social/learning networks that are out there. I have accounts/pages on Facebook, Linked-In, Ning (through the Classroom 2.0 ning group), and others I'm sure I've forgotten. I understand the concept of being apart of "like" groups of people or for searching out or staying in contact with people. What I have failed to "get" until now is ""Twitter". I just didn't get it, I probably still don't entirely, but there is some understanding where there wasn't any before.

When my brother, a software developer and information connoisseur, and I were discussing Twitter, his comment (which I agreed with at the time) was that it was just "noise", as in non-useful information. But now I understand that Twitter really isn't about noise, or status updates, or incessant "Tweets" about the smallest little things. It is about a dialogue with "your network", about creating a conversation and recording it in a way that attaches it to you. Plaxo Pulse is another type of this, but attached to your other "connections" online. Twitter's flexibility in the way it allows individuals and groups to interact with other in particular in conjunction with mobile phones/messaging is probably what drives it's popularity, as well as the tremendous "noise" it generates.

Basically, the way I've come to understand it is that Twitter (or Tumblr, etc) is like comments might be on blogs. "Tweets" are short (like comments typically) and they organically form into a conversation that can go in a variety of ways. The difference is that the comments get posted to our own "comment" blog (call it a micro-blog if you want) and we can add friends so that we can easily follow their comments too and these comments can be about whatever is on our mind, or happening in the moment. In some cases this allows the dialogue among friends to occur around a particular topic. Thinking of it another way, it is kind of like a mass text message to a particular group. Twitter makes this possible by allowing us to turn notifications on or off, so that we get notified when our friends are commenting on something when we want to (though we can always go back and see online what they've said).

The true challenge of the 21st-century seems to be the ability to identify and assimilate valuable information and then to apply it appropriately. The difficulty lies in the incredible proliferation of information sources which constantly compete for our attention. This situation threatens us with the condition of running from one new thing to the next without ever contextualizing the importance of these new things in the framework of previous knowledge and actions (i.e. it becomes unmanageable). For example of, do you find yourself frequently saying, "I'm so behind the times, I can never keep up," or "My {email/RSS feeds} are overloaded, I'll never get caught up with the {email/posts} I haven't read."

I believe the challenge we face with these elements of our lives are similar in principle to the challenges our students face from slick media marketing and the barrage of "connectedness" from their cell phones, music players, and internet access. As I face this challenge myself, I've reflected upon 3 principles of effective information management that help me to "own" the information (and use it to my advantage) rather than being at the mercy of it.

There is a great article in the August 2006 edition of the Scientific American titled The Expert Mind. It is a rather lengthy, but fascinating article about the process in which we become experts at something and it basically focuses on learning theory. It's premise is that "effortful study" (i.e. studying with motivation and structure) over time produces significant learning progress in a particular topic):

The preponderance of psychological evidence indicates that experts are made, not born. What is more, the demonstrated ability to turn a child quickly into an expert--in chess, music and a host of other subjects--sets a clear challenge before the schools. Can educators find ways to encourage students to engage in the kind of effortful study that will improve their reading and math skills?

It concludes with this paragraph: