Thoughts About Educating for Responsible and Effective Social Media Use

My thoughts in the Google+ box below are on the New York Times piece about ThinkUp, a service that helps a person monitor his or her Facebook or Twitter account. Click the link under the image to read the article.

After my knee jerk reaction (as an educator, I feel pretty strongly that education is the answer to many of our problems), I've been reconsidering.  I suppose the founders of ThinkUp could make the argument that they are educating via their service as well.  And to be fair, the company does provide services (additional analytics) beyond helping people "act like less of a jerk online."

Still, my thoughts are that unless someone just doesn't want to think for themselves, and is unable to learn about the many free tools that are available to provide analytics for them in their use of twitter and facebook, most can manage without a service like this.

Perhaps I'm thinking too narrowly, I'd be interested in hearing thoughts from others on this topic. Feel free to comment.

(Full disclosure: I am beginning my fourth year as an adjunct instructor for master's level students on professional Identity management.)

Rethinking College - Exploring the Future of Higher Education

Update August 30, 2014: #Newshourchats for Rethinking College took place August 26th through the 28th. If, like me, you were too busy with the start of the Fall semester, you can catch the twitter chats that have been posted by PBS NewsHour on Storify.

Shared this earlier today on Google Plus (G+). Since it's easy to embed a G+ post in a blog, and because I want to keep this one for posterity (could be interesting to look back on a few years from now), I'm posting here as well.
The videos linked below seemed more balanced than some I've viewed on this topic. PBS NewsHour did a nice job working to cover different sides of the issues in an unbiased manner. Hoping for further insight from the upcoming twitter chats.

Mobile & Social, and Google+ Hangouts

The last few years have seen a good amount of focus and research on mobile in libraries and education in general. In the last couple of years social in libraries and education has also been picking up steam.

I'm including a couple of my presentations from 2012 below on these two topics.

What I'm especially excited about of late is Google+ Hangouts, (see slide 24-36 in presentation below). What may be of specific interest to librarians/educators like myself, who work with students and colleagues in ways other than face-to-face, is referenced in slides 29-33. (For those not familiar with Google+ Hangouts, it is arguably the most popular feature of Google+, Google's social networking platform and more.)

Bottom line, in the same way that twitter has become my single most valuable professional development tool over the years, though I was skeptical at first, I'm hopeful that Google+ Hangouts will make certain aspects of my job a little easier. At the same time I hope to be able to provide superior research help to students online using this tool.

Tomorrow I lead a reference tips session at our weekly librarian's meeting on the main campus, which will be all about Hangouts. This Saturday I'll be teaching my second library research class to students in another state via Google+ Hangouts (you can read about my first session here, from back when it was named G+ Hangouts with Extras). A week ago I joined our librarian's meeting on the main campus for the first time from my Portland office with positive results and will continue to attend at least one meeting a month using this tool. There'll be another blog post here soon focused on Google+ and Hangouts with some entertaining screenshots so stay tuned if this topic is of interest.

Handheld Librarian 7 Online Conference - August 15, 2012 from Robin Ashford

State of the Mobile Landscape: Mobile Literacy and What It Means for Libraries from Robin Ashford

Are you using Google+ or G+ Hangouts at your library? Are you an educator using Google+ Hangouts for office hours or in any other way? I'd love to hear about what others are doing with mobile and/or social, feel free to share in comments.

I'll end with a quote that resonates with me as I continue to follow mobile and emerging technologies "The most important thing we can do is to ensure that when the technology matures, we are ready to deliver content to it."  -Jason Griffey, Head of Library Information Technology at the University of Tennessee and author of Mobile Technologies and Libraries.

Why "Clay Shirky: The Social Media Revolution" Matters for Academic Libraries

Below is a recent interview with Clay Shirky I want to share. It's 23 min. long and worth the time. He starts off talking about twitter and why it's important and how it's evolving. There are some direct references to ebooks, bookstores, libraries etc. but it's not really about that. It's about what's happening in the world of social media and about what may come. Important stuff for academic librarians and others in higher education to consider these days.



Clay Shirky's 2005 article "Ontology is Overrated: Categories, Links, and Tags" had an impact on me back in the earlier Web 2.0 days. I was a newer librarian and folks in the library profession were beginning to understand our profession would be experiencing significant change. Librarians began to wrestle with folksonomy vs. taxonomy and more, much more, and at an increasingly rapid pace.

I've continued to follow Shirky's writings on the Internet and disruptive technologies because...well, because there's a digital revolution taking place and these things are of critical importance to libraries.

I was also glad to see a tweet a couple of days ago pointing me to a new publication by OCLC Research. The "Call to Action" section in the two page PDF below is about how librarians need to keep up on what's happening in the field of scholarly research and publishing and adapt our practices to the changing needs of researchers. It also states, "Developments such as cloud computing, open access publishing and online social networking are affecting research practices." The report includes a citation and link to Clay Shirky's post "Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable," which is valuable reading as well.

I've put these two things together in this blog post because I've found as an academic librarian, at this time in history, it's more important than ever to follow and understand what is happening in this social media/digital revolution. I'm not sure I could really feel prepared to play a central role in support of scholarly research and publishing at my institution otherwise.

An Academic Library Manifesto
OCLC original PDF: Chris Bourg, et al., for OCLC Research

Why I Really Like Twitter

I first heard about twitter a couple of years ago and my knee-jerk reaction was that it sounded like something I would never want anything to do with. However, I heard the word enough to warrant a quick look. "What are you doing" are the words above a white box where one can share in a maximum of 140 characters what it is they are doing. My very first thought--Who cares?! Then a flood of thoughts, a rant really, fluttered through my mind--Yagottabekiddinme! I'm a busy person, why would I waste my time finding out what everyone is doing?! Isn't facebook for that? I don't even have time for facebook! Why are people using this?! How narcissistic can we get...what's happening to this world...people are losing their minds, that's what...this whole social networking, microblogging, Web 2.0 stuff is getting completely out of hand--you get the idea.

I vowed never to consider such a waste of time. I had already pared down much of my Web 2.0 arsenol to only those things I felt were most useful because my time was at a premium, twitter wouldn't even be considered. Those were my thoughts two years ago.

It's hard to remember what article or blog post it was that caused me to reconsider. Twitter was being mentioned regularly by all kinds of media and I noticed that many of the authors from blog and news feeds I subscribed to were using twitter. These were bloggers and journalists I respected, they were busy and productive people. I knew I had to take another look. This time I created a twitter account. That was over a year ago. Now twitter is one of my favorite and most useful tools, which is hard to believe given my initial impression.

So what is it about twitter that makes it so useful to me? Well, I'm a bit of an information junkie and an early adopter of technology. I'm interested in new information relevant to my job and my interests (much is related to emerging technologies). I look for Web 2.0 and beyond technologies that will serve a need and will provide me with maximum value for my time and effort. Twitter is quick and easy to use and enables me to find people to follow who talk about and provide links to information that I find very useful. And that information tends to be very new, and very now and oftentimes includes a short commentary by the tweeter. Twitter also saves me time as I no longer have to read all my feeds for the majority of my information needs. In return I provide information and links to the twitterverse and those who find what I share of interest can choose to become my followers.

There's also additional value I receive from twitter, which was not apparent to me in my early days. I can tap the resources and expertise of my followers. At times I've been shocked by the value of the service that's been provided. More than once I felt I should send a check to a person for "twitter services rendered." An example is the time I sent out a tweet that I had made changes to the course wiki I had set up in an attempt to make it look good on all platforms with all main browsers. In short order I received a tweet with an offer to take a look (by a helpful smart techie prof, at that!). I sent the wiki link in a tweet and quickly received word that it looked good using XP/FF3 and then an offer to look at it using other browsers. In no time at all I was told my wiki was "reasonably consistent across FF3, Safari, Chrome, Opera and IE!" This is just one example.

I should also mention that how I use twitter can be very different from how others use twitter. There is no right or wrong way to use this tool, it's up to the user to decide.
BTW-I do not agree with the twitter home page where it states "What" twitter is - "Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?" It certainly can be and is used for that purpose, but there are many who, like myself, use twitter for very different purposes.

With so many very social social networks along the lines of facebook, I appreciate having a tool where I don't feel I have to be social. I can simply use this tool to my advantage and share in return and maybe along the way make a handful of connections, but that's not my main purpose in using twitter. I follow only a small handful of friends, family and/or co-workers and vice versa (I'll never "connect" with the vast majority of those I follow). And now that facebook has incorporated some big twitter like changes, I would think most using twitter for the purpose described on the twitter home page will perhaps end up using facebook instead.

For a good understanding of why facebook, twitter and a slew of other microblogging and social networks are so popular start with this excellent Sept 2008 NYTimes article "Brave New World of Digital Intimacy"(log in-free)

(I decided to add this newly published post "Trouble with Twitterers? Depends who you ask…" The educator who wrote it uses twitter in similar ways and does a great job of explaining the process he uses to decide who he follows.)

Following are useful links helpful to further understanding twitter:
What Twitter brings to the party
NYTimes Twitter? It’s What You Make It
Sixteen Great Twitter Moments

Twitter is Killing my Blog

Yep, it's true, it's been almost two months since my last post. But I'm fighting back. I'm taking stock of what's most important to my learning and for me it's reflecting.

I recently reread this article by Alan Levine who was responding to an article from Wired Magazine where the author suggests the blog is dead. I completely agree with Mr. Levine. As an active twitter user and an early adopter of many Web 2.0 technologies, it's most important that I take the time to reflect. I just don't learn as well if I don't, and what I do learn doesn't seem to stick unless I take the time to synthesize the information. Taking the final step to share my thoughts on this blog in a somewhat organized and logical manner is another challenge in the process. Writing has always been a difficult task for me. Someday I'll take a class, but for now I'll blog and hope I improve and learn with practice.

I resolve (to myself) to post more often on my blog. If anyone benefits from anything I have to share here that's great, but really this blog is for me and my learning first and foremost.

I started out today thinking I was going to blog about twitter and I will, but I think I'll make that a post on its own thereby writing two posts today to make up for the fact that I've barely posted in two months. Although, in my defense, I have been teaching my first course as an adjunct instructor this semester in Second Life (along with my regular full-time job as an academic librarian and keeping up with emerging technologies (mostly via twitter now), etc. This included creating a course wiki where regular reflections were required by all participants, including myself. Once the course is over I'll reflect on lessons learned and share that here as well.