a party for pencils

I've grown to enjoy the Pen Pal Networks and I like the concept of growing my PLN. However, there are moments when I don't feel that I belong in here. By that I mean, I feel that I am a guest who snuck in the back door and people are too polite to tell me that I should probably avoid taboo subjects and limit how often I take a sip of the punch.

If a PLN is a party, though, it begins to feel as if it's a party for pencils. In other words, people are spending their time on the pen pal networks writing about how great paper is and how it will revolutionize the education world. People swap stories of how amazing stationary days have been at school and wonder what it would look like if each child had a stationary in every classroom. One to one pencils.

Subgroups of stamp collectors describe all the newest methods of sending letters and gush about how wonderful our socialized postal service is. People quote Edison on the disappearing role of the teacher in an age of electricity as if enlightenment comes from a filament in a bulb rather than the development of wisdom.

Paul the pre-industrial Poet puts it this way, "It's like throwing a party at my house where the honored guest is my house."

Imagine a coffee shop where the main topic of conversation was coffee or visiting a house where the main conversation was the structural integrity of the tresses or the amazing colors of the adobe. Now imagine that this house had some really dangerous flaws and few people seemed to talk about it - the crowded capacity of the house, the floor boards where people could way too easily slip through or the fact that so many people stayed inside the house that they missed the explosion of blossoms going on outside.

I don't mean this to be a criticism of my PLN. I do the same thing. I write little notes about how slow our telegraph can be at school or how nifty our Kodaks have become in students doing storytelling. But in the process, I miss out on what is really important. My students are telling amazing stories - pictures or not.  People are sending letters from all around the world and one would imagine we'd be tackling global issues of learning.  Maybe hard conversations on race and unity or conflict or motivation.  Perhaps tough talks on the nature of learning.  Instead, much of the conversation seems to be about having conversations . . . which I suppose is what I am doing right now.

Thoreau used paper and pencils. He was a quintessential pencil geek, but he knew the dangers of industry. I wonder what he would post on a pen pal network.

note: I borrowed this concept of a party for technology from Joel Zehring

growing a PLN

I'm at the PIE Conference (Pencil Integration Technology) and someone presents a plan regarding how to build a Personal Learning Network.  He mentions a step-by-step procedure:

1. Join the pen pal networks.  Follow people and let them follow you. It's vital to the exchange of information.
2. Join a Social Address Booking Club and share information about your favorite places to go an learn.
3. Subscribe to at least one scholarly journal. 
4. Write a pencil log (plog) and subscribe to other pencil logs, too.  Jump in and start writing comments on the margins of their journals. 
5. Find a few experts and go have a pint with them.  If you are a member of the Temperance Movement, have a cup of coffee instead.
6. Go to various conferences and connect in person
7. Go to the public chat rooms.  Sometimes they get big and crowded, but most towns have a place where educators can go and mingle and talk about specific education-related issues - sort of the opposite of a staff lounge. 

I ask Paul the Pre-industrial Poet about this and he says, "I'm not sure I agree.  I mean, don't get me wrong.  I think the list is great, but I can't imagine someone has to follow each of those.  I know you well enough to know that you hate Social Address Booking and I could never write a plog as often as you.  I know you are a wallflower and would shrivel up in a public chat room, but you could handle scholarly journals well."  

"I wonder if PLN's are not something someone builds, but rather an organic process.  Maybe they have to evolve individually." 

"Maybe.  I mean, maybe it's more like gardening.  You have to set up the infrastructure and organize things.  You don't just toss seeds out.  But it grows slowly." 

"I like your growth metaphor."  

"There is a danger in it, though.  I once got caught up in growing my PLN, thinking that bigger was better.  I finally realized that unsustainable growth is what caused the Panic of 1893.  Unsustainable growth is what causes our city to become a giant pollution house."


Note: the impetus of this blog post was a conversation with Philip Cummings on Twitter.  I enjoyed his thoughts on a PLN.

Isn't All Media Social?

Paul the Pre-industrial Poet tells me that I need to get onto a popular Pen Pal Network.  He's an "early adopter," who tends to find technology quickly, explore it rapidly and then decide if he wants to keep it or dump it.

I tell him that he treats technology like an uncouth bacehlor who hasn't discovered the joy of marriage.  He says, "More like speed-dating, but you're right . . . No, I don't like your metaphor at all.  I use technology, but it's because I don't want it to use me.  I don't want to be married to a medium and forget about my real wife. Let's avoid human metaphors.  The more we human the machine, the more we dehumanize ourselves."

"So, why should I join the pen pal network?"

"You need to be part of my PLN. It's how I connect with other educators."

"Can't you just connect over a pint?"

"Does it have to be either/or?"

"I just don't see the big deal in using a pen pal network.  I can't see the value in sending trite little messages to people on my free time."

"So, if something is short, it's trite? What about parables and poetry and proverbs?"  Paul is quite fond of alliteration.

"I just don't see what the big deal is."

"It's a social medium.  You connect with people constantly and share ideas and resources and, on a good day, you share a part of yourself."

"Every medium is social.  I keep hearing this term 'social media,' but a letter is social.  I send postcards all the time.  Last time I checked, that's social.  It just seems to be a ton of hype."

"You might be right, Tom.  But the only thing worse than creating unnecessary hype is the snobbery of avoiding a medium simply because people are excited about it."