So George Siemens and Stephen Downes are leading a course entitled "Connectivism & Connective Knowledge." The course has an insane number of students (something like over 2,000) - probably speaking to both the interest in the topic and the reputation of the two leaders. Now sometime soon, I hope to have an interview with George Siemens about this class - details when they become available - but I did want to go ahead and point to one of the lessons from the class so far. We all talk a lot about networks these days but few of us - actually damn few of us - know more about networks than Valdis Krebs. Thanks to CCK '08, we now have this post outlining Krebs' talk on networks, this copy of slides on the same and this recording of the presentation - do say nothing of the follow-up discussion of networked learning between George and Stephen.

This is nice - this allows me to tie up a couple of loose tabs - the image at the left came from here but it was made with this - a generator that lets you make your own Demotivator posters. I hate those Motivator/Successories posters and Despair, INC does a great job poking holes in that stuff. All that is just preamble to the obligatory coverage of the latest Technorati "State of the Blogosphere" report. So, aside from the shocking fact that there are more blogs than ever, what is interesting here - actually there is a lot to wade through so here are my high points: I do like this image -mainly because  - in the best ego-surfing modality of the blogosphere - this blog seems to be one of the 76,000 blogs with a Technorati Authority of 50+ (now granted, I just squeak in with a 68 but hey a win is a win).   As I sit here writing this blog post with my Twitter open, my Yammer going, Facebok up and going, meebo online, having already pushed photos up to flickr - I also totally grok this quote from the report "The word blog is irrelevant, what's important is that it is now common, and will soon be expected, that every intelligent person (and quite a few unintelligent ones) will have a media platform where they share what they care about with the world." Seth Godin. The report goes on to break down into "Who the Bloggers Are" (interesting stat - 59% have been blogging for 2 years or more), the What and Why of Blogging (here I like the breakdown of blogging styles - most bloggers - almost 80% consider themselves sincere, while only 1 in 5 consider themselves snarky), the How of Blogging, Blogging for Profit and Brands Enter the Blogosphere. So there ya go. Dig through it at your leisure but it does seem that the blogosphere is alive and well and IMHO, rapidly converging with other publishing modes.    

You tell them you can do something incredibly useful like troll it for professionals in your field that it might be valuable for you to follow. Jane Hart has posted the "100+ (E-)Learning Professionals to follow on Twitter." Now that looks like using a blog and not twitter but now since somehow (Jane probably just needed someone in the O's) I squeaked onto the list, I am watching my Twitter followers light up with new folks thus broadening my community of practice. So ask those folks if they think it might be valuable to somehow pick the Top 100 people in your field and then be able to follow them via something like Twitter and learn from them along the way.

Socialtext 3.0 came out today and geez did Twitter light up. I checked out the site and watched the 60 second video and then went to blip.tv and watched the other videos and yeah, more impressed than when I started. According to the site, Socialtext 3.0 is comprised of three parts: Socialtext People - Social networking for the enterprise Socialtext Workspace - Group-editable wiki for easy, flexible, enterprise-wide             collaboration Socialtext Dashboard - Customizable home pages that let each person           decide where to focus their attention.         Socialtext 3.0 delivers connected collaboration with context, both           internally within the organization and externally with customers and           partners in extranet communities. It is built on a modular and integrated           architecture that enables rapid integration with other enterprise systems           and makes other enterprise applications social.     Think Twitter, Facebook, Wikis and more all rolled up in a nice, neat appliance that I can just install behind my firewall - a CRITCAL feature for those of us in government service! Watch the videos, read the press - I'm signing up for the 14 day trial - I'll let you know how it goes.

In the first video, Mark Yim talks about lessons learned from teaching engineering at the GRASP Lab. Some of my favorite quotes include:-"Technology changes people" and the "Thumb Generation" - imagine how you point at the sky changing because of how you use technology- "We have to change the way we teach to do an impedance match with the way students learn." The second video is of Chris Lehman of the Science Leadership Academy. Inspirational - really -School 2.0 "creating the schools we need today" -"Stop thinking that schools should be just like business. Stop thinking that everything that a kid does can be measured by a test" -Sign on the wall at the MIT Media Lab "lifelong kindergarten" -Recall-based learning is obsolete in the Age of Google

The 10 most challenged titles of 2007 were: 1. And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell 2. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier 3. Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes 4. The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman 5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain 6. The Color Purple by Alice Walker 7. TTYL by Lauren Myracle 8. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou 9. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris 10. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky Click here to see what you can. If they ban books, the dinosaurs will win. 

the Google 2001 Index Search page and just as an extra, here is a link to the archive of e-Clippings when it lived as a newsletter....

If you live outside the U.S. or maybe you live inside the U.S. but you aren't a citizen or maybe you're from the U.S. but you live abroad....then go ahead, watch the video as well....this is going to impact you too.

2008-10-16 21:30:10 -0500 Originally uploaded by S1lvers Family.MAKN BACN....stay tuned....