Education Tweets Sprout

Recently, someone asked me if I was creating all the content at my blog. I said, “Only the stuff you read there.” Do I have multiple personalities for different topics? If so, I’m hoping there’s a little Andy Rooney as well as a bit of Henny Youngman in my opinions. In a way, my mind is sort of made for the Twitter world, where short bursts of nonsense, or perceived brilliance last only 140 characters. I wonder, what if those quick-frozen mini-burst seeds were expanded to sprouting stage. Here’s a few sprouts:

Audience Presentation

You probably couldn’t get away with it, but wouldn’t it be interesting if you could submit an education/education tech presentation proposal, where you shared some lead topic thoughts, and invited people from the audience to hop onto stage to share in a timed fashion. No gong necessary. It might be a little risky, but could be controlled. I’ll bet it would turn into a lively event, worth being video streamed and archived, and would garner social media accolades. This is more than crowd sourcing, here; I’m talking about having the audience become part of the presentation. Now, that would be a true interactive presentation. I’d be willing to give it a go if one of the conferences said it would be OK. Have your people contact my people ASAP.

Favorite Education Cliché

I thought it would be interesting to collect education clichés, while lurking on Twitter. I discovered that I recognized plenty wearing different words. I truly believe that you could say something extremely meaningful, or profound, and be out retweeted by a silly education cliché. It doesn’t stop me from floating new ones of my own.

Favorite Posts

Ever noticed that the blog posts you think are great never get the reads you think they should? Those, who don’t write, or post, might use this analogy: think of a story or a joke you’ve told to a group of friends, who neither listened nor laughed. Now, think of telling the story, or joke to a group of strangers. Yeah, an unread blog post is all of that magnified. I always try to retweet those favorite blog posts more, hoping that my readership was either having dinner, sleeping, or shopping at the mall on the first tweet.

Tech Scrap Heap

I read that the number of digital devices would surpass the number of people in the world. I don’t know about you, but as I look around, the number of devices has already surpassed the number of people and pets in our house. If you take into account all the smartphones in drawers replaced by newer ones—at record-breaking pace–digital devices may have already outnumbered us.

Sharing

The joy of sharing is what’s wonderful about the joy of learning. Gives kids self worth, and makes adults feel like kids. I do think that we all need to get back to listening though. It’s really a lost art that needs to be rediscovered. Social media can be a good place to notice statements, questions, ideas, and thoughts without a great deal of response. While you can’t read and respond to everything that zips by—tweeted, LinkedIned, or Facebooked—listening to what you can and responding is a step we all need to work at. And, hopefully, those responses will be positive and constructive. Contrary to popular believe no has exclusivity to having an opinion. You can’t know everything, so listening just makes good sense.

Success

Is it a sort of success sign when the spam comments start arriving in your blog filters? I just think there may be a future in creating an international school for spammers. Most of the stuff I read from them doesn’t make much sense, and they are all together too kind. I do enjoy the flowery “Super message, I must say i wait for fresh news of your stuff.” I’ve actually collected a nice assortment of that nonsense, but on a rainy day knowing that spammers love “your stuff” can be as warming as a bowl of soup without the crackers.

Problem Solving

I’ve trained for a lot of marathons, and in my 40s actually ran 31 of them. Some were good and some made me wonder why I’d put my body through such nonsense. There is one thing I discovered, while running, after the first five or so miles, the body gets into a different universe, which gives your brain time to solve problems. I solved more problems out on long runs. Unfortunately, like dreams, if you don’t write them down right away, they vanish like a magician’s  assistant into a mist. If you think about education, or politics for that matter, what may be missing are those leaders who have actually taken a long run meeting. I think the mind probably works best for problem solving 16 miles into a run. I think most education and political problems could be solved there. Unfortunately, while most education leaders and politicians have plenty of wind, I don’t think they’d have enough wind for that kind of running meeting. Wonder if that should be a prerequisite in running for office?

I doubt that these tweet sprouts will ever get to the blooming stage, but planting the seeds and writing the sprouts is almost as good as a long run.