Social Networking; Is It Really Just 140 Characters?

I've become the butt of Twitter jokes lately; mostly to those who don't really get it. Which, I suppose, is most people. I'll admit, I do use Twitter and like it very much. It's been a great tool for me to find and keep up with other educators; world-wide. I also follow non-educators and love to hear about news items and updates from sources I might miss otherwise. I've learned so much from those I interact with on Twitter; and I like to think I have something to share there as well. I try to be thick-skinned about the whole thing, but the truth is people can be judgmental. People are quick to say that Twitter is for those with nothing to do and definitely with nothing to say. Even those of us on Twitter can be judgmental of each other and apply labels such as "snobs" and "noobs," based on personal usage preference. Feh! I suppose that's human nature to place people in buckets to make sense of the world.

So in an effort to help make sense of Twitter and the whole Social Networking thing, I'd like to try to explain why Social Networking is much more than simply 140 character tweets!

Twitter has become the 21st Century buzzword for all things social networking. This is such a shame because Twitter is just ONE tool I use to find and learn from others. Social networking is so much more than communicating what you had for dinner. If you follow my tweets, you'll see plenty of those silly tweets; and I think silly, fun tweets are important to building and nurturing relationships. But, you'll also see some tweets about (for example) upcoming professional development for teachers, pros and cons of being part of a company's teacher network, sharing creative-commons photos with others, and so on. Sometimes these tweets then lead to off-Twitter conversations and many times to valuable opportunities, such as:

• Collaborative Classroom Projects - I've set up more than a few teachers here in my district with teachers from my Twitter network from other states/countries where terrific projects between their students evolved. Likewise, I've participated in some awesome projects & live blogging events with other teachers.
  
• Brainstorming Opportunities/Tech Support - I've received help figuring out how to use InDesign and why my wireless base station wouldn't work correctly - I've helped others proofread some documents and brainstorm some job descriptions they were putting together. While in a meeting at work, we all questioned how other school districts handled something. I sent out a tweet from my iPhone and before the meeting was over, I had almost 20 responses.
• Face 2 Face Meet Ups - Continuing these conversations in person is one of the best parts of Social Networking. By staying connected through the various tools, I'm more likely to hear about the opportunities to meet my network peers in person. I'm looking forward to NECC and the EduBloggerCon where I may get to spend some time in conversation with a few people I've "gotten to know" online.
  
• Offers to Present - Cindy Lane (@clane on Twitter) and I met through Twitter and are currently working on a proposal to present at next year's FETC and Alan November found me, indirectly, through Twitter (a Twitter friend created a presentation and referenced something of Alan's and mine). Alan then contacted me, said he checked me out (scary, huh?) and extended an invitation for me to present at his Building Learning Communitites conference in July.
  

So what other Social Networking tools do I use?

• Plurk - Very similar to Twitter; 140 character messages, but much easier to follow the conversations because of the threaded replies. This "plurk" was started by me when I saw a blogpost about getting rid of all textbooks.
• Delicious - This social bookmarking tool allows me to save all my favorites online, so I can access them from anywhere. Best part is that I can choose to make some of my favorites public to share with my "network" of friends who in turn will share their favorites with me. I found this great site by going to my network, and clicked on Craig Nansen's name in my delicious network. Then I went to his "Tag Bundles" then "MacRelated" then "iMovie" and found this: YouTube: Leopard Green Screen
• Flickr - I love using Flickr to back up my photos and by simply sending a link I can share with my friends and family. Flickr has a hidden gem though; The groups feature! By joining a group, all you have to do is tag a photo of yours to belong to the group and then other group members will see your photo when they go to the group feed. In this example, educators who are creating VoiceThread projects can use these images freely because members of the group are adding content for this very purpose. You can create your own groups too. I created this one to share photos from FETC2009.
  
• FaceBook - Despite how my own kids feel about me being on their turf, more than 200 million people must be on to something. The fastest growing demographic is people over 35! Hint for educators (on how I use FB): although my kids are my "friends," I RARELY post on their walls and except for 2 exceptions, I NEVER "friend" my students or ex-students.
• Ning - Roll your own Social Network. With Ning, you'll find a "FaceBook" with a specific focus. Just go to Ning.com and do a search. For educators, I recommend starting with Classroom 2.0.
  

So, there's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Do you use any Social Networks I didn't mention? Do you have an example of a time where someone you "met" helped you out and/or vice versa? I'd love to hear your stories.

What Inspires Me?

Olivia, over at Liv's Blog, tagged me in her What Inspires Me post. Liv starts out with, "What is your inspiration? What gets you moving? …gets you through the days? ..."

I started to leave this in her comments, and then found myself doing some real soul searching and realized this was going a little deep, expecially in the final paragraph. So, I decided to move it over here. So here goes, Liv. Not sure if this is what you were looking for, but here's what I've got:

Gosh, what inspires me? That’s a tough one because I’m involved in such a variety of other things that I look to many different people for inspiration. There are also times when I need the inspiration more than others, and thank goodness for certain people in my life.

Liv tagged me as a “hockeymom,” which is interesting to me because that is the part of my life that is (sadly) quickly coming to an end. My kids started playing when they were each four years old and they are now 19 and 16. The inspiration to get up and bring them to the rinks at 4:30am on Saturdays and Sundays came from the enjoyment my husband and I gleaned from watching them play and bond with their teammates. Traveling with the other hockey families to small towns around the country and Canada was inspirational as well, because my kids otherwise would not really get a clear picture of the world simply living in the white-washed, upper middle-class city of Boca Raton, Florida. The photo to the left is my husband and me on the Rideau Canal in Ottawa.

What inspires me to be just a mom, is my mother-in-law. She is the sit-on-the-floor, let’s-play-scrabble, type of grandmother to my kids. She has never a bad word to say about anyone and everyone is always welcome in her home. She is interested in everything anyone has to say and is truly a great role model for me and my children as well. My father-in-law passed away over a year ago, but he too was the ultimate father and grandfather. We all miss him tremendously, but that is the legacy he has left. For both my husband and myself, we have modeled our marriage after theirs and we believe our kids will grow up with a healthy view of marriage because of it. A rare thing these days. (Photo on the right is my mother-in-law and my oldest son.)

What inspired me as a classroom teacher? For 20 years I was a classroom teacher and there were a few role models I looked to for inspiration. One in particular, who sometimes reads this blog, keeps up with current trends and is not afraid to try new things. She spends hours with the kids individually and always understood each child in a way that I only hoped to figure out myself. Another, who became a principal before she retired, always found time for the class shows and projects and taught me that it is those things that will be the true learning opportunities for the students. That is when I first started to use the worksheets and workbooks as scratchpaper. (Picture to the left is me and a few of my first grade students in 1988. We used a dial up connection and AOL email to exchange emails with the Olympic athletes in Seoul Korea. It was the first time the Olympic Athletes had access to email kiosks in the Olympic Village. We got a lot of responses and posted them to a wall map.)

As for what inspires me to be good at my current job? Over the last few months, I’ve been seeking that inspiration, yet have come up empty. Not because there aren’t inspirational people around me, there are. But it has been a very stressful few months with some big projects. Although the projects are now over, I’m still having trouble getting over the stress. I find myself making impulsive decisions and doing and saying things I shouldn’t say. I guess I don’t do stress well. I tend to be a perfectionist and can be very hard on myself; never truly being satisfied with the outcome of something I’ve created or something I’ve been responsible for. Those I work with are very supportive, even when I screw up. My boss is extremely understanding and has a knack for truly choosing his battles and letting most things go. When necessary he may call something to my attention and then he lets it go. Of course, I’M the one who beats myself up. So TYPICALLY, at work, I’m inspired by those who I work with who can let things roll off their backs. I’m inspired by those who can stand up and speak in front of a crowded room with no preparation and sound incredibly articulate. I’m inspired by those who come to work every day and can be positive and happy and get over stress really quickly. HOWEVER, at this moment in time… I can’t see through the fog to notice anyone there right now. I know things will work out and will be fine. I'm looking forward to that day, hopefully sooner than later.

And so Liv, since you tagged me, I thought I’d respond; from my heart.

~Lee

On a 500MB Mission

I'm in the process of trying to share a 500MB file. I guess I've never attempted this before, because I can see now what a challenge this is. It's certainly not impossible, after all, I can burn a CD and mail it to the recipient. But now that I've started my quest, I feel determined to find an online solution. I sent out a Tweet and a few of my Twitter pals came through with their best attempts at helping me solve the problem. A few even offered to share their personal file sharing accounts with me. Once again, a wonderful testament to purposeful social networking. For those who say that Twitter is for those who have nothing else to do, I say, "Feh!"

I thought this would be a good opportunity to share my reviews. Please keep in mind, I did not spend a whole lot of time researching any of these apps. Besides, don't trust my geekiness. I know, the name of this blog is GeekyMomma. I should change that I suppose. I'm not worthy.:





www.senduit.com has a 100MB limit. It's worth noting that you can choose when your file expires too, anywhere from 30 minutes to 1 week. Although I'm all for sharing, sometimes disposable technology is a good thing. However, what does "expire" really mean?





Getdropbox.com requires a 64MB installation and actually syncs your files, in real time, between computers where you've installed DropBox. At first I thought the other person had to also install the app, and I was about on my way, but then I saw that you can also get a public URL for an individual file. Once you install DropBox, anything you drag into the folder is seamlessly uploaded. If you drop it into your public folder, then right-click on it, you're given the option of grabbing the public URL. You get 2GB for free or 50GB for $99/year.

You can also track revisions online and undelete deleted files, online. That's a good one for me. I have a tendency to get confused when syncing and end up overwriting the wrong files.





Skydrive.live.com offers 25GB of free online storage. It seems to be similar to DropBox however each file is limited to 50MB.






Jetbytes.com is pretty interesting. There's no file storage involved. You browse for your file and you're immediately given a link. It's a one time link. Once it's clicked, your file will download and and the link will no longer work. I tried it with my 500MB file (it's a QT movie). It said it would take over 3 hours to download (my connection is really slow these days). I'm guessing my computer will have to be on in order for my recipient to get the file too. Too techy for me to figure out how this one works. If you know, please leave a comment and explain it to me. Interesting concept; and again, disposable technology working for you and I think "expire" really means "expire" here... I think.





Mybloop.com (Where do they get these names?) This one looked like a promising app. Like DropBox, it requires an installation, however I couldn't get it to install and load without the app crashing. I tried re-downloading and re-installing it twice.

MyOtherDrive gives 2GB free storage along with the ability to create folders and add friends and groups. The web interface is pretty ugly. It reminds me of Windows 3.0. My file is taking forever to upload.





Quicksharing.com looks like a great solution. You can upload a file up to 500MB. The file can be downloaded an unlimited # of times but if it's not downloaded within 30 days, they delete it. Simple, 1-page, 2-button interface. Problem? I couldn't get it to work. Clicking the upload button doesn't appear to do anything.




For further reading: Mashable created a list of 80+ file hosting and sharing sites.

I settled on MyDropBox (and burning a CD). If you have other solutions that you've tried and you know they work, please leave them in the comments area.