In 2012, let’s share

Note to self:  It is time to let go of the negative attitude against Facebook, triviality, superficial nonsensical information quests, and start participating in the new hierarchy.  It is time to “practice what you preach” and put people first.  The hierarchy of the past placed the experts, the sages, the skilled and knowledgeable at the top.  Now, amongst the toppled rubble on the Internet (no library stacks), we all have a voice.

Was it an illusion that the library held the answers and helped point the way to a meaningful existence?  After all, a book or a library of books is created by human beings and human thought. Oh, but it was convenient to rely on experts to sift through nonsense and provide an assortment of the highest quality of information (may there always be libraries).

We still learn, as we always have, in “collision with others” (Vygotsky). We learn because we discuss, we argue, we collaborate, we confront, and (most importantly) we share.

Learn-Learn-Learn!  That seems to be my favorite topic and, as earning my PhD in 2012 suggests, my ultimate goal.  For a year or two, I have been saying I think most people are more interested in being entertained than being educated.  The old, perhaps trite, saying holds true that the more I learn the more I realize how little I know.  Learning how to thinking critically is more important than gathering knowledge. Yet, even more important than critical thinking is learning how to share.

The Blue Screen of Death

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Out of nowhere, my less than 2 year old well-running HP computer, suddenly confronted me with the terrifying blue screen of death. And the resulting hours of anxiety did not end well. I will spare the gory details of why so many hours of work were instantly squashed into nothingness. What I want to point out is the baffling concepts of thought that went through my head over the 24 hours after the event.

I felt like I had been shot. I pictured a wound in my side…a gaping hole which I covered with bandages but did not want to see. I wanted to cover it up with gauze and avoid facing the damage, exactly how much was lost- videos, projects, presentations, pictures, documents, and programs that represented hard work and irreplaceable creative energy. It wasn’t that I had no clue about the danger of losing files and had not taken any precautions. I did have all of my current work (my dissertation for sure!) in numerous other locations, such as flash drives, external hard drives, the cloud, and emails to myself.

It was 8pm when the terror struck. I slept little that night. What kept me calm was the empathy and genuine concern I was given from my immediate family. First thing the next morning, my husband and son both sprang into action to investigate a data recovery system specialist. In the afternoon, a phone conversation with my daughter changed my perspective.

You see, I was confused and appalled at the feeling of loss over digital content. I am not one to have many attachments to physical objects. As a writing teacher, one of my projects to promote writing was the creation of paper mache storybowls. After creating a storybowl to represent a personal narrative, the writer/teller places small objects in the bowl that correspond to elements of the story. I made several storybowls over the course of a few years, one in which I tell about the time I lost my wedding ring! Actually, using the storybowl, I weave stories of other rings I have lost- one on my move to Texas at the age of twelve- a ring my father gave me which I lost in the Niabrara River. The theme of loss culminates with loss of my wedding ring- the most important of symbols. However, the point of the story is that what the ring represents is love. My husband gave me another ring exactly like the one I lost. I never found my father’s ring which is somewhere deep in the Niabrara River, but I did not lose what it represents…love.

Unfortunately, one day in my library, my storybowls were thrown out inadvertently in the trash! I was a bit embarassed to admit to myself the anguish I felt over the loss of my storybowls. They were physical representations of significance to me…my life stories.

As I experience my physical library going through a metamorphosis from physical to virtual, I am not always comfortable with the chaos, with the letting go, with the constant change in formats and in my own thinking. As I watch everyone becoming “hooked” on their tech gadgets, constantly updating statuses and checking emails, I can’t help but wonder if we are heading in the wrong direction or if we will find a balance between the physical and the virtual.

And then…as I experienced the blue screen of death, I realized that digital loss feels exactly like physical loss.

Back to the phone conversation with my daughter Melanie.

She began talking with me about how we attach ourselves to “things”. We have a friend who suffers from the debilitating problem of hoarding physical things. Although I am not qualified to explain the psychological reasons for hoarding, I suppose our attachment to digital files might be similar to our attachment to physical objects. Again and again, throughout our lives, we are required to let go. Melanie explained to me, with an expression of understanding and empathy, that while this loss can be painful- it can also be liberating. We let go of the non-essential and our burden is lightened.

My wound is healing. I may receive a call soon from the data restoration services guy (but I am fairly sure all of my data was lost). What is helping me gain strength after meeting the blue screen of death is the caring support of others. My storybowl about my lost rings was thrown out, but I did not lose what it meant. The Beatles were right. All you need is love.

Twitter: Who, How, Why

I often contemplate life AFTER the toppling of the hierarchy of information. User-generated content, crowdsourcing, and a host of new media formats are now the top ways we access information. And one of the most popular new modes is Twitter.

Personally, I find Twitter more useful, more interesting, and more educational than Facebook. Thomas Cramptom blogged it this way, “Facebook is WHO you know, Twitter is WHAT you know.” I agree because I find FB is much social trivia (which has its place) alongside photos and current events. Twitter, on the other hand, can help each user form a personal learning network or professional learning community. There are no hurt feelings about not being “friended” and no pressure to “like” anything or anyone. Information is shared for the sake of being important to whoever finds it meaningful or significant.

Now: WHO will you follow? When you think about who you are, what is personally meaningful to you, what you are passionate about…a tool like Twitter allows you to move down a path toward those personally significant ideas, whether professional or simply interesting.

HOW will you follow? I learned from a colleague (Laura Solomon and her book on social media for librarians) that online networking tools require participation. Just as social etiquette teaches us to be polite, to use manners, and to think of others (not just what we want for ourselves), social networking is an ongoing dialogue that works best when we give credit to others and are willing to share with them.
Personally, the tweets I find most useful are those that share informative tidbits, links to cool cutting-edge information, or personal reflections on something meaningful. While Twitter can be great for sharing locations at conferences or live events, I don’t think that is the best use. Other geo-location apps are available to share where we are! Topics like what we are eating, who we are with, or our plans for the evening are best posted on FB, in my opinion (and maybe even limited to groups and individuals who are interested). As new tools emerge (and perhaps another tool will replace the ones we are now using), it becomes critical to understand the purpose.

WHY use Twitter? As I mention quite often on this blog, information delivery has been revolutionized. I can no longer keep up with current modes of access, storage, or any other information-related term. I need my personal and professional learning network. Oh- I still need books and other formats of information. But, without my PLN, I would be less able to cope with the constant barrage of high-tech gadgets, apps, and new media formats. As I scroll through my Twitter feed, my feelings about balancing the physical world and the digital world are validated by others who understand the need to pause and reflect on being human.

Twitter is just one of many tools that are helping me collaborate with others who share my quest for a positive outlook on the other side of the information revolution.

TMI: Too Much Information

You may think “TMI” is an acronym for innuendo or a trivial amusing anecdotal incident. I would like to use it in a different context, one that points out the fact that Too Much Information is now the state in which we live.
Do you ever feel like you have reached your limit of information intake?
It is over the top…too many social networks, apps, upgrades, blogs, cloud content sites, and on and on.
Just today, I read about a school in California that has a NO Technology policy which reminded me of the Amish way of life. (I dare you to NOT click the hyperlink!) Would it be possible to turn off all of our technology applications? Could we live and teach the next generation with pencils, chalkboards, and a garden outside our window?
A few points to consider:

1. Innovation– New media technology trends are growing exponentially at this very moment. How can we give the next generation all the tools they need? For the past 5 years, I have been learning at the “speed of light!” My own children are grown and I have an interest in new media as I see my career as a school librarian totally disintegrating around me. Not to worry- I have moved on into the “e” world and so has my library, but the physical space of the library will never be the same. I have diligently embraced innovation and yet, I must admit, there is no way to keep up.
2.Prediction-I follow some futurists who predict both wonderful future trends and frightening ones (see Sherry Turkle and Nicholas Carr). How can we manage to utilize best practices when they change every single day? Academic publishing is extremely slow, yet the world is changing quickly. This topsy-turvey dilemma causes a problem of contradictions. The information hierarchy has flipped in the past 5 years. I keep saying that “the hierarchy of information has toppled” and education will never be the same.
Crowd-sourcing and user-generated content (wikipedia and youtube) are at the top of the hierarchy and the experts who have spent years studying a topic are not. How can we predict the ramifications of this toppled hierarchy? Certainly, there are both positive and negative effects.

3. Protection- Can we block the next generation from this ensaught of cyberspace, new media, and ever-changing technology? Could we be like the Amish and strive for a calmer lifestyle, modeled after an historical period prior to the hectic state in which we live? Or, would it be a disservice to deprive them of the latest technology?

4.Balance– Can we have it both ways? Can we learn to balance a high tech virtual world with a healthy physical world? The next generation has no choice but to live with technological advancement. You may agree that turning it off would be forcing our youth to live in an outdated mode. Not that I don’t appreciate the slow pace of times past! I have always said (ask my husband) that I should have been born a few hundred years ago…I love the pioneers! But the world is not taking place in the year 1825…it is the 21st century. Is a balance between the old (tradition) and the new (innovation) possible?

Our Challenge: our responsibility as librarians, educators, parents, and good citizens, is to prepare our youth for the future in the 21st century- but the skills needed are changing before our eyes! How can we prepare our youth for a future that requires skills never before seen, skills we do not posses or understand? Perhaps the answer lies within the toppled hierarchy. Perhaps the answer lies in what used to be a library- a collection of the best of mankind. The best of mankind (humankind or the collective heroic deeds accomplished throughout history) is now crowd-sourced and user-generated. Our role as information providers is to point the way toward what is meaningful. Ironically, that has always been the goal; however, since the “topple” the structure appears chaotic or blurry.

One thing remains clear- people are still people. The human brain is still the most amazing and complex thing in our universe. Two things are natural to the human brain: learning and reflection. The brain is built to learn and the brain automatically reflects learning through memories, knowledge and emotion. In this new age, on the otherside of the toppled hierarchy, each individual has the opportunity to learn, to reflect, and to contribute.
Let’s hope the contribution is more than a photo of a pizza from lunch uploaded to the latest social network tool.

Wait- maybe there have always been tons of pizza pictures surrounding, drowning each exquisite poem. Maybe we have always had to be on the lookout for a glimpse of something worthwhile amidst the clutter of the mundane.