• Driving back to the city. Strong rains. #
• Forgot how busy the traffic is aroind Gay Pride. #
• Too many people congrerated in the park along the river in the Village. Unsafe. #
• So many people could hardly move. Kind of scary, as a matter of fact. #

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• Long drive. Done for the day. Night, Twitterverse. Hope the infrastructure rests for a big day tomorrow. #
• Long drive. Done for the day. Night, Twitterverse. Hope the infrastructure rests for a big day tomorrow. #
• Walking the dogs and enjoying weekend coffee. Beautiful blue sky above. #
• Reviewing research books right now. #
• Reviewing research books right now. #
• Reviewing research books right now. #
• Reviewing research books right now. #
• Reviewing research books. Nice and quiet here, with lovely birds chirping. #

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• Had a hair cut and will try a new style tomorrow. Hey, have to enjoy while I still have something to style! #
• @KT_718 Very right about that. However, now is the longest my hair has been since I was 21. More interesting the second time around. #
• @KT_718 I think you summed up Twitter perfectly in your first few Tweets. #
• @KT_718 Patience, young Jedi. #
• In the same way you Tweeted about this, that, and the other, that is, in fact, microblogging. You added your thoughts and voice to the Web. #
• @KT_718 Are you a member of ODNetwork? #
• @KT_718 I joined #ODNetwork last year and my membership is up for renewal. Not sure if I realized the value proposition. #
• @KT_718 Thus far, have not found anybody on Twitter who is a member of #ODNetwork. Wondering where all the members are? #
• @KT_718 Spoken like a true New Yorker. #
• @KT_718 Interesting resemblance to your avatar. #
• @KT_718 Why another one? What are those two not providing? #
• @KT_718 How similar the Web is to F2F life, isn’t it? #
• @KT_718 Happy belated 40. #
• @mashable Exactly. That way, Santa will save money with the Dec 26 discounts (like the Twitterati may be doing with the infrastructure). #
• @bjschone Why not state it like that? #
• @mathplourde How is the travel planning coming? #
• @RobinYap Have you tried the #LearningTown feature? #
• @bdieu It is winter where you are, isn’t it? #
• @KT_718 I have cut back with some and joined others along the way. I find it useful to join them to try them out for a year. Then decide. #
• @KT_718 Hey, take the kindness while you can. #
• @KT_718 Good luck with finishing. I am off to bed. Will try to feel better for work tomorrow. #
• @KT_718 Never really considered IFC. Have you found it valuable? #
• @KT_718 Many of these orgs are filled with people looking for consulting gigs. While I consult as well, I am not quite the pushy sort. #
• @KT_718 This is an example of what Twitter allows; the instant action of IM, with the microblogging larger community of the Twitterverse. #
• @arjunsingh Like what? #
• I just learned #Friendfeed has an RSS feed, so now I can track it using #Feeddemon, my RSS reader. Sweet. #
• Otherwise, #Friendfeed is overwhelming via email or their site. #
• Has anybody ever seen the APQC Multimedia Communities of Practice Training Toolkit http://tinyurl.com/5rfa6t #
• Waiting in line at the post office. Only one teller working right now. #
• Wow is she fast! #
• @maniactive Sweet when things work! #
• Doing some research about assessing a patient’s ability to self-manage. #
• Wow, Twitter is finally back up. #
• Twitter is up and being used (seemingly) without a missed step. Perhaps there are some Web 2.0 lessons to learn here? #
• What, Twitter stressing again? Who would have guessed? #

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The New York Times had a recent article entitled Who Is the Walrus? that I have been thinking about and processing for the past few weeks. The more I reflect on it, the more I realize how assumptions quietly sneak back into preparation and delivery of teaching and learning with adults.

Now, I have worked in and around adult and organizational learning for most of my professional life, and every now and then something comes along to wake me up again to various assumptions and the like that I hold about learners. I know about andragogy, hegemony, postmodern paradigmatic structures, critical theory, and the like. I have studied all of these things and they have helped to transform my worldviews on teaching and learning.

Nevertheless, it is easy to fall back into the pre-learned status quo and teach as we learned. Enter, the walrus.

The article on walruses raised my thinking quit a bit, and I can’t help but think there is a lot here for us to learn about teaching and learning. So, what can walruses teach us? Here are three thoughts:

1. Big scary things aren’t always as they seem. Yes, walruses can way over 2000 pounds and can approach very quickly, but as the author learned they are not as intimidating as they appear. In fact, he learned they like to play, are highly social, and are so intelligent that scientists use the term “creative” when discussing walruses. They don’t quite charge–they come over to play and love to have their faces blown on. How easy it is to miss this because we can’t get past the size, tusks, and noise? How often do we do this with learners, perhaps because of their organizations, hair styles, or use of professional language? Throw in culture, history, and status (using whatever measure is at hand), and you get the picture?
2. Some things that appear mean are really only happy. It is easy to draw conclusions about the tusks and how the walruses bang into one another as if they are fighting. In reality, the tusks help them get onto the ice and out of the water. Fight? Walruses are so social and so like the company of other walruses that they climb all over one another, and if no walruses are around, will even seek out other moving objects (such as, sadly, a ship). Do we at times misunderstand what our learners want or have to offer, especially those who are (for whatever variety of reasons) different from us? Can we misinterpret their questions, as well as their learning needs, distractions, and levels of commitment to education they had no role in creating?
3. Noise to some can be considered singing to others. A male walrus can be heard from 10 miles away, and can sing in complex forms using all body parts for days at a time. This singing is for the female walrus who can, amazingly, seem to distinguish the love song through all the noise of all the other walruses. Not everybody likes opera or rap, but some people really get into one or the other (or even both). Things that may appear like a confused mess can really be complicated processing by learners (ever seen a Philip Glass opera?). Have we ever thought something was wrong or nonsensical because we don’t get it, though our learners fight to affirm their experiences (that we in turn can easily dismiss)? How often have we ever claimed (even internally) that we know our learner’s context better than they do, and then handily proceeded from there?

I am still considering how much I learned with this article and the next few weeks of attentive reflective practice. While my perceptions and appreciation of this wonderful animal has shifted and grown, I so very want to bring this into my professional and academic work. Failing to do so will leave me unable to reach out to my learners in ways they need. 

After all, learning is most valuable when we reach the learners where they are in and as themselves. 

Tags: reflective practice, walrus

• Still have a sore throat. Was home sick all day today, and do not feel much better yet. #
• Just got some cake for dessert. Wow, I am exhausted. Off to bed. #
• @aroberts Good way of mentioning this, Andy. WIth so many social network apps out there, it is easy to miss some. #
• I am on #Friendfeed http://friendfeed.com/jeffreykeefer #
• Made it to the office today. Have to call the doctor, as I think I am getting worse. #
• Anybody a member of ODNetwork? #
• @jazzychad I know what you mean. Here we are complaining about it, and go right back to use it again and again! I suppose we don’t learn? #
• @smithjd Reading your post. Autoethnography is my methodology of choice. #
• @smithjd Your link to “Transformations: Identity Construction in Contemporary Culture” does not work. #
• @jazzychad Perhaps you could help them! Hey, they just got another round of funding, so one may think they could upgrade the infrastructure. #
• @clintlalonde Looking for a degree program or continuing ed or specific sessions only? #
• Need soup. Waiting for the doctor to call back. #
• Need soup. Waiting for the doctor to call back. #
• @clintlalonde Sorry, no suggestions. The reason I asked is the MS program I teach in at NYU now can be done completely online. #
• Gathering health literacy materials and links for a new project (again) in formation. #
• Had healthy vegetarian Japanese food for dinner. #
• Off to get a hair cut (though not too much). My hair is at the in between stage of too long and not long enough. #

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Do you use Twitter Tools, the wonderful WordPress plug-in that integrates Twitter feeds into and out from a blog? I do, and the main reason I like it is that it allows me to capture my Tweets on a daily basis as a single blog post.

Why, in turn, might I want this? Two reasons–firstly to capture my words and thoughts as I process life and work, and secondly because the daily blog post generates an email notification that in turn gets sent to friends and colleagues who read emails and not blogs or RSS feeds per se. This allows people who are interested in my life (there are a few of them, at least!) who do not live in the active world of social media, to still get a sense of what I am doing via a daily email push.

However (and here is the issue), I do not like having the front page of my blog filled with (at least) every other post to be a Twitter-post from the previous day. Looking for ways to handle this I finally stumbled upon the great WordPress plug-in Simply Exclude. This plug-in allows for a great amount of control of what sort of content to exclude from parts of a public blog. Go ahead, look down my homepage and see if you can see any Twitter-based posts. No? That is because I had Simply Exclude prevent the daily Twitter post from appearing on my front page. They are still there, such as right here, fully searchable (via keyword, month, category, etc.) and present enough to generate the RSS and email notifications, but flexible enough to make my blog appear more than just a Twitter archive.

While I actively try to have inclusive and engaging instructional events, I like having the option of excluding things from where they really do not fit. Simply Exclude may have some creative uses for WordPress-powered blogs that are more oriented to content management systems than traditional blogs, and I would like to explore these further.  

Tags: Twitter

• Do not feel too well today. Have been feeling worse and worse all week. Sore throat, lost voice, week – the whole bit. #
• I have been having a lot of problems using Feedburner. The feeds have not been going through for the last month. Has anybody else had this? #
• I have posted numerous help issues on the Feedburner (owned by Google) Google group, but no response at all from their tech support. #
• Seems others are also having Feedburner issues. Any suggestions for other apps like this for WordPress? #
• The one thing I liked about Feedburner is that it is convenient to send emails to subscribers who do not use RSS feeds. #
• @mathplourde What conference is that? #
• Home sick. #
• Nothing but Feedburner problems. #
• @Xiang_Cui Welcome to Twitter! #

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I spent part of this morning troubleshooting the complete breakdown of my RSS feeds and new post email notifications. I have been using Feedburner (a part of Google) and Subscribe2, a WordPress plug-in.

It turns out that neither of them have been working in the past few weeks, so anybody who follows my feed via email notification or some feed reading software, it does not appear I have been doing anything! These subscribers missed my Liveblogging ASTD and the recent reflection and thinking I have been doing regarding Learning 2.0 (among other things).

I finally learned that when I upgraded to the most current version of WordPress (2.5.1), the default rss feed has changed, and this change had to be adjusted in the Feedburner system. Did not see this anywhere on their site, and finally stumbled across it on the Group page (and simply am not able to find it again after searching and searching). I have still not solved the Subscribe2 plug-in, though have left 2 questions on the developer’s site  and, by the vacation notification he posted and the number of comments and responses, I am sure they will be responded to).

What did I learn in this troubleshooting?

1. Google no longer adequately supports Feedburner. The one previous time I had a challenge with this service, I immediately received a reply and some assistance. They have since removed this wonderful help resource, and replaced it with a Google Group for Feedburner. Three days and three questions later, I have still not received a reply. None. Nothing. I wonder if this is Google’s strategy moving forward–put the onus of support onto the community and then step back. While this makes sense with open-source applications like WordPress or Firefox, this is hard to swallow with a huge profit-making company.
2. Things can be broken without anybody mentioning anything for some time. With the deluge of emails and other forms of notification, it is easy to stop receiving something without noticing it. This seems to be a symptom of information overload.
3. I was getting more comments than normal, though I am not sure where those were coming from. Perhaps the Twitter integration with my blog, which continued to work, is the reason? It most certainly was not from the population with the RSS and email notifications.
4. Web 2.0 technology is more integrated than I initially thought. These programs seem to be so connected that if one thing breaks or changes or upgrades, then it is very possible that the whole thing will fall apart. I upgraded WordPress, and they made one small change (the default WordPress RSS feed) that I did not notice (after all, who would look for that sort of change?) this, and it caused lots of problems.
5. Plan for more time than it seems it should take. No matter how small an issue appears, it can always take much much longer to troubleshoot it than it initially appears.

So, now that I at least have some RSS capabilities, I wonder what changes I may notice?

Tags: rss

Here goes another few tweaks . . .