Yesterday I had the honor of putting together a panel of my peers to talk about how we use the web! Our panel was titled “Growing up with the Real-time Internet” and it consisted of myself, Corvida Raven, Kelly Sutton, and Lauren Litwinka.

The video is embedded below. Please watch it and comment. I would love to continue the conversation that was started at #140conf.

For a good part of the beginning of the video, the camera guy didn’t realize I was on the panel, and I guess thought I was just the moderator. So he cut me out of the shot. But he figures it out half way through.

But I know I have to write it.

Over the past 4 months I have been living in Philadelphia, and working for Comcast Interactive Media. I worked on a project producing a series of tutorial videos. It was a very different job for me. There was a lot of managing. Managing people, managing expectations, managing outside agencies… it was a very big project. But my contract is ending on Jan. 15th so it’s on to hopefully better things.

So I had to make a decision, stay in Philly and look for another job, or move back to NYC? After talking with my family and close friends I have decided to do something that I didn’t want to do, but I know I have to do. Go back to school.

When I first started blogging there were 2 things that I worked very hard to keep under wraps.

#1 – that I was still in school

#2 – how young I was

I don’t really remember why I decided to do that, but from my point of view at the time, they were both negative things. I had a number of friends my age who were still in school and also in the social media/ blogging podcasting space, but for some reason whenever they were mentioned, they were always “student bloggers” and in my head that sounded like it was something less than everyone else. I didn’t think that they deserved less credit because they were young, or still in school. I also feel like the “student blogger” was being put in a box. It became a specific category that I didn’t want to be a part of. The age thing I always wanted to keep under wraps because I wanted my work to speak for itself.

I have very strong opinions about higher education. I don’t like it, I didn’t think I needed it, and I think the whole system in general is broken. I’ve written a little about education before. Once I had finished 4 years of school, I was done. I didn’t graduate, I just couldn’t take it anymore, I didn’t see the point. But while I still feel this way somewhat, I have decided to go back to school and finish my degree in Media Studies.

I can only hope that this doesn’t set me back career wise.

So…now that I got that off my chest, I’m moving back to NYC and I’m looking for a job. Not an internship people, I might be going back to school, but I don’t think that takes away from my level of experience. Ideally I would like to find some work in community management, social media consulting (I know I hate that term, but there is not other way to put it) Something that doesn’t require me to be in an office all of the time (since I will have classes, etc)

If you hear of anything, please let me know.

I wanted to thank all of my friends and mentors for being so great and supportive to me with this decision.

I arrived at Laid Off Camp NY yesterday morning bright and early, eager to give my session on Networking 101. However, after I put my session topic on the board, a few people asked me if I was going to do a session on Twitter. So I decided to do an extra session on Twitter. In the spirit of Laid Off Camp I am going to post my session notes here.

So Twitter…What is it? What’s it all About? (shameless show plug)

Most of the people in my session yesterday knew what Twitter was, but they were having a hard time finding value, or an effective way to use it.

Of course I got asked the now age-old question: Isn’t twitter just like facebook status updates? Why do I need twitter when I have facebook?

Twitter IS NOT the Same As Facebook Status Updates

Let’s start with some simple twitter terms:

Followers = the number of people who have chosen to receive your updates in their twitter stream

Following = the number of people who’s updates you would like to receive.

Unlike most other social networks, because twitter does not work on a ‘friends’ model (which requires that you accept someones ‘friend request’ before you can communicate with that person), someone on twitter can be following you and you are in no way obligated to follow that person back.

Twitter has been categorized as a ‘micro-blog’ which give the misconception that someones twitter stream can be read like a blog, from top to bottom. Chances are if you were to try and read someone’s twitter stream like that you would become very quickly confused because the stream would simply not make sense.

You would come across updates like

All you see is a lot of @‘s and #, it can look like a foreign language sometimes.

@ replies = when you see and @ followed by a twitter username, that tweet is a response to another tweet. This is how you have conversations on twitter.

# hashtags = when you see # followed by a word or acronym, it is called a hashtag. Go to search.twitter.com and type in the hashtag to see what all the fuss is about. (some twitter clients turn these hashtags into twitter search links already but twitter.com does not as of yet)

Passively reading twitter is not a great way to get started using it. I suggest you start following people who you find interesting. Do not start following only celebrities, because to be honest, they don’t really know how to engage in conversation on twitter. Check out WeFollow.com, it’s a twitter directory. You can add yourself and search for people based on tags. It’s a good place to get started.

The next thing I recommend is turning on SMS with twitter. (only do this is you have unlimited text messaging, and if you don’t have unlimited text messaging, get unlimited text messaging)

I know a lot of people who only really use twitter via SMS and it works great. It’s fast and easy.

I recommend testing out some twitter clients for your computer. Some people might disagree with me on this one, but I feel like if you really want to start using twitter you need to put some filters in place. There are a TON of twitter clients to choose from but I recommend trying tweetdeck or tweetie.

One thing a heard a lot yesterday was people that had signed up for twitter, looked at it for a few days, and never touched it again.

I say, give twitter 30 days. Really make and effort to use some tools, and engage in the conversation. You won’t be sorry.

If you have more twitter questions, or I am missing something that I talked about yesterday, please leave it in the comments and let’s continue the discussion.

I have talked a little about my feelings on education. I decided that I wanted to do something about it instead of just talking about it.

So, I am starting a meetup group to figure out how much interest there is for teachers to learn more about how social media tools can be used in education.

I plan on this group holding educational sessions for teachers about social media and how these tools work.

Now the one thing I am stuck on is a name for the group. This is where you come in.

Should I name the group:
a) social media for education
b) social media for educators
c) teaching our teachers
d) other (please leave your suggestions)

UPDATE:

I am worried that “social media” is not the right term to use. I don’t want people to assume that this is about teaching teachers how to use facebook and twitter. If that is something that they are interested in than I am willing to explore that.

However, I wanted this to be more about creating communities and social space for your classroom, or group projects etc, that will engage kids outside of the classroom and help them to learn in a social way.

It revolves around the idea that learning is really just sharing information. And isn’t sharing what the internet is all about? I want to show teachers how these tools work and foster their imaginations about how they can work these tools into their curriculum.

I worry that using buzz words like “social media” and terms like”2.0″ aren’t really going to attract teachers.

Thoughts?

On Tuesday I attended Jeff Pulver‘s SocComm (Social Communications Summit). There were some really great speakers and a wonderful active audience. It was a long day but it was a lot of fun. Over the next few days I will be writing posts about some of the thoughts and bits that inspired me to think and discuss further at SocComm.

Today I really want to talk about something that Fred Wilson said during his presentation on truth. He predicted that Harvard university will not exist in 50 years, that everyone would be able to create their own form of education. This is something that is very interesting to me, and I sincerely hope it comes true.

A few days ago I re-blogged this video on my tumblr titled: Learning to Change-Changing to Learn this video was produced by the Consortium for School Networking. Founded in 1992, the Consortium of School Networking (CoSN) is the premier professional association for school district technology leaders. CoSN is committed to providing the leadership, community and advocacy tools essential for the success of these leaders. Their mission is to empower K-12 school district technology leaders to use technology strategically to improve teaching and learning.

Some of my favorite points from the video:

Education was ranked the lowest industry in IT intensiveness!

Kids are rich content developers!

Every turned off device is potentially a turned off child!

We live in a “nearly now” space.

We have a classroom system when we could have a community system!

This is the main reason that when I have children, no matter where the education system is, they will be home schooled. Having been in the education system for the majority of my life so far I can tell you that it is useless. I have learned more by asking questions, talking to the right people, and attending events like SocComm, than I have in entire semesters of higher education.

Social tools have the power to teach us anything we want to learn. The Internet bridges the physical gap between me and a school in France. I should be able to take classes whereever I am from the BEST Professors in the world! This future, and the future that we are all building for the next generation is what makes me wake up in the morning.

I know that I am a part of an industry that will shake every other industry as we know it – from Publishing to Government, from Education to Hospitality. Everything is about to change and I have NO IDEA where the chips will fall and when the walls will crumble, but I can’t wait!

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• To my friend Jon Arnold: SocComm is right for these times (pulverblog.pulver.com)
• SocComm Videos – Febuary 10th, 2009 NY (webmetricsguru.com)
• Attending SocComm and Search Engine Strategies NYC 09 (list-your-blog.com)
• Pulver’s SocComm. Feb 10, NYC (saunderslog.com)
• Shelly Palmer: Why You Need to Translate Value Into Wealth (prevential.com)
• Why Obama Can’t Ignore Education Tech (businessweek.com)
• Is Traditional School a ‘Must’? (chris.pirillo.com)