The web 2.0 recipe, finding the right mix

We are now over a month in to this web 2.0 and social media class, and it has been packed with content and connections, new tools, exposure to great videos and articles, and a toe in the water of many new (to me) sites. I feel a bit like a dilettante chef walking in to a gourmet kitchen. The scale and volume of the content available is overwhelming, the palette of social media platforms and tools is vast, and my limited use of all of them can feel overwhelming. As others have pointed out, I would like to move towards a mastery of some tools, particularly where they relate to my daily challenges educating young learners. Extending the cooking analogy, right now I feel like I have been exposed to so much, but finding the mix that works well together will be an experiment, an organic process, and there is no recipe written yet.
I feel DI has pushed me to try new things, and exposed me to some awesome resources. The Wesch videos, and the Epic videos produced by Karl Fisch are thought provoking and challenging on many levels. The Wesch article that Lucy referenced challenged further as an educator and a parent. The variety of materials and activities have been challenging in a positive way. Establishing a blog is something I simply would not have done on my own, and as I move forward it has been an excellent way for me to sort out my thoughts about the myriad of resources I come across daily. Shelley referenced a nice graphic called information overload that is descriptive of my situation as an educator. This blog has helped me slow down and be thoughtful about what things are critical, and I hope to extend that after this experience. A tool like Wordle was a revelation, fun, effective, and simple, my favorite combination. The logo development process was a rich reminder of my weaknesses, and a helpful push towards trying new tools and not being satisfied with the first thing I find. The wiki editing was also a push I needed, and a super fun project that got my kids interested as well (BTW, each of my kids has now started there own blog on topics of interest after the wiki project, not at my request, but rather by seeing how easy it was for me to set it up. I guess they figure if the old man can do it, can't be too hard). Social bookmarking helped me bring together a lot of divergent resources. Experimenting with Delicious, Digg, and Stumble Upon helped and get a better feel for where these tools can be most effective with my own students.
I heard someone say recently that RSS is dead, well I am a happy Google Reader user, and I think these social bookmarking tools are the evolution of RSS for a new generation, and an evolution of the organization of information, as Clay Shirkey points out here in a great set of speeches turned in to an article. The additional exercises in explaining web 2.0 as we currently see it, and to someone who presumably does not understand it, and writing a job description, have been less helpful in focusing my understanding, but still challenging. Second life is worthy of entire blog post, but suffice it to say that I certainly have been educated on the potential value of this tool. Crowdsourcing is another topic I want to explore in more detail as it relates to the students I teach daily.
Where do I hope to go on the rest of this journey? What have we not done well? Big questions. Over the past week or so I participated in two elluminate sessions offered by classroom 2.0 and learncentral. I would love to learn to moderate using elluminate, and have some structured class or group collaboration sessions using this tool. On learncentral they have a series of sessions on how to moderate, but it costs $199, I feel like some of you probably know how to do this already, or that at the very least we could teach each other, that would be valuable to me. It also feels like a platform (again limited experience here) where we could make concrete some excellent collaborative ideas. I feel like the wealth of knowledge in the participants in this class is tremendous, and I would like to have more of a chance to learn from all of you. On thursday Clay Shirkey was interviewed as a part of a learncentral series, it was interesting to say the least, but the interactive aspects of the interview were dominated by the moderators, 45 minutes of a single questioner, versus only 15 allotted to participants.
I think Lucy has already pointed out the desire to focus in on educational applications of these tools, and she has done it far more eloquently than I could, I second that concept.
I really appreciate being able to have direct interaction with DI, and using a new and evolving tool like Buzz, and getting to follow his thoughts and reactions early was enriching. I love that he shared those early thoughts with us, pointing out problems and positives. I love being able to share in buzz right to the group, and I hope our Google group will become more active. I also appreciate the honesty of evaluating a faltering tool like wave, which I still have lingering hopes for, but is not fitting in our current progress.
Reading back through this it looks like my recipe is pretty full, in 4 weeks we have touched on a lot. I hope we can create a wonderful recipe together, one that is more refined, over the next ten weeks.