About

This is a place where I’d like to think that some social media ideas in education might get surfaced. There are a lot of other places where original work and thoughts get discussed; this is a place for chewing the cud!!

I’m struck with the need to connect different “flocks” (or even herds) as suggested by Ethan Zuckerman to each other. Social networking communities have grown out of hierarchical organisational models but have the capacity to be just as siloed as the structure they are replacing or complementing. It would be great to have “grazers” in one field exchanging ideas with “grazers” in another.

I’m also struck by the need for the individual to find their place in contributing to virtual groups (their “flock”) and I’d like to think I could help find ways of encouraging such participation. Every person engaging in using social media is on a different stage of the journey. It is up to the “flock”, or the combination of “flocks” to help the individual feel their participation is worthwhile.

How do you progress breaking down social networking barriers and extend “membership” and “knowledge”? Is this new form of organisation less helpful to sharing knowledge and information than more rigid (perhaps closed) traditional structures. I’m not sure. I certainly hope not. It’s just one of the many conversations that need to take place in this area to encourage and enable the education professional to participate and embrace the use of social media.

To get started, I’ve chosen a number of resources that I have found personally very stimulating – mainly from TED it has to said – and written some commentaries on them. As I reflect more, I expect to add to these commentaries with other thoughts. It’s all work in progress. I’m hopeful that others will want to contribute their thoughts in the same space and thereby create a field of grazers!

This is grazing, it’s not intended to be the home of original thought creation, but perhaps I can encourage others to join in the grazing in the same space and thereby create a “field” of grazers. Out of this I’m hopeful that ideas might be developed that wouldn’t have occurred otherwise. That’s what the aim is. Knowledge exchange and the transfer of ideas from one context to another.

Start grazing!

5 thoughts on “About”

  1. There seem to be two Thought Grazing sites. They look very similar, but seem to have different content and different navigation. How do they differ, and what are their distinct purposes?

    I ask because I keep thinking “oh, that article that was on here has disappeared, did I dream it?” and then realising I’m on the other site…

  2. There are two sites, Simon … sorry if it causes confusion. This is the main one (if you can call it that). It’s the more “public” one … the other one is more directed towards the activities that take place in the Cardiff “chapter”.

    I may, consider changing the theme of the Cardiff site to avoid similar confusion occurring for anyone else.

  3. I hadn’t realised that was the focus of the two sites, that makes sense. I think it would be helpful to have a localised variation of the theme… Or maybe have a main navigation bar and a local one… WordPress multisites?

    1. I responded to Simon’s comments and changed the layout a little, but then yesterday did a major revamp and combined the two web sites in this location, using the category Cardiff as a menu tab to get to Cardiff focussed content. Hope it meets with approval.

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