Procrastadabbler

Time Magazine contains an article about Twitter (wow, big surprise), but what I find interesting about the article is two-fold

1) “the key development with Twitter is how we’ve jury-rigged the system to do things that its creators never dreamed of. In short, the most fascinating thing about Twitter is not what it’s doing to us. It’s what we’re doing to it. ”

That’s what the neo-Vygotskyans have been discussing for a long time. Twitter’s making it obvious.

2) The description of people joining in and continuing (via Twitter) a conversation that started at a conference. This leads me to imagine a class debating an article, using Twitter for back channel, and the author and others contributing. I’m not, by any stretch of the imagination thinking this would be a regular occurence, but it sure would be nice to have a lively conversation about ideas that extends beyond the walls of the classroom.

I’m intrigued by and am enjoying watching these various modes of interaction evolve. I started in 2000 thinking about IM, now nine years later we’ve gone through IM, Facebook/Myspace, and now Twitter as the hot topic. I’m excited to see where we go next (and if anybody has any clues as to what it might be, let me know and I’ll buy stock).

For the past year or so my stomach has been unhappy. In fact, my whole body has been experiencing just a general sense of malaise. I just chalked it up to being of a certain age. But I’ve been thinking about when certain symptoms appear and started tracking what’s going on. As a result I’m trying to take fructose and wheat out of my diet.

The frutose is not too big a deal. I don’t eat much (if any) processed foods and that’s where that gremlin tends to hide. But the wheat. Oy! That’s tough one because I love love love bread. And I love to make bread. And I love to bake.

I’m seeking out gluten-free bread recipes (so far they all sound unappetizing and low in fiber). I think I’m going to have to switch my carb load to brown rice. And oatmeal (that doesn’t seem to bother me - as much).

So, why am I writing about this? Why should anyone care? Well, I’m thinking about this as a change in how I approach my life. It’s about attending to details. I’ve been a careful consumer of edibles for a number of years now, but this is forcing me to be even more so.

This attention to details also has to carry through to my professional life. It’s about staying away from that which is toxic to my system either in the forms of food substances or social and psychological substances. I don’t want to get all new agey here, but I realized I put up with a lot of junk in my life just because it’s easier to do so. I need to work against that.

Attending to the details isn’t about being obsessive; it’s about being in the moment and noticing what counts and what doesn’t. That’s where I want to be in my life. That’s how I want to change my habits.

I work alone, a lot. And I like it. I like the hours of solitude tapping away at my computer and visiting with my books. But there is a need for fresh ideas and to be able to bounce ideas around. And that’s where twitter and facebook come in. Those two tools are becoming more important to me every day as a way to test ideas, to see what other’s are thinking, to be connected to new ideas. And then the blog is the place where I can start to put it together without censuring myself because I’m thinking it’s for publication.

Yes, I’ve written about this before, but it’s becoming even clearer to me.

The virtual doesn’t replace the face-to-face. It is part of a broader range of experience. Through FB and Twitter I am connected to something larger than myself and larger than my geography. It makes it clear that there is no such thing as the independent scholar. It makes heteroglossia and intertexuality concrete.

But that’s another writing project for this summer.

I spent the last week or so analyzing data from a series of focus groups and interviews. This week I’m working on writing up the findings. It seems easy at the outset - as I look at my analysis, but then as I start writing I begin to better understand the subtle nuances that I need to capture. And I see the interconnectedness of each category I’ve identified.

Then there’s the problem of the overall claim. In my mind it sounds so profound, but once written it seems mundane and prosaic and I wonder, “who the hell will want to read this?”

But I forge ahead.

There’s the compulsion to write without the filter of worrying about meeting the demands of academic quality. I’ve come to realize that’s the attractiveness of blogs. For me. I don’t have to cite. I don’t have to build an argument. I don’t have to examine my warrants. I can rant if I so choose and if people don’t like it, so be it. And if someone wants to join in the conversation, fantastico.

I’ve been conducting interviews with urban Latino youth about their literacy practices. I’ve also been transcribing those interviews. These kids are friggin amazing. They are up against incredible odds. They came to the US anywhere between 5 months and 5 years ago and they hold on to the American Dream that they’ll be able to make it. The odds are against them. They are sweet and polite. They have such incredible commitment to their families. And they have incredible literacy practices.

I want to smack up people who disregard what youth have to offer. When I hear people’s responses to the new literacies, to youth engagement in digital literacies, it tells me more about the speakers limitations than about anything else. I admit, the new literacies aren’t a panacea. They aren’t going to cure the world’s trouble. But when I look at what these kids are doing and what the new literacies means to them, it shakes my world.