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The short description in the header reads “I’m just sayin’.” When I started this little project, I thought I would just write things I thought about. The kind of thing I would say to people if they listened.

That was pretty easy when no one was reading.

I didn’t know that clean water and poverty would be such a hit. I’m gratified that somebody thinks willisays is worth reading. I’m still not sure why I get hundreds of hits a day now. Even when I don’t write anything!

A new feeling of responsibility has overtaken me. I have to have something important to say for the folks. I have to avoid offending readers. What would happen if people stopped coming by? The $4.00 in Amazon kick backs would dry up.

Yeah, it sounds pretty lame when I write it out. But that’s been me over the past few days and weeks.

I’m glad that’s over.

I worked on the Yes on 8 campaign Tuesday. I live in California. I think marriage is important. It seemed like the thing to do. I didn’t have any money to give, so I worked on the campaign. (The $4 from Amazon hasn’t got here yet.)

I kept having this nagging feeling though. I saw the New York Times picture of the two gay dad’s struggling to provide for their kid. My compassion for them and others like them has really grown. They have a unique struggle. I started to worry that I was just making their struggle harder.

These people who live differently that me were just trying to make their way in life. They were no threat to me, I began to think.

Well, you probably heard that Prop 8 passed. Just before the election though, there started to be vicious attacks on my religious beliefs. The attacks continue. But the attacks have spread to all members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Erinannie at Moments of Clarity and Chaos shares the too common experience of this week:

At some point in the morning I got a ‘tweet’ about the No on Prop 8/anti-Mormon rally today in L.A. At first the way this tweet was written was specifically anti-Mormon. It wasn’t about civil liberties, or the CA state constitution, or even about love and marriage. It was flat out a threat against Mormons.

Not once have I made a public comment, whether on my blog or on Twitter, about Prop 8. In fact, I have very conflicting feelings about it, and have steered far away from any conversations on the subject. The bottom line is that I don’t live in California, and therefore, don’t feel that I should exert any influence over another state’s vote. I know many people disagree in different ways over that position. I don’t really care.

So you can only imagine how shocked I was when I personally started receiving threats today all because my Twitter account has me identified as Mormon. I was told to go to hell in more ways than I can count.

I’m having a hard time maintaining my compassion. I haven’t threatened to kill, made fun of beliefs or picketed sacred places of anyone who disagrees with me. But that’s what I get in return.

The unnoticed attack on freedom of thought has been fought slowly in the past.  Now that a major counter-attack has been won, the silent enemy is revealed.

Image via Wikipedia

Howard Rheingold is not waiting for schools to change. On Now, New, Next he posted:

It’s time for social media literacy to enter mainstream education.

Learning to use online forums, be they social network services like MySpace and Facebook, blogs, or wikis is not a sexily contemporary add-on to the curriculum - it’s an essential part of the literacy today’s youth require for the world they inhabit…

We don’t have time for institutions to change, which is why I’ve worked to provide tools for those educators who are using social media to prepare students for the 21st century.

Many educators are coming to similar conclusions. Social media is available and accessible to students. They already use it but need training in how to use it well. He continues:

When I first faced students in a classroom, I was surprised to discover that the mythology I had believed about “digital natives” was not entirely accurate. Just because they’re on Facebook and chat online during class and can send text messages with one hand does not mean that young people are acquainted with the rhetoric of blogging, understand the way wikis can be used collaboratively, or know the techniques necessary for vetting the validity of information discovered online. Just as learning the alphabet requires further education before a literate person can compose a coherent argument, learning the skills of effective social media use requires an education that today’s institutions and teachers are ill-prepared to provide. More

New tools need new instruction. Reingold has developed Social Media Classroom (SMC) as an attempt to provide that new instruction. SMC is open source and invites teachers to try it out and add to it. I like what I’ve seen so far.

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Firesign Theater did a radio sketch in the late 60s that I remember well. Several hippies are talking assuring themselves and each other with the lines “I’m groovy. Are you groovy?,” “Yeah, I’m groovy.” and “We’re all groovy.”

Another man enters the scene and they start a new chorus. “He’s not groovy.” and “Hey, you’re not groovy.” The man protests that he is too, groovy. But the group decides that, in fact, the newcomer is not groovy and needs to be sent back to for regrooving. The result, they hope, is that the man will return groovy, just like them.

I understood hippies to favor peace, love and understanding in the world. Being different was OK. We should all have tolerance for one another, according to this counter culture. Turns out, they wanted everyone to be the same different as their different. The hypocrisy of “Tolerance for me, but not for thee,” was evident to my almost adolescent mind.

I’m often reminded of the self-groovy crowd when I hear people hold forth on their political opinions. Presidential election years seem to bring out the “groovier-than-thou” attitude in many Americans. Perhaps it is that I just hear from old hippies or wish-they-were-hippies.

I don’t decry this generation or this election cycle as being any worse than others. (I’d be happy to share the details of the Jefferson/Adams nastiness in 1796 and 1800 with anyone who is interested). I’m not really surprised, for instance, by those who loudly claim that George Bush has trampled civil rights and will shout down anyone who disagrees with them.

It’s easy to lose the capacity for rational thought when you refuse to consider opinions other than your own. You believe X. You only listen to people who believe X. It becomes easier and easier to be intolerant of any one who does not passionately embrace X.

The image of standing in an echo chamber shouting, comes to mind.

The case of CoachDeb is instructive here. CoachDeb is the Twitter name of Deborah Micek, a successful business mentor who lives in Hawaii. People follow her on Twitter, read her blogs, listen to her webinars and podcasts, buy her books and attend her seminars. People do all that because Deb helps them improve their business and make money.

To some of her followers, all the free advice and helpful instruction was not enough. Deb spoke her mind about the recent presidential debates. That wasn’t groovy, for some.

Deb noticed that more than a few people stopped accepting her free success advice because they didn’t agree with her politics. Not that it really hurt her bottom line. The incident just serves to illustrate the tendency of some people close up their minds when they get information they may have to think about. Even when it means losing access to information that could be very useful.

Those who have read this blog for very long may have already guessed my conclusion. I like to think about things and consider different points of view. I get comments from all sorts who have definite views on various topics. I thank you for sharing them. Honest discussion is valued here.

I like to think I have enough confidence in my positions to withstand criticism. And the ability to change my position when new information comes to my attention.

I’m just sayin’

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Many teachers find that Twitter is a better online collaboration tool than wikis or blogs. Some of the reasons include:

Easy access- Twitter is invisible technology. The student doesn’t need to learn a set of buttons and menus.

Low Risk- Reluctant learners can handle 140 characters (usually less). There’s little chance of failure.

Real time- Students see their project grow as they work. Collaborators can work from different computers with out fear of clogging the project (a problem with many blogs and wikis)

No formatting- Given bells and whistles, many students will ring and toot instead of write. The simplicity of Twitter offers only a place to add text.

Concise writing- 140 characters means each word has to be necessary. The process of posting to Twitter forces students to become better writers.

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Mashable Social Networking News has proclaimed that Twitter has “Bounced Back!.”

I’m sure that many readers of this blog may not have realized that Twitter was falling, needed to bounce back,  or for that matter, that Twitter even existed.

Twitter is a microblogging service just into it’s second year on the net. It is a backbone of many personal networks. 140 character messages let communities know what’s happening and which other network has more information. For a good explanation of Twitter go to the Twitter Handbook Blog.

Twitter has bounced back from a decrease in users caused by a recent string of growing pains. The service has experienced huge growth and frankly, was not prepared. Many users began searching for alternatives and cut back on use. But, as Mashable explains better than I could, the service is on the mend.

Why would I care? And why should my faithful readers care?

First, I’m a contributor to the Twitter Handbook and I like being associated with successful stuff. I also use Twitter as an important part of my Personal Learning Network. I don’t want to rebuild a network some where else.

Many websites and services have come and gone on the internet during the last 15 odd years. It’s difficult to know which ones to invest time with.

And that brings me to why it matters to you.

You should be on Twitter. Whatever matters to you, whatever your, there are people like you on Twitter. Hundreds of thousands, of people post what they are doing 140 characters at a time. It’s a great link to people you want to know and read.

Go. Sign up. You’ll see. And follow me on Twitter. I’m wwhitlock.

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He missed the introduction, didn’t know what was going on. He was explaining Twitter to some one and didn’t hear that he was getting an award.