Twitter : Eek eek !
Oct 26th, 2007 by alexanderhayes
[ image : mobology ]
I’ve lodged the “unblock” request……along with Secondlife, YouTube, MySpace, Slideshare and a host of other things in the last two years.
So has Robyn and I’ve watched her from the other side of the room and in despair sometimes I’ve just cynically posited that perhaps we should just give up using the internet altogether. Maybe we are working in opposition to education etc…….but we are assured by many that we are not. Just pushing boundaries and forging ahead……in many case just playing catch up.
However being the determined soul that I am this has just gone too far. I dont know who else this is effecting and affecting…..many I presume.
How can I sit with an Institute Director here and encourage him and the learning innovation team to participate in Elearning07 if they’ve gone and BLOCKED it !
I have three teams and countless other interested people coming in via Adobe Connect and because not all of them even have audio plugin points I was in the middle of the conversation with them today encouraging them to register and contribute via Twitter because Secondlife is blocked also and whammo !
Some bright spark has gone and blocked the showcase, low end, the most affordable, relevant, literacy imbedded, most funky accessible tool for merging conversation and bridging knowledge globally with ease.
Alan Levine…..sorry mate, not sure where to take the conversation now as I cant see it. I cant engage with you nor the others so…. Jokay does this mean we are precluding people at Elearning07 ? Is there anybody out there ? Hello ?
Can anybody in the real world of foresight with business acumen and networked connectivity hear me ?
Can you stream in emails to SL ?
lol
(Gotta) Love your work.
seriously??!! that sucks. welcome to china. see you on tumblr?
Oh man……I’m just TIRED with capital letters of this battle. Help me god.
Please deliver me from this idiocracy.
from tweet land:
poor alex & co - blocked from twitter to go mad in isolation !!! caged birds….
@jokay i’m appalled…unfortunately i’m not sure grass is greener elsewhere? we lost access to FF and will lose local admin rights soon
Shoot, and here I was hoping to pick up a date with an employee.
“It has been classified in the category/ies Dating Social Networking” - note the use of the uncredited, unattributed passive tense. There is no subject to that sentence to declare the action, like “Fred has classified it” or “The Committee for Demoting Innovation has classified it”.
Therefore, in all my previous presentations where I cited Australia as “being” innovative, I now strike to record to say, “Australia had potential to be innovative.”
I suggest it is time to roll down the windows, stick your heads out, and yell, “I AM MAD AS HELL AND I AM NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE.” Wake up, my Australian friends, your organizations are ones of Totalitarism.
This organizational strategy is one to drive the creative and innovative forces of the organization *away* from the organization, a strategy any professional, any leader (refer to the Art of War) would define technically as “stupid”.
So you can sit around and take it like dogs laying down, or mount a campaign, toss their tea, and burn down their firewalls.
But I am just speaking metaphorically.
I’ll be twittering alone.
@jtneill - why are they forcing us back into this forum thread ? tweet tweeeeet eeeep beeeeeep *fading*……………*white noise*
Why block Slideshare, that is full of educational resources! WTF But wait its also has porn and religion as well. Humm so does the entire web. lets just block the lot, just to be safe. Or better lets introduce our own clean web. Yeap that’s a really good idea!
Same goes for YouTube and SecondLife..
This is yet another example of mindless IT manager who is scared in his little dinosaur cubical who can’t and doesn’t want to see what is really happening on the web and the world at large. If they had their way we wouldn’t have the internet or email, but a nice closed corporate network. Mindless IT Borg.
But what about twitter, thats just mindless chatting. Okay some of it is, but its also networking, its remote collaboration, its finding new resources and people promoting them for others (links). Its about peer referrals of services and resources. Its having the community of your peers at your disposal 24/7 if you want it. Its about an announcement service, about helping build remote communities through referring to best practice etc.
alex - i’m training up some pigeons 4 u - they don’t tweet but they do coo - they’ll be there with printouts of twitters in a few weeks - i could send them via your IT dept for filtering first if you like
cogdog tweets:
Great moments in visionary leadership, New South Wales. “They” (the invisible, cloaked ‘IT Guys”) blocked twitter
Welcome to the People’s Republic of Australia, where you can see wonders like the Great Firewall and the Dry Lake of Innovation
Just thought I’d try again……thought it was a delayed joke but no……it’s blocked…….stop socialising everyone ! get back to work. process those claims. * Pink Floyd playing softly somewhere in the background*
This is just depressing. Twitter is enabling all sorts of interesting connections - across platforms and communities.
For example, I use it as ‘flashmob’ tool in Second Life - it allows me to call my network together for presentations and demos, jokaydia happenings, discussions or just for some fun. I can also use it to connect spaces - eg. real life/Second Life events, or use it to announce information for a conference or event.
There is plenty of discussion in the blogosphere on this already… see:
TwitterStory - http://tinyurl.com/2ox339
Twitter Tweets for Higher Education: http://tinyurl.com/yvpwn6
3 scenarios for using Twitter with your students: http://tinyurl.com/2lvtvf
When are we gonna get over the blocks and limitations and start using the technologies and creative ideas at our fingertips!?
*Blocking ears - refusing to listen to that song about bricks in walls!* ;(
Frances & Sue from Challenger TAFE here. We aren’t blocked but bandwidth dismal.
Do you want us to help run sessions for you?
Group hugs available on request
Thanks James. * waves *
Seriously this has got to be a joke though….. in light of all the things Alan has highlighted as core and foundational civic rights of professional educators using ICT’s to engage, retain and motivate clients from all descriptions and in all capacities.
Surely this cant be happening…..even just one isolated case although I suspect it’s not.
I’m tired of harping on and building business cases from case studies which have been conducted in covert innovation labs in the homes of educators who work for the very organisations that are supposedly progressing access and equity for those preculded from relevant educational opportunity.
I have spent the majority of this year as a ICT advocate, managed into a box with cardboard flaps and staples for wings. It’s a serious, serious thing when we have spent countless thousands bringing an international refrence to our shores, parading thoughts of open accord and innovation only to upon their departure from our shores tout one finger and say….yeh yeh…..and we blocked it.
Bah.
@jokay - exactly !
It’s not VOIP nor is it executable.
It’s more powerful than Skype in my estimations !!!!
* waves as body fades into the floor *
@Frances & Sue - tweetlessness……frightening…..how would we share our inanity
?
Even the cynics were tweeting.
RIP for alex & co
http://jtneill.tumblr.com/post/17211434
Sue and Frances - I think some of us will definitely need a hug! No Tweeting or Flickring.. it’s enough to send a girl mad!
And yes @alexanderhayes - I will miss sharing our inanity.. but I’ll miss making connections with fabulous people who often become important members of my professional network via Twitter even more.
It’s been fun to see a glimpse of the network whole humans tweeting their ideas, eating habits, philosophies, daily chores, shared innovation and everything else in between in the elearning07 Twitter stream over the last few days - see: . http://twitter.com/elearning07/with_friends.
But.. as you said.. back to email..
*grumbles….. so inefficient… so beige… grumble grumble!*
@jokay - you resigned to the fact that it will remain blocked ? I’m commenting to no avail ?
Rise….rise…..rise comrades. I will not tolerate stupidity and this is one of the most majour breaches of knowledge aggreagtion in recent times.
Wave that flag * pictures of soldiers , teargas and OPEC members behind three metre high barricades*
Hmmmm… resigned… I think not. I’ll continue to use and advocate the tools that suit me or meet the needs of my clients, or allow me to connect to my network.
But i feel sorry for those stuck behind the walls who can’t easily access the alternative pathways to connect to the really innovative stuff online that you and I have access to.
And I’m bored with this fight. I want to focus my energy on the creative connections, learning and connecting with other innovators.. not the flag waving or picketing. We haven’t got time for that!
But if YouTube is blocked then you can’t watch Uncle Johnnies really interesting Tax Payer paid for educational videos.
I agree.
> And I’m bored with this fight. <
@ Gary Barber - nor can I watch Rudd’s nor anyone’s that have been created with taxpayers funding.
The use of Twitter cost virtually zip.
In the whole time I’ve been using it I cant recall once seeing an offensive, objectionable 160 chracter message nor innapropriate web links for my learners.
Well we might have super average internet but at least we are not censored….
bob was telling me that when he was teaching in NSW when flash drive came out they were banded… they sure are a scared lot over there.. but later, they were accepted and seen as necessary…. hang in there guys… you work with the innovative stuff, it is going to happen… sorry to hear that
the sin of social networking - what a thing!!!!!
what if you flashmobbed the conference to an alternative site just b4 the official opening. somewhere like outside the r/l venue with press coverage & street theatre & SL with press coverage & street theatre
i’m aware that PRESS coverage is archaic but u know what i mean & hey there’s something in the air that just makes me feel sooo last century
ride the anger guys but beware the depression
minh
This is shocking news at a time when I’m promoting Twitter to my Qld colleagues. How can I help? A letter of support?
Yup … blocked, blocked, blocked. I’m wondering how long I’ll enjoy my naivety up here in the NT. As you know Alex and I were literally blasted out of the water on October 19 with Connect failing us and our southern Australian colleagues literally blocked out of mobilizethis. Australia missed out on an important opportunity to discuss, debate and forge ahead their thinking on ways to engage youth with today’s emerging technologies. At the time I thought we ought to go ballistic and hit the media in a big way - now I am convinced that this is necessary. Some of Australia’s leading thinkers and innovators are literally being silenced and that just won’t do!
Just let me know what your Canadian colleague can do to help … we swing a mighty fine hockey stick when need be.
As a non-DET RTO person, its just bizarre.
In all this chatter, I’ve not seen the reason: why are they blocking it?
The error tells us in what category the site is. But it doesn’t say why it is blocking it.
Or is any site that is categorized as dating/social networking immediately blocked, regardless of content?
ANd who does the categorizing?
Indeed Kylie…..exactly Stephen Downes sentiments.
Indeed WHO remain faceless, WHEN never debated and least of WHY…….
Just imagine an open dialogue that determined this…..just imagine.
I need to clarify that the web filtering system is based on categories allocated to sites by an external company. In DET NSW senior management is able to open, block, or lock categories. When sites are blocked based on a categorisation application can be made to unblock based on educational need. If this is considered valid the site is then given an additional TAFE user category that over-rides the others.
As people find sites that have value they need to check the category and then submit an unblock request. Info on this is available in our wiki at http://nswlearnscope.com/wiki/index.php/Resources#Web_Filtering_news
….as Robyn states it’s based on categories allocated to sites managed by an external company which is respondent to the sector……mostly.
It’s about validity and the ability of teachers and individuals to negotiate and most of all substantiate.
Tiredness and general morale plays a big key in whether this occurs ….people get worn down after a while and just relent.
Our job is to ensure the coffee keeps flowing smoothly.
The same thing happens in the health department - sites are blocked becoz they mention sex or drugs for example.
Just imagine being a health department employee dealing with injecting drug users who are HIV positive & you want access to … well you get it. They too have to apply for the unblock over & over again as new site present new information/approaches/ideas. Or they don’t bother just get on with what they’ve got. It’s exactly the same for post natal support people - try performing that role without talking about breasts.
The concept of trusting adult professionals has been utterly abolished in NSW. Don’t even talk about trusting children.
Don’t we have to challenge this?
After attending Alan Levine’s inspiring talk in Darwin last week I avidly started twittering and blogging and I have learnt more and had more inspiration in a week than I have in the 4 years I have been in a teacher in NT Distance Learning. It is so good to be connected to a network of like-minded e-learning advocates and to share great links and ideas etc. Almost everything interesting is blocked by NT DEET - Second Life, You Tube, even Wordpress!, but not twitter - so far!! It probably won’t take long. We need a revolution! How can we use the tools we have to change THEIR minds (whoever THEY are) !??
Have a cry Alex. I don’t know if this is now blocked for other reasons, but on the day did you contact anyone (you know that thing called a helpdesk) to ask if there was a problem?
No, just had a sook. DET were experiencing issues with the filtering system that was causing issues like valid sites coming up as block for some parts of the organisation. Huge drops in available bandwidth was also causing slowness.
Wake up to yourself, get of the high horse and try actually working with the organisation rather than always against it. You may actually find it helps.
Whatever.
Whatever-get-a-life random.
Sook ? I did contact the Helpdesk repeatedly ( over two years ) and yes it has absolutely nothing to do with bandwidth rather categories controlled by your own.
Wake up to myself ? I’m fully chargin’. We sat in your office and you did jack……
I dont work against organizations ….I work with them to progress the use information communication technology in education and yes what do you now think of the advent of Secondlife in your own camp ?
Go sook yourself.
“………How can we use the tools we have to change THEIR minds (whoever THEY are) !…………??”
I’ll put up a “Twitter Random’s” post today just for you my blue eyed, blond haired random freakazoid.