I had the great pleasure of talking with Bryan Alexander today for this week’s Teaching in Higher Ed podcast episode. “Bryan Alexander is an internationally known futurist, researcher, writer, speaker, consultant, and teacher, working in the field of how technology transforms education.”

As happens more than half of the time that I have interviews scheduled, I was incredibly nervous. It turns out that not only does Bryan Alexander know a lot about a lot of things, he’s also incredibly kind and warm.

After we were finished recording, I told him how much I enjoyed his recent post about his favorite podcasts. He said that he often listens to podcasts while chopping wood, caring for the animals that they raise on their property, or during his often-lengthy commutes.

While we have some podcast listening habits in common, I discovered that there are some shows that are among my favorites that he was unfamiliar with…

Since I last wrote about my favorite podcasts in 2014, there are still some of those same shows that top my listening preferences. It’s time for some updating to my list of podcast greats, inspired by Bryan’s recent post.

This time I've categorized them, those this proved to be a harder task than I anticipated. Many of them fit into multiple categories.

Teaching and Other Higher Ed Podcasts

• Contrafabulists – Audrey Watters and Kin Lane describe their podcast (which has recently been re-named) this way: “Fabulists are fable-spinners and myth-makers. We are storytellers ourselves, but we poke holes in the hype and distortion of new digital technologies and the narratives associated with them. Contrafabulists are, as the name would suggest, against lying.” Each time I listen, I’m challenged to think more critically about the technology tools we use in attempting to facilitate learning, as well as what’s happening in the broader political, educational, and technological realms.
• HybridPod | The Podcast from Hybrid Pedagogy – Host Chris Friend is a delightful guide for this “collection of casual, thoughtful discussions designed to challenge and make us all think carefully about how we work with students.”
• Research in Action Podcast – Ecampus Research Unit | Oregon State University – If you teach any kind of research in higher ed, it’s worth checking out the Research in Action podcast, hosted by Katie Linder. It is also helpful, just to increase one’s knowledge of different types of research methods.
• You've Got This – Katie Linder also hosts the You’ve Got This podcast, which is a short, inspirational look at building our confidence and competence at various aspects of a professor’s life.
• The Teach Better Podcast – Doug McKee and Edward O’Neil are the fabulous hosts of the Teach Better podcast. They interview expert faculty from institutions such as Yale and Cornel. Each episode is a new perspective on becoming a more effective teacher. I’m still not sure how it happened, but they even had me on an episode once.
• Leading Lines: A New Podcast on Educational Technology in Higher Education | Center for Teaching | Vanderbilt University – Derek Bruff, says that the Leading Lines podcast aims to “explore creative, intentional, and effective uses of technology to enhance student learning, uses that point the way to the future of educational technology in college and university settings.  Through interviews with educators, researchers, technologists, and others, we hope to amplify ideas and voices that are (or should be!) shaping how we think about digital learning and digital pedagogy.”
• TOPcast: The Teaching Online Podcast | Center for Distributed Learning – The Teaching Online (TOP) podcast is an informal conversation between Thomas Cavanagh and Kelvin Thompson, with the goal of helping us teach more effectively online. I had the chance to meet them both at an OLC Conference and they’re just as engaging in person as they are on the podcast.

Shows that Stretch my Mind

• Radiolab – I’m so grateful for having come across Radio Lab a few years back. It has helped to make me more curious about science and to feel like it is more accessible to me than I ever realized. One of my favorite episodes was about when things don’t go like you had planned: Be Careful What You Plan For – Radiolab. Useful lessons for when things don't go like we planned in our teaching.
• This American Life – The producers at This American Life are some of the best storytellers I’ve ever witnessed in audio form. I really enjoy their humor on episodes where they share human failures, like what happens when we only have enough knowledge to be dangerous, or about some pretty awful (yet humorous) mistakes
• Democracy Now! – A friend recommended Democracy Now years ago to help me expand my perspective of politics and foreign affairs. It didn’t disappoint and I now listen to episodes almost right after they’re released.
• Very Bad Wizards – Speaking of listening right when episodes come out, Very Bad Wizards is a delight to have show up in my podcasting feed. A philosopher and a psychologist talk about life’s important topics, though I should warn you, in an often-irreverent way.
  My all time favorite episode is their 75th, where they had experts share about something they have changed their mind about in the past five years. I need to cling to the idea that we’re all capable of changing our minds on important issues, or I’m not sure I can bear our current political climate. I also enjoy whenever Paul Bloom is on the show, like this episode where they talked about the movie “Momento” – or this one where they talked about Paul’s book about empathy (with some movies about empathy mixed in to the conversation). Another memorable episode that stretched my thinking was this conversation with Robert Frank about luck. One last fun thing about Very Bad Wizards is the musical talents of one of their hosts, David Pizarro (Peez). Take a listen to some of his beats on SoundCloud.
• Invisibilia : NPR – From their website: “Invisibilia (Latin for invisible things) is about the invisible forces that control human behavior – ideas, beliefs, assumptions and emotions. Co-hosted by Lulu Miller, Hanna Rosin and Alix Spiegel, Invisibilia interweaves narrative storytelling with scientific research that will ultimately make you see your own life differently.” They haven’t had a new episode in a long while, as of this blog post being written and I look forward to when more are to come. The other episodes are evergreen and are worth going back to hear.

Business and Management Podcasts

• Marketplace – for years now, Marketplace has been helping me connect what’s happening in the world to how it relates to my students’ lives. It's stated purpose is to be focused on economics, but they go much deeper than that, in my experience. Anyone who wants to learn more about business would benefit from listening to this podcast.
• Coaching for Leaders – Leaders Aren't Born, They're Made – I’ll admit that I’m married to the host, but this still is a fabulous podcast that helps us all become more effective at leading. If you want to receive a prescription of past episodes, based on your needs at a given time, try the section on productivity which includes episodes with David Allen of Getting Things Done, Deep Work with Cal Newport, and a discussion Dave and I have about personal knowledge management (PKM).
• Under The Influence with Terry O'Reilly | CBC Radio – Isabeau Iqbal shared Under the Influence with me a few months ago and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed each episode since then. The host, Terry O’Reilly engages us about how marketing has been influencing us through the ages, often without us realizing it.
• Planet Money : NPR – Hardly an episode of Planet Money goes by without me bookmarking it to use in some future class. It talks all about the ways that money is impacting the world. One of my favorite episodes to use in class is this one on How Fake Money Saved Brazil. I like to pause part-way through the episode and have the students predict how they think the experts recommended that Brazil’s leaders fix the problem.
• On the Media Podcast – It isn’t as meta as it sounds – a show about media… But, it is helpful to look at the week’s events through the lens of the media and how it addressed various issues.
• Political Gabfest – This is one of the podcasts that I save up to listen to with my husband, Dave, on our weekend commutes, together. The hosts talk about three different political issues that came up in the past week and then have an eclectic recommendations segment at the end of each show.
• Stephen Explains the News – The premise of this show is that Stephen knows stuff about what's happening in the news  – and much of the time, Kayla doesn't. Stephen is a friend and a colleague, but even if he wasn't, I would be listening regularly to Stephen Explains the News. While it is sometimes a review of what's happening that I have some background on, I find Kayla's questions a good reminder of the topics that our students may also be confused about. Besides, they both have a wonderful sense of humor and their banter is entertaining.

Geeky Podcasts

• Reply All – Gimlet Media – This podcast looks at technology and how it intersects with different parts of our lives. One of my favorite segments is what they call: “Yes, yes, no,” where they challenge each other to interpret something that has happened on the internet that may otherwise go unnoticed by the untrained eye.
• Note to Self | WNYC – I just started listening to this podcast and have really been enjoying it. From the show’s website, “Is your phone watching you? Can wexting make you smarter? Are your kids real? These and other essential quandaries for anyone trying to preserve their humanity in the digital age. Join host Manoush Zomorodi for your weekly reminder to question everything.” I especially like their focus on privacy and how we can all better protect ourselves on the web.
• Mac Power Users – Relay FM – If you use a Mac and you want to leverage it to be more productive, this is a great show for you. Back in 2015, I was on an episode, talking about how I use screencasting to provide richer feedback to my students.

In Community with Others

• Another Round (anotherround) on BuzzFeed – When Peter Newbury was on Teaching in Higher Ed, he stressed the importance of us being connected with people who are like us and people who are different from us. Listening to Another Round, I get reminded not to touch black women’s hair in the funniest way possible. Side note: I didn’t need the reminder, but it was sure funny to hear.
• Code Switch : NPR – another diversity-oriented pursuit comes from listening to Code Switch. From their website: “Ever find yourself in a conversation about race and identity where you just get…stuck? Code Switch can help. We're all journalists of color, and this isn't just the work we do. It's the lives we lead. Sometimes, we'll make you laugh. Other times, you'll get uncomfortable. But we'll always be unflinchingly honest and empathetic. Come mix it up with us.”
• Revisionist History Podcast – this podcast by Malcolm Gladwell could have fit in any number of the categories I’ve created for this list of podcasts. I decided to leave it among those that help us live better in community with one another, since so many of the ways he presents the complex issues he shares about are toward creating more empathy among people with differing perspectives.
• On Being with Krista Tippett — The Big Questions of Meaning | On Being – When I listed to On Being, I feel like I’m being healed in small ways. Based on others’ reactions to the show, I’m not alone in believing we’re all being healed, collectively, when we listen together in community. This episode with John Listen entitled Love in Action is just one of many inspirational episodes.

Podcasts that are Just Getting Started

These next couple of podcasts don’t have many episodes, but they represent the best of what podcasting has to offer.

• LIFE101 – Real Stories about College Life – Mike Wesch is someone who has inspired me greatly in my teaching. He prescribes regular exposure to learning experiences, for us to remain empathetic to our students. He took this idea to heart with his podcast, LIFE101, by having his students give him assignments to tackle. I spoke with him more about the teacher becoming student on episode 118 of Teaching in Higher Ed.
• The Deeper Learning Podcast – Orange County Department of Education – the first episode is about a little-known court case that paved the way for Brown vs Board of Education. My friend and former colleague, Jeff Hittenberger, is the host. He tells me more episodes are on their way and I have to fight to keep from hitting refresh on my podcast catcher to see if a new one is there yet.

I had no idea that this post was going to turn out so long, or that I listened to so many podcasts. Would you believe that this only represents about 60% of them?

As I started to chip away at this post, I realized I was going to have to be much more discerning in which ones I included, than when I first got started with what was supposed to be a relatively easy post.

What podcasts do you listen to that you recommend? Feel free to reply in the comments to this post, or Tweet with your recommendations under the hashtag #trypod.

This post is written to my #edd703 doctoral students, though the contents apply to all of us who are practicing what Karl Weick coined as sense-making… 

We're starting to get further down the path of establishing a personal knowledge management system (PKM) for ourselves. One part that often gets struggled with the most is the sense-making piece.

I find people often want to spend much more time using Baskin Robbin's taster spoon style approaches to try to find another app that they can add to their PKM mix, or even decide to do away with one of the pieces of PKM, completely.

As Peter Senge and others explain:

Weick likened the process of sensemaking to cartography. What we map depends on where we look, what factors we choose to focus on, and what aspects of the terrain we decide to represent. Since these choices will shape the kind of map we produce, there is no perfect map of a terrain. Therefore, making sense is more than an act of analysis; it’s an act of creativity.”

Previously, I proposed that one way we can rid ourselves of the anxiety around sharing is to think of ourselves as curators. Today, I want to introduce you to a person who prefers not to think of herself as a curator, but whose life's work would fit well with what we have been talking about, in terms of PKM.

Maria Popova started her blog as an experimental email sent to seven of her coworkers. She eventually moved her content online and started Brain Pickings. Popova says that her blog:

…is a cross-disciplinary LEGO treasure chest, full of pieces spanning art, science, psychology, design, philosophy, history, politics, anthropology, and more; pieces that enrich our mental pool of resources and empower combinatorial ideas that are stronger, smarter, richer, deeper and more impactful. Above all, it’s about how these different disciplines illuminate one another to glean some insight, directly or indirectly, into that grand question of how to live, and how to live well.”

Popova is held up as one who is massively “productive,” in terms of the amount of information she consumes, makes sense of, and then shares on a daily basis.

In an interview with Krista Tippet for On Being, she was asked about the ways in which her work has been quantified by others.

Tippet inquires as to whether or not the rumors are true that Popova invests 450 hours on a monthly basis in her work. She also asks if Popova truly reads 15 books on a weekly basis, or writes between three and eight hours a day. Popova responds:

I think it’s actually a gross underestimate. I read and write from the minute I wake up to the moment I go to sleep at night and everything in between. Even those — I get around on bikes, so I commute. And whatever I listen to, that feeds in. That’s part of the reading. And so I would say the hours are probably a lot more.” [laughs]

It's tempting to get caught up in the numbers. I read 23 books in 2016, which felt like it required tremendous effort on my part. It's hard to fathom reading 15 books per week, even if it was what “paid the bills.”

It would be easy to glance at Popova's story and move on, since clearly we could never be her, in terms of her productivity. That's why what Popova says next in the On Being interview is so paramount:

…I want to say something important about that. Even if it’s factually true, I think the framing is a little bit misleading because it’s framed as a sort of productivity thing. Look at how much some random person in the world gets done, you know? And for me, it feels very purposeful. And I think what’s funny is that I used to marvel for a long time why my best ideas — and I don’t mean — by ideas, I don’t mean the ideas that — about what to write or all of that, but just insights on the truths of my experience, of the human experience, whatever.

Those ideas, the best of them came to me at the gym or on my bike or in the shower. And I used to have these elaborate theories that maybe there was something about the movement of the body and the water that magically sparked a deeper consciousness. But I’ve really come to realize the obvious thing, which is that these are simply the most unburdened spaces in my life, the moments in which I have the greatest uninterrupted intimacy with my own mind, with my own experience. And there’s nothing magical, at least not in the mystical sense, about that. It’s just a kind of ordinary magic that’s available to each of us just by default if only we made that deliberate choice to make room for it and to invite it in.”

Those of us who are more achievement-oriented can easily turn PKM into a numbers game. When we look to people like Dave Pell or Maria Popova, it's easy to tell ourselves that we won't ever be able to produce that much content, so this whole process must not be for us.

When I'm able to back away at the quantitative aspects of my own engagement online, there's a rich story being told about the opportunities I have had to be invited in to the human experience. As you continue to refine your own PKM systems, I encourage you to think about doing far less, but to make a “deliberate choice to make room for” the gifts that curiosity and reflection can bring.

I hope you'll carve out some time this week to listen to this conversation between Maria Popova and Krista Tippet for On Being. There's so much more than what I've posted here, in terms of “[Popova's] gleanings on what it means to lead a good life — intellectually, creatively, and spiritually.”

Ultimately, I pray you'll “build pockets of stillness” into your days this week, even if it seems impossible.

The Question

I received this question from one of my doctoral students:

I really have no idea how to create a “brand” or how to create my blog to reflect who I am.  Do you have any suggestions on how to figure out who I am, in the land of technology?”

Her question was so powerful that I wanted to share my thoughts to a broader community and invite others to provide suggestions to her, as well. In my reply to her, I'll consider:

• What is a personal brand and is that the “right way” to talk about our online presence?
• How do our blogs and other social media help to reflect who we are?
• How do we figure out who we are, when we're online?

My Response

Let me start by saying how glad I am that you're asking these questions. Part of what has gone wrong with social media in certain contexts is that others haven't pondered in this way, before engaging online. Those of us who are more present online rarely stop asking these questions. Recent examples of these kinds of reflections include:

• My friend and his husband just adopted a beautiful baby girl. They are reflecting on how much they want to share about her online and in what context.
• A friend from college just announced that after the worst year of her life, that she and her husband were now separated, as of New Year's eve. She shared that she usually prefers to keep all her posts on Facebook positive, but she knew people would want to be aware of this change in her life.
• Many educators pondered how to return to the classroom, after the results of the Presidential election had been announced.

Personal Branding

The first time I remember having someone attempt to convince me that I was needed the same thing that my breakfast cereal did, was in a keynote talk given by Tom Peters in the early 90s. Cheerios needed help being identified and valued in the minds of consumers. And I needed help being identified and valued in the minds of current and future employers.

Tom Peters asserted:

Starting today you are a brand.

You're every bit as much a brand as Nike, Coke, Pepsi, or the Body Shop. To start thinking like your own favorite brand manager, ask yourself the same question the brand managers at Nike, Coke, Pepsi, or the Body Shop ask themselves: What is it that my product or service does that makes it different? Give yourself the traditional 15-words-or-less contest challenge. Take the time to write down your answer. And then take the time to read it. Several times.”

I was intrigued, but also wasn't sure that I wanted to be some big corporate brand. Peters also wrote about more of us being freelancers, and at that time, that idea scared the heck out of me. The idea of an A-Z guide for my personal brand seemed too inauthentic for whatever it was I might attempt to do online. Yet, I didn't want to leave the results of what happened whenever someone inevitably Googled me in the hands of others.

Blogging and Social Media as Reflections of “Us”

Finding a voice online is difficult in the same way that figuring out who we are and who we are becoming when we're in-person is hard. We can certainly opt to hide all sorts of things about ourselves when we're online, but we can do that when we're face-to-face, as well. Greg McKeown warns us that thinking of ourselves as a multitude of skills is dangerous and that rather, we should consider our one main distinctive that we want others to perceive about us.

For me, that answer took a long time to come by, but I'm a teacher. That's what I do. That's what I'm good at. That's what I think about, constantly. When I blog or participate in social media, my primary focus is going to be on teaching. These days, I often get to be a teacher of other teachers, which brings me great joy.

In one of my doctoral classes, our professor recommended that we think about who our “stick figure is…” That is, who is it that you serve? Who is your audience of one? Rather than thinking about a broad, target market, he proposed that we find one person who we can always consider ourselves “talking to” when we blog, or give voice to our thoughts in other ways.

Adding Value Online

Once we have started thinking about the primary way we might be able to serve others and who one of the people we provide value for might be, we then can think about how to express some of that online. It can be intimidating to do this for a whole host of reasons, including that it's hard to be authentic, because it requires such vulnerability.

• What if I don't have anything to offer?
• What if I'm wrong about something?
• What if I wind up changing my mind about something, but now my old thoughts are still out there?
• What if I wind up being bullied or trolled online, the way so many others have in the past?

One way to get started is to think less about creating original content and instead provide value by seeking out others' content, making sense of it, and then sharing it.

Become a Curator

The most extreme example of being an expert curator is Dave Pell. He makes his whole living reading the news and then synthesizing it for those of us who don't have time to read 75 news sites a day. While I suspect you won't have time to go to that kind of extreme, as you consider your primary distinctive, hopefully you're regularly consuming news, resources, and other information in that area.

Here's a less-extreme examples of curation around a personal brand. Mike Taylor is an expert in the training and development field who I've been following for years now. Mike's LinkedIn profile is reflective of someone who has done the work to articulate and refine the way others come to know him. In his own words, he is:

Exploring the intersection of learning, technology & social media”

As 2016 ended, Mike created a series of curated posts, all around the theme of 12×12. 12 posts that each contained 12 items. Here were a few that caught my eye:

• My favorite learning quotes
• Day 3 – books
• 12 super useful job aids and cheatsheets

Next Steps

None of what I've described above is easy. This journey is best taken in small steps and with the realization that you'll never be done. I wish you the best as you start down the path and hope others will share their advice with you, as well.

Those of us who podcast are regularly told to not get too hung up on our metrics. I started 2016 with a goal to grow the Teaching in Higher Ed community by 50% by October. Once I hit that goal, I stopped going back to review the results quite as often. However, I still know that I am sometimes overly focused on quantity of downloads, over quality of the connections we have been able to build through this community.

Still, it is nice to see more people are listening to podcast episodes each week. Well, to be clear, I don't actually know who listens. I'm only able to tell how many people download each of the shows.

List-making is quite popular this time of year. There's Oprah's Favorite Things of 2016, Wired's 2016 Wish List, Slate P!cks, and both The Sweet Home and The Wire Cutter gift guides.

I've decided to participate in the trend by making a list of the most downloaded episodes of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. I know that each week, new listeners continue to join the community and may have missed some good shows along the way.

Top 10 Teaching in Higher Ed Podcast Episodes

This list of the ten most downloaded episodes of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast is not in any particular order. It's been interesting to see how the most popular episodes have fluctuated during the course of the year. I get so curious when a particular geographic region downloads a significant amount of a particular episode, but have yet to unravel any of those mysteries.

Episode #092 – Small Teaching with James Lang

This was Jim's second visit to the podcast. Our first conversation (on episode #019) was about his book, Cheating Lessons. In the most recent episode (#092), Jim shared about the small changes we can make in our teaching that will provide the biggest leverage toward improved learning.

While I have treasured each opportunity I've had to interview Jim for the podcast, he has also contributed to the community in other ways. He regularly recommends guests (including some that you'll get to hear in early 2017). He also has written the most edifying words that anyone has ever shared about the podcast in Improving My Teaching Via Podcast in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Episode #096 – The Clinical Coach with Dr. Jeffrey Wiese

While listening to an episode of the Teach Better Podcast, I heard Geoff Connors (from the Yale School of Medicine) speak about his mentor, Jeff Wiese. I found Dr. Wiese's teaching portfolio and was instantly captivated. Jeff agreed to come on the show for episode #096 and ever since airing, it has remained popular.

Episode #107 – Engaging Learners with Gardner Campbell

The connection I feel when talking with Gardner is hard to describe. As he described standing with his students listening to Peter Gabriel's Solsbury Hill, I instantly traveled to a place I have never been, yet somehow felt like home. He reminded us that “great ideas of all kinds come from all kinds of people at all stages of their knowledge.”

Somehow, he can mention authors who I have never heard of before, yet not leave me feeling closed off from the learning. He challenges us to regularly gauge how our students are experiencing their learning.

Episode #089 – The Research on Course Evaluations with Betsy Barry

Our institution switched over to online evaluations this semester. A few times, I found myself wanting to stop the process and ask those leading the effort to first listen to this conversation with Betsy. She provides an overview of six surprising insights about course evaluations, all in a clear, concise, and engaging way.

Episode #087 – What the Best Digital Teachers Do with Sean Michael Morris

Sean has been on the podcast twice now. Each time, he has challenged me to release some of my desire to quantify learning, and to recognize it for the complex process that it is… He reminds us to regularly revisit our courses, as he asserts: “Every time we step into a classroom or design a new course … we have to step back and realize we don’t know anything, that each time it is new.”

After we spoke, Sean sent me such a thoughtful gift. It was an autographed copy of Savvy, a wonderful book that transported me to a wonderful place and taught me about agency and teaching.

Episode #110 – Self-regulated Learning and the Flipped Classroom with Robert Talbert

Getting to know Robert through two podcast interviews and the Teaching in Higher Ed Slack Channel has been rewarding. I have a feeling that after a few more months, Robert's most recent interview on the Getting Things Done methodology will continue to garner multitudes of downloads.

On episode #110, Robert shares about self-regulated learning and the flipped classroom. He states: “You can’t say that you are interested in teaching students how to learn and then spoon-feed them everything.” Robert has already agreed to come back in 2017 to share about his new book on the flipped classroom.

Episode #114 – Engage the Heart and Mind Through the Connected Classroom with Ken Bauer

Like Robert, Ken Bauer has engaged through both being interviewed on the show, but also on the Slack channel. I'm grateful to be in community with him and for his generosity as a teacher of us all. He encourages us to connect with our students and consider how our fear keeps us back from innovating in our teaching.

The number one difficulty for faculty in innovating in their practice is … fear.”  – Ken Bauer

Episode #098 – The Skillful Teacher with Stephen Brookfield

Like many of the other guests who have been on the show more than once, Stephen Brookfield's episodes continue to be popular among listeners. I was excited to read Stephen's revised edition of The Skillful Teacher: On Technique, Trust, and Responsiveness in the Classroom this past year. It is now among my top recommendations for new and experienced faculty, alike.

Stephen is transparent in his writing and his interviews as he shares about his own struggles with imposter syndrome and working toward talking less. He also reminds us to continually take risks in our teaching and recognize that there's no magic formula for teaching effectiveness.

Skillful teaching is whatever helps students learn.”  – Stephen Brookfield

Episode #088 – Top Five Gadgets for Teaching with Bonni & Dave Stachowiak

Lest we think that our community is above the click-bait nature of numbered posts and podcasts, this episode about the top five gadgets for teaching has continued to top the charts, since it was first released. Dave and I enjoyed talking about the gadgets we get the most value from in our teaching.

There was a complaint in the comments section that the episode was too Apple-centric, given that three of the five recommendations were specific to that ecosystem. However, given the number of downloads, at least we know there is an interest in this kind of information. We'll continue to work at being considerate of all computer / smartphone / device users in future episodes, while still recognizing that Apple has a commanding market share in some of these spaces.

Episode #112 – Radical Hope – A Teaching Manifesto with Kevin Gannon

As I mentioned at the top of this post, this list is not in any particular order. However, this episode is turning out to regularly being among the top three episodes, depending on the time I look. This is likely since so many of us in this community need the hope that what we are working toward makes a difference.

Kevin reminds us of the vulnerability required to teach effectively:

If I want my students to take risks and not be afraid to fail, then I need to take risks and not be afraid to fail.”  – Kevin Gannon

Contribute to the Upcoming 2017 Episodes

Your ideas about show topics and guests are always welcome. As I looked back at the list of the top ten, I found it somewhat concerning that 80% of the episodes that have been downloaded the most were with male guests. I did a quick count and found that 59 episodes of the podcast have been with male guests, while 53 of them have been with women. I didn't count the episodes when it was both Dave and I together. Also, I counted each episode guest's gender, meaning that people (including solo episodes with me) who have been on multiple times were tallied more than once.

My head hurts from speculating about why more downloads occurred with male guests… Perhaps it is as simple an explanation as that more than half of the guests represented on this list have been on the show multiple times?

I welcome any ideas you have about amplifying some of the more diverse voices of former guests. I started this particular post, thinking that I would link to the top ten and also list some that I think are not listened to as frequently, but are worth hearing. However, now that I'm at a much longer post than I thought this would be, I think I'll hold off on that idea for future blog posts.

Thanks to all of you for listening to the podcasts and giving potential guests even more of a reason to accept the invitations to be on the show.

This Saturday, I begin a doctoral class that I teach a couple of times each year. One of the topics we explore is personal knowledge management (PKM).

Over the eight weeks we'll learn together, the doctoral students will create and refine their own PKM processes. They will then be able to regularly seek out new knowledge, make sense of that knowledge, and then share their own perspectives on it in community.

As I prepare for the course to start, I realize that some of my own PKM system has changed, since I first started teaching the course back in 2014. This post provides a current description of my approach and tools and hopefully gives anyone reading this post some inspiration for getting started with your own PKM system.

Personal Knowledge Management Defined

Instead of being at the mercy of all the information that flies at us on a given day, we can take charge of the process, and discover ways to seek our credible and relevant information, transform it into knowledge (information that serves a purpose), and share it with others in our networked communities. Harold Jarche defines PKM as:

… a set of processes, individually constructed, to help each of us make sense of our world and work more effectively.”

This graphic illustrates the tools that work in concert to make my PKM system efficient and effective.

Seek

Kris Shaffer emphasizes the need to combat misinformation in Truthy Lies and Surreal Truths: A Plea for Critical Digital Literacies. Where we go looking for information will certainly impact whether what we find is trustworthy and also if it is connected with our individual learning pursuits.

I try to keep the tools I use for seeking to a bare minimum (primarily Twitter, Feedly, and my podcast client – Overcast). I also regularly consider whether the people and sources I follow are worthy of my attention. To avoid being a information hoarder, I design a system that feeds me regularly and keeps me in a continual state of learning.

Twitter (Microblogging service)

Twitter is the most timely of my seek tools. My list for getting started on twitter for education doctoral students provides a small list of possibilities. Generally speaking, I advise following more individuals than you do organizations (there are exceptions to that guidance). Twitter is about relationship, for me. Peter Newbury also gave my Teaching in Higher Ed podcast listeners such good advice when he advocated that we follow people who are like us, and follow people who are not like us on Twitter.

Feedly (RSS reader)

Feedly connects me with articles, blogs, and other information from all sorts of areas of interest. Whether Seth Godin is filling my mind with wisdom, or I'm finding out about the latest geeky Apple news from Daring Fireball, I can be assured that valuable information is at the ready, each time I visit.

There's an option to mark-all-as-read on Feedly, too, which I can't recommend highly enough. Being able to press the reset buttons on our PKM systems is a vital option to keep in mind. We'll never be able to “keep up” with everything that is going on in our various social networks, but we can “tap in” when we're ready to engage.

Overcast (Podcast app)

Probably the easiest component for me to get behind in with my PKM system is with podcasting. There are so many phenomenal podcasts out there and not enough hours in the day to enjoy each of them. Malcolm Gladwell is doing some innovative storytelling with his Revisionist History podcast. Mike Wesch gives a tremendous look into college students' lives in the first episode of his Life101 podcast. This American Life tells stories about what happens when school kids from two very different contexts come together.

Sense

When people are first introduced to PKM, they usually get super energized and excited by the seek part. It's like getting to eat at a magnificent information buffet, with so many options to choose from… It's the sense part that is harder to digest.

Information in isolation does us no good. We must, instead, make sense of what we are taking in…

Social Bookmarking

We can use social bookmarking tools to keep our information categorized (through tagging) and make it easier to draw from it in the future.

I use a bookmarking service called Pinboard.in. As I view my tags, I can see which ones have the most bookmarks within them, because they show up as larger in my tag cloud. My three most popular tags are:

• EDD703 (relevant information for the class I've been referring to in this post)
• EdTech (lots of duplicates from EDD703 and EdTech, since they both address similar topics)
• HigherEd (the industry I work in)

Share

This is the part of the process that often makes people the most nervous. There's a feeling of inadequacy that arises. What we share doesn't have to be an original creation. In fact, it is often through networked learning that we are able to discover places we might not have ventured on our own…

Curation

One way we can provide value to our networks is through curation. Curators are becoming increasingly popular in our knowledge-hungry society. This video talks about the benefits of curation and presents some popular curators from different disciplines.

We can also recognize the value of “working out loud.” As we document our failures, we're not the only ones who get to learn from those mistakes.

Original Content

I share original content weekly through releasing a podcast episode, a blog post, and tweeting out links to content I've created, as well as curated.

Scheduled Sharing

I use a service called Buffer that lets me tweet on whatever schedule best serves my network's needs, instead of whenever I happen to be in front of a computer.

Getting Started

While this post articulates my PKM system in its entirety, I suggest you don't try to follow it like it was a recipe. Instead, just dive in and start setting up a system to help you seek, sense, and share.

Find 4-5 people to follow on Twitter and start checking in on what they have to say daily. Set up a bookmarking service (EDD 703 students will be using Diigo, so we can share our bookmarks, together). And start retweeting some of the great things you read about on Twitter, with a few words of why you found what they had to say so important.

For more information on setting up a PKM, check out my Introduction to Personal Knowledge Management module.