I do love Twitter, have always forgiven it in the past for being buggy and unreliable, but it seems now it’s reached a point where I say WTF?!? Why should I waste my time with this?
No seriously. I can’t use it reliably anymore. I want to communicate with people. I want to use it to update *stuff*, from IM, phone or web. I want to know that it will do what I expect it to. I could before, but not anymore.
It’s so full of bugs, that it has lost (almost) all value to me. All my confidence has been lost.
Of course the dilema is that there is value in the connections made and that’s the only thing that seems to be bringing me back to Twitter, but even that seems to be losing value as less people seem to be paying attention to it.
The natural thought would be to find something that would replace the Twitter fix. FriendFeed or Jaiku are the closest replacements I can think of. Plurk seems over complicated. Ideally we could get something that will easily export my Friends and Followers and import it into a Twitter clone, but perhaps this is an opportunity to think of other ways to communicate, go back to just blogging more regularly or perhaps to cut back on the noise entirely.
Ah, of course the funny thing is that this blog post will automatically get fed into my Twitter account.
I came across HeroCamp via Tara Hunt and felt inspired. The idea is to address an issue, organise an intense event to discuss and potentially plant seeds to solve problems. HeroCamp is happening later this year in the US and will be on the topic of Education.
I’d like to do a HeroCamp in the UK and have nominated Brighton as the location (because “I heart Brighton”).
If this is of interest pop on over to the HeroCampBrighton page and leave your name. I am gathering interest at the moment and am completely open to suggestions.
Since having kids I’ve put a lot more thought into the ‘education system’. I’ve never really liked it to begin with, but after years of thought and investigation I am definitely am less keen now.
Simply put - I don’t like the system, it sucks. It’s all wrong. Full of systems, processes and tests that doesn’t really consider the needs of the child/student.
All signs of creativity seem to have been pulled. Schools/teachers must do this. Must do that. Unable to wander about as they have to keep to a tight schedule. Learning is from books or inside a classroom, and the real world is forgotten.
Students from all stages of school/college/university are increasingly unprepared for the real world. They are taught everything seperately. History is taught as history. Maths is taught as maths. Science is taught as science.
Yet on their own these subjects often make little sense. Why not teach someone how to cook, or how to do woodwork? They’d naturally learn maths concepts as they go along and actually enjoy it.
Why get people to memorise so that they do well in exams, only to rapidly forget everything they have learnt and not be able to apply it to the real world?
Why are school/college/university graduates not prepared to enter the real world?
My eldest starts school in September. He’s learnt a lot since he was born (obviously!) and none of it is down to school. He’s learning to read & write at the moment and asks lots of question about everything - as kids do. It’s all off his own back. He wants to learn about the world around him. There’s no pressure and the pleasure he gets from it is obvious from the glow in his eyes.
It’s a natural instinct to want to learn and understand the world around. With a bit of encouragement, do we really need such a rigid and restrictive educational system?
I’ve opted for my boys to go to school elsewhere. It’s costing us when I don’t think it should. I would like to see a future where we have more choice. Where ‘educational establishments’ can truly put their learners first. Where people can have a choice.
I don’t see this yet. Perhaps my grandchildren will. That’s what I’m hoping and pushing for.
I used Stikipad a while back, but after a while got fed up with their poor service, down time and bugs. I wisely moved all my stuff off.
It’s a good thing too, as it appears their site is in the process of moving data centers. I believe it’s been moving for around 2 months and there are a bunch of unhappy people who didn’t back up important data.
There hasn’t been a word from the creators of Stikipad, but a few obvious grumbles on the web. ’tis a shame.
Community Architect at Schux, co-director at The Werks and bigger upper of all things digital Brighton, social and girl geeky.
Most importantly - (stressed out) mummy and wife to my family.
