#EdChatMod Google+ Forum... Thank You & See You at @GiveAndTakeInc Givitas?

Google+ closes down in a few weeks. One of my very first attempts at community building was an EdChat moderator G+ forum. 

I've revisited this community this week to share some thoughts about how social media and #DigCit has changed with the rise of hate groups etc ...and to encourage people to send our friends at #INZspirED a Virtual Hug.

#EdChatMod Forum & Nurph
In 2014 I curated lots of Edchat information and added all the Twitter Education Chats to Chat Salad and advocated for Twitter chat platform Nurph (Which I found out about from #CmgrHangout). I wrote this EdChat Resource Plan

After writing this report I created a G+ forum for EdChat moderators to share ideas on all aspects of hosting Twitter chats and working towards 4 main aims:

1) That we will do what we can to help promote everyone's EdChat
2) To curate information that will add value
3) To collaborate and co-ordinate on some EdChat admin
4) Drive the EdChat Agenda Forward

As with all first attempts this was a learning process and the forum has been quite quiet recently, but it was lovely to revisit one more time to share some posts in the hope of supporting our friends at #INZspirED with a Virtual Hug 

...And to try to raise awareness of how I feel #Digcit has changed since organising the UK #DigCitSummit for the movement's Co-Founders David Ryan Polgar and Marialice Curran in 2015 compared to social media today.

@BeMorePirate Rule Breaking: Why I wasn't at School Today - I Went to Utah

My 7 year old son's first blog post was about why he turned @BeMorePirate by breaking a little rule by skipping school to model the DigCitSummit Co-Founders aim that students 'Act Locally, Connect Globally'

#DigCitSummit @SpyQuest Mission to help recruit @ElliePrimary1

I'm glad that was the reason and it wasn't because he'd been recruited to join like Scottish school girl and ISIS recruiter Asqa Mahmood did with 15 year old Shamina Begum.

The message delivered on this mission to our Education Secretary was

Mr Swinney
We need, as educators & parents, to model
Digital Leaders for kids everywhere
To connect classrooms on Twitter and Skype
with educators & policy makers w
schools locally but we need to learn
& globally kids at Westquarter
Help Ellie


But if you read the first two words from each sentence the decoded messages reads.

"We need Digital Leaders To connect with educators & schools locally & globally. Help Ellie"

It would appear that keeping young people safe online in 2019 now includes ensuring students have a sense of belonging in their local community offline... to prevent them going looking for it in hate groups online, which then become tragic IRL decisions that see violence and death as a result.

Tech Story 2: The Wild West of the Internet… And the Digital Citizen Ship

I read New Power last May and it highlights how organisations like Alt Right have been on spaces like Reddit for years making angry people even angrier... putting the same 'Feedback Loops' & 'Network Effects' in place that led to 'Unprecedented swings' for the SNP 2015... And is affecting life offline now too

"The Reddit world is made up of its users, who skew young, male, and geeky, and do the upvoting, linking and commenting...In the months prior to the #RedditRevolt the CEO had tried to create new rules to shut down offensive content and hate speech on the site. Predictably, this had clashed with the somewhat outlaw, libertarian ethos of Reddit. Many suspected these efforts were not driven by a moment of moral awakening but rather were an effort to clean  up the site so it could be more easily monetised for advertisers. The speech that the CEO was targeting was extreme: Revenge porn, attacking transgender people, white supremacists... It was also easy to sense gender dynamics at play on a platform whose users were mostly male" 

"Brian recalls why he chose to become a volunteer moderator when the site introduced them 'You got to build a community. You build a policy structure that keeps it thriving, keeps it going. That's why Reddit was successful. You feel like you own it"

Courtnie talks about her identity as a super users like this: 'Reddit is my community center, it's my YMCA'"

"Reddit also has a big impact on politics - research has shown that Reddit was one of the most important online spaces for Alt-Right Trump supporters to congregate and coordinate as they successfully wages the so called "meme wars" on social media during the 2016 elections...Reddit Co-Founder Steve Huffman estimated that users they looked to silence, the 'toxic 0.2%' who polluted the space for everyone else. " New Power

I've made an attempt at sharing New Power case studies in a way that might engage even the youngest of audiences by wondering how the Toy Stories characters would fair without any #DigCit guidance, it was fun to write: Tech Story 2: The Wild West of the Internet… And the Digital Citizen Ship

Ian Gibsom (@GibsonI) is looking at doing a #NewPowerEducation book club and people from further afield will be able to Skype in to join the discussion, if there's enough interest in hosting some kind of event to discuss these ideas.

#DigCit and Keeping Kids Safe Online ACEing Made to Stick:
ISIS Recruiter Asqa Mahmood & Educator 'Swarms'  

The reason I shared that article in the #INZspirED Virtual Hug Tweet is because the advice of having positive messengers and alternative narratives is the advice US Counter Terrorism recommends regarding tackling people like Scottish School Girl Aqsa Mahmood (who was one of ISIS best recruiters)... and recruited Shamina Begum, More heartache for the families involved, more lives lost!

"After these false starts, the United States began to realise it needed to take a different approach. CSCC coordinator Alberto Fernandez laid out a new direction, speaking to Congress in 2015:

"You need to find a way to form loose, open source communities of interest or swarms that can swarm back and push back against the ISIS message. It's not an impossible thing to do. It can be done"

The new inter-agency Global Engagement Centre is trying to make this happen. Discarding the top down hectoring tone of the Think Again Turn Away campaign, the centre is trying to build a "Network of positive messengers" to share not just counter narratives, but alternative narratives drawing people away for more extreme positions, amplifying the messages of its partners, from religious leaders to schools." New Power extract at the end of this post

Please Retweet to send #INZspirED a Virtual Hug

How EDL Member turned his back on the group - after a hug from a Muslim

I'm a fan of High Impact/Low Cost Vs High Cost/Low Impact ideas and interventions. Compare how a hug is all that it took to turn Ivan Humble (@NewDayStarts) to turn away from the English Defense League.

But, at the same time, note how Ivan was recruited... his life wasn't in the best place -> he posted a racist tweet -> and someone was on the phone within 15 mins providing him with a sense of belonging

From the Suffolk coastal town of Lowestoft, Ivan was back in 2009 a stay-at-home single dad of two.

“At that time my personal life was a bit erratic," he said

"I was a single dad with two kids, I had bad depression and a break down a few years before. I was on benefits, I had normal struggles with everyone else.”

He posted a comment online and within 15 minutes had been contacted by someone from the EDL and soon joined, rapidly becoming the regional organiser for East Anglia.

“I felt a sense of belonging with them and when I got into the secret groups, that was when the magic happened, not that you call it magic," he said.

“No one person radicalised me. If I blame any one for my radicalisation it would be Anjem Choudary because I bought into his interpretation of Islam, just like many other people.”

What Kind of Leader are You? Education Crowd Leaders

New Power Crowd Leader Quiz

This a fun quiz... if you do take a moment to complete it and decide to share the result on Twitter, feel free to share on the thread below. There are some policy makers in the Tweet and, you never know, the engagment might see them reply and join the conversation.

Fight for #ForTheWeb and The Well

My closing remarks at the 2016 #DigCitSummitUK event was based on The Well's mantra of You Own Your Words. 

After spending 10 years on The Well Howard Rhiengold found the place predictable... when I read Katie Hafner's The Well in 2015, I felt that social media would be heading in the same direction.

Earlier in the month I asked Howard if he felt that Facebook could be 'Unslummed' of all the hatred...

His reply = I wasn't wrong, which is why I'm exploring @GiveAndTakeInc Givitas

(@CordyM's mentor and featured in the 2016 closing keynote at ISTE)

Thank You #EdChatMods... See you on @AdamMGrant's @GiveAndTakeInc 'Givitas?

This was one of my first attempts to create a community space and it will be closing in a few weeks. Thank you to all the EdChatMods who spent their time on this G+ Community.

I wanted to let people know where I will be going next and also wanted to post some thoughts on the terrible events in New Zealand and elsewhere with the rise of the far right and provide some suggestions that Educators might want to consider.

I'll be using @AdamMGrant's @GiveAndTakeInc 'Givitas' platform and posted my first '5 min favour' request recently and has led to meeting some great new contacts and interesting links and resources.

My First Request on @GiveAndTakeInc's Givitas... Hopefully See You There!