Teach the web, Postetmooc and other activities

So I am about to embark on another mooc type endeavour, with Mozilla's Teach the Web. I'll see how it turns out. I am already feeling a little anxious because of course I've forgotten how to connect my blog to an aggregator (and the assumption that it is easy is to figure out ticks me off! and is one of my pet peeves about Mozilla.) But given that I start most moocs feeling a little anxious I expect that I'll enjoy the learning once I cross all of my little Rubicons.

Postetmooc is turning out to be a great extension of ETMOOC and I am so glad. I was missing my Wednesday twitterchat, and the Google + coffee group meeting every second Tuesday has been great for sparking new ideas and discussing topics that we were introduced to in ETMOOC. I am particularly interested in our current topic, branding and digital identities. Will Richardson and others have written recently on this topic so it should be a great discussion. Primarily though, we're going to be reading the blogs of Seth Godin over the next week or so simply because we find references to his ideas in everyone's blog. Why not just go to the source!

I've also been lucky enough to join a few other communities with similar interests such as OOE (open online education) and Open Spokes (vlogging). I am so glad I am making the effort of maintaining my PLN!

One of the things I love about the web is that I can find out what other people are thinking and talking about. In the last six months I've taken the bold leap (at least for me) of being on Twitter and blogging/vlogging. However, like many newbies to the social media verse I was afraid of what this might do to my sense of privacy/identity. In looking for information about branding/digital identities I found this gem of a video that reflects my justifiable fears of big data and the companies that use our data to generate wealth. This has nothing to do with education and everything to do with becoming a continuous target for advertisers.

Lo and behold, I hadn't realised I had given up all rights to privacy when I signed up for Facebook which is how I keep up with friends and family spread all over the world. So, I am going to consider giving Facebook the boot. I may have to resort to more traditional forms of communication. Ah well, at least I will end up supporting Canada Post!