While I have always adhered to the “sharing is accountability” credo, I have also held back because of my own insecurity. As I said, I got into my PhD program through the back door and therefore convinced myself that all of my cohorts knew more than I did and that I really had little to contribute. Consciously, I know that this is not the case, but subconsciously I filter incessantly, not wanting everyone to see my ignorance or be told that all of my thinking is “so last century!”

But the Stephen Downes response finally hit home: it’s not my job to filter, it’s the reader’s job. It’s my responsibility to share, whether it’s old stuff, new stuff, peripheral stuff, mainstream stuff. Again, my responsibility, as participant in the “rhizome,” is to share. If I read something that I find interesting or provocative, then I should circulate (and recirculate if necessary). This may be the same old thing or something that everyone has already seen, but that’s OK. Because maybe it isn’t, and maybe ONE person hasn’t seen it who needs to see it.

So I am once again reviewing and revising my intellectual practices. As I described to my students yesterday, my reading process begins with skimming through my streams of information (twitter, google+, reeder, flipboard, alerts) and saving those pieces that catch my eye to Pocket. At certain points during the week, I read those pieces saved to my Pocket more slowly. If I like what I see, I tag it, highlight it, and save it to my Diigo library. I also list the articles that I read on my web site. At the end of the week, this list is posted to my blog. And that was the end of it unless I need to return to my library to find a reference for a project that I’m working on.

In many cases, this means that I don’t actually get a chance to read a piece that’s come across my streams until days or weeks after. In the past, I figured that I wouldn’t pass this on because it’s already old news. Instead, I now want to add a tweet to my reading process for every piece that I tag. This gives me a chance to offer a comment on the piece, and tweet something that I’ve considered, rather than just pushing it out there as just a title. This is a bit more information that people can use to make their own decisions about reading the piece for themselves, even if it’s days or weeks after I first saw it. If they like it, and it helps, mores the better. If they don’t, then they can ignore it.

I also want to enhance my Diigo communities so that I can share those materials more fully. Likewise, I want to improve my use of Reeder, comment more regularly on the blog posts that I read, and include more links in my own posts. But these will come over time. I preach patience to my students all the time, so . . .

All in all, the ET MOOC has once again given me permission to explore and reflect, to share that exploration, to share my own remix, to share my perspective, and to continue doing so long after the ET MOOC has concluded.