I saw the list of Mashable's most influential teacher tweeters. This type of stuff will always bother me. On some level, I was happy to see Jose Vilson listed, because more people need to hear what he is saying. However, on another level, all the metrics and the gamification bothers me. I went to Twitter and found a cool, inclusive community of teachers. It was a place where nobody said, "Hey John, take your ball and go home." It was
Cheers without the drinking - a place where everybody knew my name (and oftentimes my story). It's not an issue of being excluded. I was nominated for a Bammy and I've made other lists of Top 50 and somehow Arne Duncan decided to follow me. The real issue is this: it feels out of place. I don't rank my friends and hand out badges. I don't send out newsletters to the neighborhood on which porches are the best to hang out at. If a PLN is truly a community, my hope is that we spend more time hanging out and less time ranking and sorting.
