Discord async spaces

I've tried to run a CS Discord for a while. Everyone there is a person I have spoken to directly in some form. We have a realname@school username policy. When it's active, it's 10-15 CompSci teachers, mainly with an IBCS focus, but also some my coworkers and friends from around the globe.

I don't know what brought you here, but what I've been looking for in an online space for decades is a good faculty room. A place for colleagues in a department to focus on the variety of concerns along our axis. Computation and algorithms and sewing and design, but also culture and creativity and all the soft skills we were so sure Making had to include.

I have an internally discursive process, and I think in text. I grew up on dial-up BBS and a Greymatter comics blog and a social/fic/parent LiveJournal and a professional WordPress. As a CS teacher, if I can explore an idea in plain text, there's a much better chance of me knowing about it 10 years from now.

I've been going back over old Tieandjeans posts from roughly a decade ago, and this one has gotten in my head.¹ It's over a decade old and still is basically how I think everyone gets better at everything. And we do so little of it.

Those thoughts are really tying into a concern I have about how schools are considering public/private spaces. Our words and intellectual effort, our reflection and imagination, are what make the class successful, over and above the CS content or design skill or math IA. Having colleagues to share and reflect with is an essential component of professional growth.

To my knowledge, a flag or self-licensing system for declaring a "professional development space" and asserting a Code of Conduct, the same way you would for an in-person event, doesn't exist. But like the Creative Commons or the GPL, it starts with noticing the lack, asserting how you think it should work, and being willing to adjust to changing situations or beliefs.

As such, I hereby assert that this is that form of community. A space where we can share our real practice, offer help from the real place where we are working and living, and engage in the meaningful, specific reflection required for growth-inducing collaboration.

In a world of connected global educators, there should be a way to create these spaces and navigate the complex waters of intellectual property and privacy. But for now, let's focus on building a community of support and growth, one post at a time.