Bud the Teacher

    As best as I can determine, the first reference on the Internet to my grandfather, a man that I know far too little about, is this one. 
    My given name, Edward, is/was/will always be his, too.  (Bud, the nickname that I’ve used for everyone except substitute teachers and bank tellers, is/was/will forever be my father’s father’s name.  I was named for both of my grandfathers.)
    I’ll be offline much of this week, with family in Rock Hill, South Carolina, where I used to play in my Granddaddy’s amazing garden.

    I’m easing back into the blog after a restful Thanksgiving and an unfortunate start to my week.  Two recent postings by others seemed appropriate to pass along as I get back into the swing.  The first, from Cindy, is a request that I’d like to help her with, as I feel somewhat proud and responsible for her recent large swigs from the blogging Kool-Aid punch bowl.  She’s looking to develop some traffic for her preservice teachers who are blogging at CSU.  You can find their blogs in the sidebar to her’s, where you’ll find more and more interesting ruminations.
    The second, and more controversial of the two, comes from Jeff Utecht, via a head’s up from Jenny.  An interesting question here:

What is the difference between us telling a student to use a fake
name on their blog or on the web and a 13 year old pretending to be 18
on myspace?
We teach them to be safe on the web, to hide their identity to
basically ‘lie’ about who they are. But, when they do it on myspace we
say how horrible that is that they pretend to be someone else. We then
go so far as professionals to put our Biases and Disclosure notices to show how honest we are.

Now pretend you’re 13….is this confusing?

     I’ve commented, and you might consider it, too.  I think there’s an interesting tension, in both the question and the responses, between the two ideas of anonymity and safety, as if the second requires the first.  I think that’s bogus, and that you can share some of who you are and still remain safe online, despite other smart folks who happen to disagree.  There’s a big ol’ messy space between being completely anonymous and giving out your home address and phone number.  Total anonymity, I believe, and have noticed over time, leads to irresponsibility in too many cases.

    I’m going to be offline for much of the week as I’m headed off to spend some time with family.  I’m planning on posting lots of convention reflections when I return, as well as some thoughts on ARG’s and their potential in schools, a podcast from my NCTE presentation, and plenty more. 
   I hope all y’all that I met in Nashville are up to good things, or enjoying a well deserved break, and that your travel home was safe.  I hope all the rest of you are keeping busy with good and important work and family and life.
    Happy Thanksgiving to all, whether or not you actually celebrate the holiday.  There’s lots to be thankful for, isn’t there?

Terry Elliot passes this along, and I will, too, as this is Thanksgiving Week in the United States, and there’s often much to be thankful for that we simply take for granted.

The Dilbert Blog: Good News Day
As regular readers of my blog know, I lost my voice about 18 months
ago. Permanently. It’s something exotic called Spasmodic Dysphonia.
~Scott Adams

So begins the incredible story of how Dilbert creator
Scott Adams used poetry to cure his disease.  OK, I am exagerrating a
bit here, but the story does resonate with some old and new ideas.
First, it supports the old idea that experts should never be on top,
but only on tap. In other words it celebrates the belief that personal
responsibility should be  at the core of any credo of any substance.
Second, it supports the newish idea of the wisdom of crowds and
folksonomies.  Instead of internalizing our own victimhood, Adams
breaks out to tell a new story.  There is a danger to this.  As Steve
Biko said, “The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the
mind of the oppressed.”

    I’ve come to depend quite heavily on my Bloglines account — it’s where I keep the people that teach me what I need to know, as well as what I need to need to know, if that makes sense.
    My aggregator is the glue that holds all of my network together.  When it works.
    Has anyone else been having trouble with Bloglines recently?  I’m logging on to find no feeds sometimes, or a messed up memory of what I have and haven’t read.  I thought perhaps that the problem was me — but it isn’t.  I’ve had the same issues on different computers and networks.
    Sometimes it works, other times it doesn’t.  Yuck.  When my aggregator isn’t working, I’m lost.
    I recognize that Bloglines is a free service, and that I’m getting way more than what I’m paying for, but I’ve come to count on the service.  I need it to work.  All of the time. 
    Help?  I’d hate to move elsewhere.  But I might have to.

    An alert reader pointed out that the calendar in the top right corner of my blog is redirecting folks to another Typepad blog. 
    Huh.
    I haven’t a clue about why this is happening, but I have put in a request to tech support to solve the problem.  For the moment, please avoid the calendar — I can’t guarantee that you’ll find me linked there.
    I originally went with Typepad, in part, because I liked how well everything works.  But over the last year, there have been problems.  It’s beginning to get frustrating. 
    Typepad, I know I’m certainly not your biggest customer, but I really like your product, when it works.  Problem is, that isn’t as often as it should be.  I’ve noticed that you never fail to collect the payment from me each month — that system never seems to be broken.
    Can you please fix the rest of your system so that I will stick with you?

UPDATE:  Magically fixed.  Why’d it break in the first place?

I’m curious to see if this idea works, in spite of the fact that I’m not sure I agree with it. 

(Actually,  I wrote this post on Sunday night, but held off on publishing until I could reflect on some of the really good questions asked in the comments to Tom’s idea.   Now that I’ve read this follow up by Tom, I’m definitely in, although there’s still much to consider when it comes to treating the web like a special episode of American Idol  .  .  . or the US Congressional elections.)

Bombs away.

Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin Luther King Jr.

Cindy says that blogging can maybe make her a better person:

Knowledge-in-progress, networking, and democracy as an instrument of
change. Now that’s something that will get me blogging…and maybe,
just maybe, make me a better person all at the same time.

I’m not so sure about that, but I’m pleased to see her beginning to see the potential.  Her post is a personal epiphany.  I like it when smart people choose to share.
    And Cindy’s wicked smart.

I’m writing to you right now from a public computer terminal inside the NCTE Exhibit Hall at Opryland.  It’s been a crazy and rewarding couple of days — two successful presentations with smart colleagues on blogging and social site design, some good meals and better conversation with friends and family, as well as several "meetups" with colleagues from cyberspace whom I’ve never met face to face — Paul Allison, Chris Sloan, Kevin Hodgson, Mary Lee and Clarence Fisher are some of those I actually shook hands and spoken with — although I know there are other readers lurking at this conference.  I also managed to entice some well-intentioned stalking (follow the link for a short podcast).  It’s weird to be a person via text before being a person, ahem, in person.  But it’s also cool, because I feel so often like I’m continuing a conversation, rather than meeting someone new, although I’ve met several new folks that I hope will become contributors via their own blogs.  (Feel free to share a link to your new blog, or any feedback you might have, in the comments.)

  Plenty more to post — but I’m off to another session.  I’ll upload some audio from one presentation once I get a chance to get my own machine back online.  Tonight’s one of my most favorite annual events.  Perhaps I’ll see some of you there.

    Sometime in the next six months, Longmont, the city where I teach, will be rolling out a city-wide wireless network.  Some of my students have their own, WiFi equipped, laptop computers.  Not many, but some.
    Uh oh.
    Can you imagine what’s about to happen?  The storm that’s going to be coming? The only way to keep out unfiltered bandwidth would be to ban all devices that aren’t school network devices.  I don’t see that being a viable solution at all — students bringing their own computers improves access for everyone. 
    The world is coming into our classrooms.   It’s scary, disruptive, messy, engaging, beautiful, offensive, ugly, nice, mean, upset, upside down, and a whole lot else.  Time for us to deal with it rather than try to hide behind a blanket.