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.