Bud the Teacher

    I’m noticing a proliferation of niche groups emerging in the edu’sphere — groups of young folks, groups of women, etc.  Something about this is rubbing me the wrong way — but I can’t quite put my finger on what it is. 
    I certainly admire the time and effort that people are putting into helping others find their way in the forest that is the Internet.  But is their enough added value in these different subgroups, particularly among bloggers that are already networked,  that makes their existence an asset rather than a collection of subdivisions, new walls keeping people separate?  At what point does joining a group mean closing a door, rather than opening one?  Or does it ever mean that at all?  (I think that it does, sometimes.)  Does the creation of lots of new groups lead to a further formalization of these spaces that are informal learning places?  Are we perpetuating old ways of doing things in new spaces?
    I imagine there’ll be some folks agitated by the questions, and because I’ve "named" some groups.   Please don’t misunderstand me; I don’t mean to demean — I’m generally curious.  I know that Stephen Downes‘ posting on groups and networks (here’s but one of several really interesting pieces on the subject) has been rattling around in my brain, and it’s certainly not as simple as "groups bad."  But I feel, um, weird, for lack of a better word, about lots of new groups forming up.
    Maybe the groups’ value, particularly in a world that equates authority with titles and memberships and other foolish whatnot, is to simply exist in name so that people can say, "Look, this person must know what they’re talking about, because they’re a member of a group!"
      What’s your take?

    Yikes.  Here we go again. 

    For Christmas, my wife, who believes I already have too many gadgets (and she might be right), took one for the team and generously got me a handheld GPS receiver.  That means that I can now go geocaching.  I know, it makes me a geek that I want to do something like that, but we all know it’s true:
    I’m a geek.  One who likes being outside.  Geocaching seems like a neat twist on hiking. 
    I’ve already programmed a bunch of area caches into my receiver.  I’m planning to go out as soon as the snow melts a bit more.  Those of you that already geocache: what do I need to know or watch out for?  What’s the one thing you wish you knew before you started?
    I feel like Ralphie Parker with my BB rifle.  Let’s hope I don’t shoot my eye out.

    I was at a shopping mall today, in the food court, doing some people watching.  I saw a young man on a small stage doing his best to sing his heart out for a crowd that was far more interested in egg rolls, pizza, and big ol’ hams than they were in his attempt to entertain them.  The kid was good, and he didn’t care who knew.  He just wanted to sing.  I should’ve told the young man that I enjoyed and appreciated his efforts.  But I didn’t. 
    I’m reminded of that young man, sharing his passion with an apparently uninterested world, as I think of all of those people with whom I’ve made contact via the blogosphere.  Y’all are people who are sharing your passions, writing and speaking and sharing your hearts out on a regular basis, often unsure of the reaction or response you’ll elicit — if you seem to elicit one at all. 
    I thank you deeply.  I am grateful for your counsel and conversation, and I wish you all a happy end to this wonderful year.
    Keep singin’, wherever you are, and whomever you’re with.  I’ll certainly be listening.
    

    Google’s adding new privacy features to Blogger:

Google Inc. has released a new version of its Blogger service,
adding privacy settings that restrict readership to a predetermined
audience.

Users can choose to have blogs accessible to anyone or just to themselves.

Or they can list the e-mail addresses of the people they want to let in. Those readers would need to register for a free Google
    (nasdaq:
      GOOG -

       news
    -
   
       people
    ) account - the same used for its Gmail and other services - and would sign in with their regular Google passwords.

    As others have suggested, the ability to control the audience of a blog will probably increase schools’ use of blogs.  That control will also destroy some of the reason for creating a blog in the first place.  Certainly, a limited public audience is better than no public audience when it comes to writing and learning.  But I wonder how limited some of those "audiences" will be.

  Good Job, Ani. 
  Originally uploaded by Bud the Teacher.

  It’s never too early to get your children helping out around the house.  After our twenty or so inches of snowfall — more if you count the massive drifts throughout our neighborhood — we sent Ani, almost two, out with her shovel to get the driveway done.  It only took six hours and two diaper changes.
  (I’m kidding, obviously.  But it was quite a day for snow removal here.  Here’s a link to our "Holiday Blizzard 2006" photos.  Isn’t it great that, thanks to television, every major weather event has a cool-sounding name now?)

    I received a couple of e-mails this week from a gentleman that, unintentionally, caused a bit of a ruckus within my quadrant/corner/big ol’ network-section thingie of the edusphere. 
    This gentleman created some content and, like most folks who create content, wanted other people to see it.  So, he wrote to some people that he thought might be interested and told them about the content he created.  Now, he might be trying to generate traffic, or to share a good thing, but either way, he’s basically created something that he wants to share.
    Nothing wrong there. 
    Maybe it’s because I’ve worked in and around newsrooms for a while, but getting e-mail telling me about stuff is a very common occurrence.  When we would get press release type e-mail in a newsroom, we’d check it out.  If it sounds interesting or useful to ourselves or to our readers, we’d usually put a reporter on the story.  That reporter would check out the release and the information and generate a story from both the release and the fresh information that he or she got from doing some actual reporting.  (That’s pretty much just what Darren’s done.  And the gentleman’s responded with some more helpful information.)
    If it didn’t sound useful (and most press releases didn’t), we ignored the information.  Usually, we ignored it while pushing the delete key.  We certainly never admonished the sender for attempting to share something with us — that was their duty if they thought they had something good. 
    I get a lot of press release-type e-mails because of this blog.  Most go unanswered and unfollowed up, because they don’t really sound all that interesting or useful to me or to my readers.  Some go right up to the blog as a link, if I can verify that I trust the source or the information that I’m being pointed to.   Some get a "Hi.  Who are you?" response.   
    Such stuff comes with the gig.  We need to read our e-mail very carefully and critically.  Sure, maybe a blog post would be a better way to send me a message — but I think e-mail is a better way to target particular folks.  Could people who want me to know stuff notify me that I’m being mass mailed to?  Sure, but usually, I’m able to tell.  When the resource is good, I don’t much care if I’m a target in a mass e-mailing campaign.
    In this case, I’ll let you know that I’ve been listed on this gentleman’s organization’s list of Top 100 Edublogs .  That’s cool — it’s always nice to be noticed.  It’s also always nice to check out other edublogs — there’re a few new ones (to me) on that list.  As for whether or not any wrong was committed by mass e-mailing people to let them know about that list or any other service the site provides, well, I’d say no.
     E-mail away.

PS:  Why did the Infinite Thinking Machine blog make their post on the Top 100 list disappear?  Curious.  Update:  Here’s the cache of the missing post.  Seems innocuous.  Why’d it go away?

    I’ve been tagged into the five things meme by Doug Belshaw.  In a better attempt for you, dear reader, to get to know me better, I’m to "reveal" five things about myself that you otherwise wouldn’t know from reading this blog.  Here goes:

1. I have a twin sister who teaches Kindergarten in the same school district where I work.  In our first year of teaching, five years ago, we had a buddy program where, once a week, my students traveled to her classroom to read and write together.  (And no, we’re certainly NOT identical.)
2. I am a pop trivia, um, freak.  My students and colleagues know this, and, so whenever there’s an essential question involving who played in what movie or sang on what film soundtrack or what the name of that one character’s sister’s dentist was, I get interrupted in class.  I don’t mind, and I actually enjoy being able to come up with an answer, most of the time, on the spot.  One teacher has dubbed this frequent questioning "Stump Bud."  She sometimes keeps score.  Sometimes, students challenge me to tell them whether or not some bit of TV trivia is true.  I was stumped when one student told me recently that MacGyver once fought Sasquatch.  Turns out that’s true. 
3. I dabble in music sometimes, and was the frontman of a band called Clockworked in the late ’90s.  If you need a song to add to your Christmas collection, try this one (iTunes link –   All others click here).  I’m singing lead vocals.  (I don’t receive any money from the purchase of that song or album — it goes to the label and to a local charity.)  I also wrote and recorded the song that my wife and I shared our first dance to.  She was pleasantly surprised.
4. I’m not the handiest guy I know.  But I like the idea of being handy.  I have a love/hate relationship with Home Depot/Lowes-type stores.  I go in amazed by opportunity and potential — and leave empty handed, frustrated by my limited manual dexterity.  It’s entirely possible that I just spent several hours destroying the flat rear tire (and possibly wheel) of my snowblower.  I have the same love/hate relationship with cooking shows, particularly Alton Brown’s Good Eats.
5. I think that This American Life is perhaps the best regular attempt at storytelling on the radio right now.  (Here’s a link to their podcast, in case you aren’t already a listener.)  I’d love to tell stories like this, but I can’t.  Yet.  I love great storytellers like Ira Glass.  I put him on a short list of favorites, people like Garrison Keillor, Charles Kuralt, and Walter Kronkite.  I’d put newspaper columnists Bill Johnson and Lewis Grizzard on that list, too.  I’d love to tell a story as well as these guys do or did.  They tell real stories about real people in amazing and entertaining ways. 

And now, it’s my turn to tag some others.  How about Karl, Cindy, Donna, Josh, and Tom? 
 

    I’m safely at home right now, enjoying the beginnings of my non-denominational seasonal special days break, and here comes the blizzard. 
    I’m thinking we’re in for a white Christmas this year  .  .  .  .

    I’ve a colleague who has suggested starting an online writing group with some other colleagues spread around the United States.  It’s my job to come up with the platform for such a group.  The online space would need to be private, capable of hosting files, and editable by the participants.  My first thought was that I’d set up a Moodle for the group, giving every user teacher level access so that every member of the group could create and edit content.
    How would you set up an online writing group for folks who want to share works in progress in order to get constructive feedback and support?  While this, right now, is just for a few teachers, it might blossom into a student project — so any software solution would need to be scalable.