Bud the Teacher

    Today is Stop Cyberbullying Day, a date chosen by Andy Carvin and honored by lots of others in an attempt to recognize some of the difficulties that come when everyone has a voice.   Today’s also a day for folks to take notice of, and pledge not to accept, bullying online. 
    If you’re looking for specific resources because you’ve been inspired by this observance to take a stand against cyberbullying, I’d refer you to Nancy Willard’s Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use.  I’d also send you over the the Stop Cyberbullying group at Ning, where lots of smart folks are beginning some conversations about how to teach and promote responsible behavior online.  Andy’s also aggregating resources via a Twitter account and an RSS feed.   
    I’ll admit, I’m not an expert on speech or issues of harassment.  I believe that everyone should have the right to free speech as well as the awareness that speaking one’s mind comes with certain responsibilities.   (Robert left some good reminders about responsibility in this comment from earlier in the week.) 
    There’s a big gulf between what is legal and what is acceptable speech.  I respect anyone’s right to speak their mind online.  But what I cannot tolerate or condone is speech that is intended to chill others from participating in online community, even if those being attacked have attacked others.  Constructive criticism is always a useful tool for learning and growth.  Flaming and raging and making disgusting comments isn’t.  Ever.
    So how do we prevent cyberbullying?  I worry about the "righteous indignation" that develops sometimes with good causes.   An eye for an eye isn’t a good solution, while lashing out and attacking others is never helpful to anyone, especially the one who attacks.  It’s always complicated to "stop" speech with which you disagree, as Dave pointed out thoughtfully earlier this week. 
    Plenty of other folks are sharing lots of great resources today.  As you think about what you can do to help prevent cyberbullying, I’d ask you to make sure that your solution improves the climate for everybody and models the type of behavior that you’d like to see.  Mobs with torches and pitchforks, even those with good causes, are never useful.  I worry about what really gets communicated when anger is met with more anger.  Usually, things get a whole lot uglier, and very little, if anything, improves. 
    As I was composing this post, I saw a post by Dave Winer on the Kathy Sierra incident that inspired the Stop Cyberbullying Day idea.  While I don’t necessarily agree with everything Dave’s had to say on the matter, I do agree with this bit:

.  .  .  you can measure our humanity by how good
we are to people we don’t like.

    We’ve got an opportunity here to improve civic discourse and human relationships.  We should, in the words of Bill and Ted, "Be excellent to each other."   But we’re human beings, flawed and precious, everyone, and we’re going to make mistakes from time to time.   I’m sure that I have.  Let’s pledge that we’re all in this together, and let’s approach instances of attacking or hurtful speech as opportunities to improve communication and relationships instead of chances to pick fresh fights.
    I don’t want to be in an online world of flaming and rage.  I want to be in community with thoughtful people who don’t confuse debate and argument with attacks  and harassment.  I bet you do, too.   I owe it to my students, and to my own daughter, to try to build a kinder world, and to help them to understand how to contribute positively to it. 

    Anyone who thinks it’s funny to denigrate or threaten others is wrong (Warning — link contains some pretty awful stuff).   Period.
    We’re (supposed to be) grown ups, folks.  Can we please try to act like it? 
    Andy suggests, via Twitter, that perhaps we need to do something as a community to address the threats.  I agree, but haven’t a clue what the appropriate response should be, other than to stand up and say that such speech, while protected, doesn’t have to be honored, agreed with, or listened to.
    Got any ideas? 

UPDATE:  Andy’s proposed Stop Cyberbullying Day on Friday.  I’m in, hoping to balance respect for all people with the right to free speech.  I hope you’ll think about that, too.

UPDATE #2 (4/3/07): Chris Locke and Kathy Sierra have released a joint statement in regards to Kathy’s original post and its aftermath. 

    I really enjoyed trying out the first assignment from our class on digital storytelling.  (I’m going to keep calling what we’re doing digital storytelling, even thought we don’t have pictures.  Fair enough?)
    My piece is too long, and a little repetitive, but it’s a first effort.  The next one will be better.   Promise.

    I’m working with a student right now on an essay that I think is really interesting, self-reflective and an important piece of writing for her.  It’s for my journalism class, which means it’ll get published in our school newspaper.
    I’m certainly no fan of anonymity, and think it should be used rarely, very, very rarely.  (Dan Rather agrees with me — and that’s cool.  Thanks, Andy, for the podcast!)  Sometimes, though, I think it makes sense for a student to post a piece anonymously if the piece might be one that could hurt the student in the future.
    In this case, the piece involves alcohol and I don’t want it to be attached to the student’s online identity ten years down the road.  I expect that this sort of writing will happen from time to time, and I need a way to properly look after those students.
    Since we’re using Drupal for the paper, every piece needs to be attributed to a particular author.  We’re going to create a new account for these anonymous pieces, and I’d like a clever pseudonym for the account, a name that says "we’ve chosen anonymity for a good reason."  We considered several historical pseudonyms:

• Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay used "Publius" in the Federalist Papers.  A little too weighty.
• Benjamin Franklin has used tons — Silence Dogood, Poor Richard, Polly Baker (which I kind of like, but I don’t think it quite fits)
• Here’s a good list that I still need to look through more thoroughly.  Maybe there’s something good in there.

    Got any ideas?  We’ll certainly include an editor’s note in the blog explaining why we’ve gone with anonymity and who the original user of the pseudonym is.

    A few folks have already noticed the cute Twitter box that’s now on the lower left sidebar of my blog.  An even rarer few might have noticed that it only works intermittently — seems that Twitter’s quite popular at the moment, and is not completely functional due to apparent server drain on its resources.
    I’m going to try to Twitter for a while.  I am torn about it’s usefulness — seems like both a handy way to keep track of people that you’re interested in, but it also seems like a procrastination station. 
     We’ll see.  In case you’re curious, here’s my Twitter profile.  Come along for the ride.
    If you want to live vicariously through the Twittering of others, then you might want to check out Twittervision.  Now that’s got potential.  Thanks to Dave for the link.

    I might need to create a category just for Jonathan Lethem.  He’s doing some interesting work.  (And I like his writing.  Especially Motherless Brooklyn.)
    Here’s a link to and a description of his Promiscuous Materials Project.   Might be of interest to those of you interested in digging a little deeper into his ideas on appropriation and art leading to more art.   Basically, he’s released some of his writing for others to use in different formats.  Here’s that description:

I like art that comes from other art, and I like seeing my stories
adapted into other forms. My writing has always been strongly sourced
in other voices, and I’m a fan of adaptations, apropriations, collage,
and sampling.

I recently explored some of these ideas in an essay
for Harper’s Magazine. As I researched that essay I came more and more
to believe that artists should ideally find ways to make material free
and available for reuse. This project is a (first) attempt to make my
own art practice reflect that belief.

I especially like that he’s published some of what’s been done with his words.  I first caught this on an interview he gave to Fresh Air, and got to hear a chunk of John Linnell’s version (at the top of the page)of one of Lethem’s songs.  Good TMBG-y stuff.

    I’m part of a team that’s putting together a really neat opportunity for some NWP sites to gather and think strategically about their online presences and how they can support their site work, and vice versa.  I’ve got plenty of thoughts about tools to use and examples and whatnot, but I’m trying to think right now about particular resources that we might make available both at our retreat as well as to others who want to think strategically about their online work. 
    When I say strategically, what I mean is that instead of thinking about what we can do, we want to encourage folks to think about what they should do, who should be involved, and how that can impact their sites, their work, and their different stakeholders.  Basically, we want to encourage strategic and critical thinking about online work. 
    Just because we can build something doesn’t necessarily mean that we should, right? 
    It’s a tricky question for me.  I stand very proudly(sometimes) in the "look how cool this is!" camp — even though I know that good teaching and good tech implementation is about more than just the wow factor.
    There needs to be a good reason that we do what we do.   Neat, as I’ve said before and will say again, is not a pedagogically-sound reason to do something.
Anyway, before I wander too far into reflective land, what tools or resources might you be using to think critically about the online presence for your school, group, or organization?  How do you make these types of decisions?  Whom do you involve?

    This podcast, a follow up from the other day, is about further thoughts on how we plan to teach digital storytelling at my school in the next several weeks.  If you want to listen to my thinking on how and why to teach digital stories, this is the podcast for you.  For links to resources, I’ll refer you back to the notes from the last podcast.

    I’ve had a quick peek at FunnyMonkey’s new flavor of Drupal, soon to be DrupalEd.  It’s pretty dynamically fantastic, despite the fact that it’s in alpha/beta.  Here’s the annoucement:

    I’m working this afternoon to wrap my head around creating some sound beds.  It just seems so easy that one or two clicks can lead me to ccMixter, a huge resource of available tracks.  (Don’t forget Freesound for sound effects.) 
    Of course, the Podshow Music Network comes to mind, too, when I’m thinking about sound resources that we would have permission to use.   I wonder if Podshow would allow me to do some cutting in order to create a sound bed collection?
    Creative Commons, and the community of artists that are using it, have made my world a much better place.  There’s tons here.  I’m in audio heaven.