Room With A View

Today I read Karl Fishch’s post The Invention of Air, PLNs, and School Transformation. In it he says, “I believe one of the big hurdles for getting folks in my building to blog professionally is their fear of not having a polished piece of writing, or of being not completely correct about something.” His post resonated with me because that’s how I feel.

It’s not a fear as such, it’s more of an expectation on my part. My education drilled into me that what I write needs to be well thought out, accurate, and complete. I like blogs to be the same. Karl challenges my thinking by pointing out that science is not that way and has never been that way. It’s worth a read.

I’ve heard rumors that Edublogs in unblocked in my host country. I’m not seeing it. Too bad. I find the whole blocking thing makes me choose to write in other places.

Alan Levine on his CogDog blog comments on the Wired article I wrote about a few days ago. His post makes some good points and even includes a clip from Monty Python. It’s well worth a quick read.

As I finished up my last post this link to a short clip of Seth Godin talking about blogging was sent to me. It’s well worth the minute and a half of your time it takes to watch it.

I’ve been getting a wiki/blog server ready for the staff at my school. Imagine my surprise when Paul Boutin at Wired posted Twitter, Flicker, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004 suggesting that blogs are done. They’re so 2004.

Boutin suggests that it’s difficult for the individual writer to be noticed when the blogosphere is now full of “organized” or “professional” blogs like those found at The Huffington Post or Engadget. (He doesn’t mention Wired.)

What he suggests may be partially true but what he misses is that blogging is not just about being noticed by a lot of people. Blogs are about thinking and about creating what Ewan McIntosh calls small passionate communities.

Over the years I’ve written in many forms and in many places from newsletters, to emails, to my .Mac site, to listserves, and blogs. None of them generate much traffic but that’s okay. They all serve a purpose. They’re all about community.

At the moment one of my favorite places to write is a group blog that’s only for those of us that are setting up a new Leopard server. I use it to post what I’ve done and what I still need to do. On any given day my posts are read by no more than four people but that’s okay. I like to write it and I look forward to reading the comments members of my group leave. Writing the blog is helping us move forward and get the server ready.

Blogs are about a simple technology that meets a need and creates community. I don’t see that going away any time soon.

While attending David Warlick’s Gaming Session at Learning 2.008 last week it struck me that what I write and what most people write on their blogs is in danger of becoming info noise. It’s like white noise. With white noise, discrete sounds are present but they blend together so that each  sound is indistinguishable from the others. In the same way, thousands of blog posts blend together to make them indistinguishable–info noise.

These thoughts were further solidified with the NY Times article How Many Web Services Can One Person Use?

Tagging may help. I think David nailed it when he started his session by giving us the tags he’d like us to use when blogging or tweeting about his session. It may not save our writings from being lost in the general info noise of the web but it would at least help those attending the session find each other’s work. It would help create what Ewan McIntosh calls “small passionate communities.”

I attended Ewan McIntosh’s session first thing this morning. It’s filled my mind with a million things. I’m not sure there’s room for anything else today.

He spoke about people–students and teachers–finding small passionate communities. So often people think they need to have a huge readership on their blogs or hundreds of friends on Facebook. Instead McIntosh suggests it’s about having a “small compassionate community.” I think he’s right.

This morning a colleague and I discussed teacher blogging. I don’t think every teacher needs a blog to reflect on personal practice. I think reflection is important but there are many ways to reflect. A blog is just one way. (Remember conversation?)

Having said this, I do think there’s room for most teachers to use blogging tools/technology. Blogs are a quick easy way for a teacher to post to his/her “small compassionate community”–students and parents.

Christie Blatchford writes a bit of a luddite rant (her words) against blogging. It’s worth a read. Some of her points are valid but I don’t think it’s going to change anything. It’s too late to stop blogging/citizen journalism. [Link]

My direct access to Edublogs has been blocked for well over a year but now all .Mac accounts are blocked too!! Grrr….

Hopefully it will open up again once the Olympic hoopla is behind us.

I’m attending the Learning 2.0 conference in Shanghai, China. My brain is spinning from so many great ideas. I thought I’d take advantage of my blog being unblocked to jot down a few thoughts.

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