A story in today’s print and online versions of the Bergen (N.J.) Record:
“Paul Degnan blogs every night after work.
Will Richardson blogs with his high school students.
Kathleen Sinnott blogs at home, on the road – anywhere she can.
Worry not – it’s all perfectly legal. “Blog” is short for “Web log,” and in the jargon of the Internet, it’s both noun and verb…”
Now I’m betting that good publicity a) comes in threes, b) grows as it goes. Stay tuned…
From Seb:
What really suprises me is the fact that the folks who are now celebrating the Harvard initiative obviously never used Google to take a look who is already out there. Is it so hard to string together a search request with a combination of “weblogs”, “learning”, “education”, etc.?
Hmmm…wonder is Seb knew beforehand what the #1 result to that string is…
BTW, anyone catch this before?: Teaching With A Weblog: How to Post Student Work Online
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If you haven’t read the blogchat between Pat and Seb yet, you should. Some really great thinking and writing.
16:30:43 pat d: well, albert was saying this morning that he feels like ieBN is a not so slowly building …
16:30:56 pat d: volcano, geyser, tide -
16:31:02 pat d: tide, that’s the best analogy
16:31:19 pat d: ebn is this jerry-rigged little boat on a rising tide
16:31:29 pat d: it’s flexible and well-tooled but
16:31:38 pat d: it’s never been out of port before
16:31:44 pat d: i’m worried a little bit
16:31:56 pat d: that we might run aground if we move too quickly or too slowly
16:32:09 pat d: i have this quaker and bawp background that leans toward the slowly
This is the biggie, I guess. The Timing, the Tipping Point. Part of my brain says this will happen quickly, ’cause I think there are a lot of teachers out there who will seize on this when they see and understand it. Another part says it’s going to take a while because of all the reasons Pam has been talking about.
Look, my main interest in eBN here is to be set up to support teachers who want to try this technology whenever and however they find it. I want it to be easier than it was for me. That’s not to say that the support I got from Pat and Seb and David and Sarah and others wasn’t great, but it was haphazard since half the time I didn’t even know what I wanted to know. AND I NEEDED A LOT OF SUPPORT. (Still do.) That’s why I keep talking about the field manual/users guide. And then, if we have some organized support at the ready, we need to provide hosting.
16:57:36 pat d: way beyond schools
16:57:42 pat d: which is why it isn’t about a
16:57:45 pat d: business plan
16:57:50 pat d: or the establishment of another
16:57:53 pat d: blackboard.com
16:57:54 pat d: like
16:58:00 pat d: blogGuys.com
16:58:08 pat d: it’s looser than that
16:58:10 pat d: more powerful than that
16:58:16 pat d: bec. the tech has advantages
16:58:22 pat d: for making it wider and more flexible
Just to be clear, I don’t want blogGuys.com either. But I’ll argue that there has to be some structure to what we do. And if we can offer services to districts who may not have the capital to provide them for themselves, then we are helping to provide “equity in resources and opportunity, and support for partnership and community.” But to do that we need a plan, I think.
One last observation. While the asynchronous communication that Web logs provide has worked very well in my classes, I’m finding myself somewhat frustrated by it as we hash out these ideas. Seems like all of a sudden I’m talking to a lot of people on the phone. I really can’t wait to get to SF and speak face to face with Pat. I’m looking forward to November when hopefully we can all sit down and talk (what a concept.) As a group, I don’t think we’re moving to fast…I like the idea of welcoming teachers into a network that has it’s collective stuff together. But, somewhat ironically, I’m finding the Web log isn’t fast enough.
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