So this is a perfect example of the types of changes we’re going to have to get used to (and perhaps teach?) in terms of reading the Read/Write Web.
Alan publishes a great post on not blogging well with others:
If I were a student in Blog School, the parental note they send home from my blog teachers might bear the comment, “Alan writes a lot, but he does not blog well with others”.
James adds a “manual (”sigh”) trackback” (gotta love that) to his own take on the blogging alone idea:
Absolutely, yes, thrice yes… this is why it’s centred communication, this is why group blogs suck in education, this is why he is totally totally right in that “we should not overlook the value and power of ownership of personal spaces” and this is the whole frickin’ point of the matter: PERSONAL PRESENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!
In the comments left at James site is a long, winding one from Paolo, who by the looks of it doesn’t have a blog of his own:
Blogging with the intention to communicate, to be heard and keeping the audience in mind could therefore never means that one blogs alone. The possibility of comments and trackbacks prove Alan wrong, for every student who wouldn´t use or reflect upon the reactions and review of his peers and teachers really does not blog well with others.
A trackback on the thread leads us to Aaron Nelson (who ironically showed up in a comment left here yesterday about new bloggers.) Aaron says:
I find myself totally agreeing here. To me, one of the best parts of blogging is that it’s my turf. Noone else can tell me what to think, how to think, where to go with my thinking etc.
It is also, as Levine mentions, is where I’ve started to find my own voice, and where I’m free to polish, redefine, and develop it.
I also enjoyed his ideas around investment. When its yours, you invest with great freedom and generosity because it “feels like home.” (Levine par. 5)
To which Graham Wegner replies:
Hey Aaron, this is the amazing thing about blogging. I work hard to put up relevant content on my blog (to me and hopefully others) and occasionally it crosses someone’s rss radar, but I see a post - the same one you saw from Alan - and it resonates with me personally so I type up a bit of a response and that is what strikes a chord immediately with someone else (in this case, you!)enough to not just provoke a response comment but to post to their own blog about it in classic Rip.Mix.Learn fashion.
Amazing, yes.
My take? Well, I’ve pretty much been a no show of late at Ed Tech Insider, because of time constraints, yes, but also because it doesn’t feel like home, somehow. I have real passion for this space for a variety of reasons. I haven’t been able to generate that for ETI. But others obviously have. Not sure what that says.
What I am sure of is that the days of linear reading of ideas in a text are long gone. I’m sure we could whip up an RSS feed to follow this thread throughout blogspace (couldn’t we?) but our brains are going to have to get used to this hypertext, connective reading thing until something better comes along. (I’m sure Stephen is working on it.)
Last night my wife arranged for about 20 of our friends to come to the local computer club to get a two-hour overview of the Read/Write Web and some of the more interesting tools out there. The weather was awful, and only about eight showed up, but the reaction was pretty much unanimous.
Mercy.
The reason we did this was because we knew they didn’t know much about what was going on “out there”. There was a board member from a local district, a few local businessmen, a brother in-law, and a couple of teens in the “audience.” We created and published an agenda/list beforehand using Writely, which I’m starting to like more and more. (Who needs Word?) And the pace was pretty fast and furious. Just a couple of observations:
The board member immediately brought up safety concerns when I started in about blogs, and I told her that we were in the midst of quite a debate regarding the banning of blogs and teaching ethical, safe use. One of the teens from a high school up the road reported that his school now bans all Blogger, MySpace, Xanga, etc. sites. “Anything that has a URL with more than one name in it (i.e. girlygirl2.blogspot.com) is basically gone,” he said. Whoa. In response, one of the local tech gurus related an analogy he’d heard about this a while ago:
“You know, this is like swimming. We can hire all the lifeguards we want, build big walls around the pool, hang life jackets and those long poles within easy reach, but the absolute best way to make sure your kid doesn’t drown is to teach him how to swim.”
Amen to that.
Toward the end when things were wrapping up, one of the other teenagers, a girl, came up to me and said “I have a My Space site and it’s not half as bad as IM. As long as you don’t tell your whole name and don’t give out too much information, I think it’s perfectly safe. “I asked her “How is IM worse?” I was really struck by her answer. “Well, you just have to be more careful when you’re talking face to face.” I looked at her quizically. “What do you mean face to face? Aren’t we talking face to face right now?” “No, you know what I mean,” she said. “When you get into conversations with people who you don’t know, it’s a lot harder to tell whether or not they’re good or bad.”
Hmmm…
Last night my wife arranged for about 20 of our friends to come to the local computer club to get a two-hour overview of the Read/Write Web and some of the more interesting tools out there. The weather was awful, and only about eight showed up, but the reaction was pretty much unanimous.
Mercy.
The reason we did this was because we knew they didn’t know much about what was going on “out there”. There was a board member from a local district, a few local businessmen, a brother in-law, and a couple of teens in the “audience.” We created and published an agenda/list beforehand using Writely, which I’m starting to like more and more. (Who needs Word?) And the pace was pretty fast and furious. Just a couple of observations:
The board member immediately brought up safety concerns when I started in about blogs, and I told her that we were in the midst of quite a debate regarding the banning of blogs and teaching ethical, safe use. One of the teens from a high school up the road reported that his school now bans all Blogger, MySpace, Xanga, etc. sites. “Anything that has a URL with more than one name in it (i.e. girlygirl2.blogspot.com) is basically gone,” he said. Whoa. In response, one of the local tech gurus said something along the lines of:
“You know, this is like swimming. We can hire all the lifeguards we want, build big walls around the pool, hang life jackets and those long poles within easy reach, but the absolute best way to make sure your kid doesn’t drown is to teach him how to swim.”
Amen to that.
Toward the end when I was wrapping up, one of the other teenagers, a girl, came up to me and said “I have a My Space site and it’s not have as bad as IM. As long as you don’t tell your whole name and don’t give out too much information, I think it’s perfectly safe. “I asked her “How is IM worse?” I was really struck by her answer. “Well, you just have to be more careful when you’re talking face to face.” I looked at her quizically. “What do you mean face to face? Aren’t we talking face to face right now?” “No, you know what I mean,” she said. “When you get into conversations with people who you don’t know, it’s a lot harder to tell whether or not they’re good or bad.” Hmmm…
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