As the teacher-librarian in a large junior high school, I have vowed to show as many teachers as possible the power of RSS feeds so they can begin to see the big picture. It’s been through my aggregator that I have realized the true potential of the Read/Write/Share Web. I wrote about the importance of teachers learning about RSS feeds in my blog post: “In Search of a Common Web 2.0 Vision” November 28, 2008 http://jagibson19.wordpress.com/2008/11/ (Web Jammin’ Blog). I encourage you to check it out and let me know whether I’m on the right track.

I follow many educators, including you, using Twitter but I find it not as educationally satisfying as the blogs I subscribe to. I also never been to a educational technology conference so I hope you keep the blogs coming new year. I will be directing several teachers to you in the new year.

So here’s what caught my eye in your post: “You’d think with 350,000 we’d have some sort of organized movement or conversation. If anyone can tell me where it exists, please let me know.” More specifically, it’s the word “organized” that got me thinking.

I’m not sure I can tell you “where” it exists, but I believe that it does and in quantity (maybe it’s the quality that is missing?). What if the conversation reflects the medium? It’s NOT organized. It IS self directed. We expect to see change (a movement/a conversation) that we recognize. How can you define, describe, or measure something when you may not really recognize what you are looking at?

Just thinkin’
Lee Anne

And by the way, I would also be interested in your Craft of Writing/Blogging/Essay initiative, once you get it off the ground. I am a struggling blogger, with no formal blogging training (where on earth do you get such a thing?).

I also teach an unpopular group, I teach children who have been labeled ED, and have been previously thrown out of every decent school in our borough of NYC to end up at our school.
over 90 percent of our kids fall below the poverty line, and a large portion of them will do hard time in their life. ( I know this because I have been here for 25 years and I subscribe to our local paper.) Of course jail time in a country that 1 in 100 are thrown in jail at some point or another is not really that impressive, add in the variable that about 80 percent of my students are black males, and that other impressive statistic that 13 percent of black males have been convicted of felonies, and it is even less impressive.

My take on the shifts is that this could really help the most disenfranchised group of people I know, and have been blessed to work with these past 25 years. That is another phrase that loses it’s meaning in our current climate, disenfranchised, when the whole country is going bankrupt, even the billionaires seem disenfranchised.
But just in case we needed reminding there still is a poverty class in this nation, and it does seem a shame they also have the bad luck to not only be poor but their kids are labeled crazy from the time they are 4 years old. Thats right most of the kids I teach 5-7th grade were identified at 4 or 5 years old as being ” emotionally disturbed”.
My point to you is I have made it personal my business to introduce my students, parents, and my colleagues to these shifts. Not that anyone cares because really the kids I teach and their families have been written off long ago when the social experiment of the Great Society was deemed a failure. ( Just ask Corey Booker). But I do. I have spent my life here, and I can attest if anyone needs the advantages that Web 2.0 and 3.0 and social networks, and these tools can provide they do.
You were a large part of the” shift” in my teaching . I still read you every day or two, as I do about 98 other people on bloglines, and egad I actually practice some and use a good portion of this stuff in the classroom. My kids have their own delicious accounts, run blogs, make their own films, use google earth/maps and utilize a host of other tools thanks to you and people like you who blog sharing what they know. With out this blog and others like it and ( rss readers) you would have just been another PD guy, peddling his potions. It the connections and the ease that we can make them through these tools that have made you a factor in my student’s lives. I realize you are lookikng for a bigger impact. But perhaps the small ones count as well.

If I was going to speculate, I’d say it has more to do with the number of bloggers and blog readers who are more comfortable now that in the past few years about writing comments and engaging in at least a bit of conversation.

You and other influential writers on the topic of blogging have consistently promoted the idea that comments are a very important consideration for teachers working with students on class blogs. I imagine much of that “teaching” on your part is showing results.

I especially liked your comment;
“But if you take the aggregate effect of all of us supposed idea peddlars, I’m not sure that’s where substantive change is happening.”

Over the past year of presenting, keynotes, feature presentations and hands-on workshops, and updating the “Did You Know “ series, I think all of the “Idea Peddlars” wonder about the impact we have. In my keynotes this past year I share a quote that was written in 1776 (see below)…something to think about.

“I am not complacent at all John. I have gone through experiences such as this for a very long time. I know I am right. I make the good argument, write the wise articles, and the persuasive letters. And sometimes I feel as though I am preaching to a stack of wood. People do not easily embrace change. Convincing them to turn in a new direction requires a patience and persistence that tax everyone. It does not help matters that the course we are attempting to follow could get us all hanged”

Ben Franklin talking to John Adams , June 7, 1776

Best to you in 2009
Howie