Bud the Teacher

Dear Readers, Please Forgive

   Please forgive Typepad.  They've apparently mixed up their feeds, and have been pushing celebrity gossip through mine and many other Typepad users.  Yet another reason why I contemplate leaving.

   I'm sure they didn't mean harm, and that they'll apologize for, or at least acknowledge, their mistake soon.

  Right, Typepad?

Update: This was posted in the help ticket area of Typepad.  I found it when I went there to complain about not seeing a notification anywhere else.  I guess I don't know why they didn't post this somewhere a little more public. 

IMPORTANT NOTICE:
On March 6, 2008 we experienced a brief problem with our feed service on TypePad. Some TypePad users were affected, where another blog's entries appeared to be coming from their feed. We've corrected the problem and feeds are now rendering correctly, but your readers may still see these incorrect entries in RSS reading applications (like Google Reader). We're very sorry for the confusion this issue may have caused you and your readers -- and we're working hard to make sure it doesn't happen again.

The Podcast: NCTE 2006 Presentation

    After a long delay (one month, to be precise), I present to you, via podcast, the audio from Greg, Bill and my presentation at NCTE's 2006 Annual Convention.  The hour and fifteen minute workshop is about how we are using blogs with our students in different ways and for different purposes.  My contribution to the presentation is the "why" of Web 2.0 . 
   We were fortunate to have a big and friendly audience for our presentation, and you'll notice a deterioration in the audio quality when I enter the audience to solicit some ideas and participation for my yarn activity.  Enjoy the chaos -- just pull out a bit of yarn and you're right there with us.
    Here's the presentation wiki that we used as a handout -- all the links referenced in the podcast can be found there.  Feel free to add to the wiki if you'd like.
    I'd draw your attention to two moments from my portion of the presentation.  First, when I got to the room where we were presenting, I was listening to the previous presenter talking with someone.  I recognized the voice, and the content sounded familiar -- eventually, I realized I was sharing a room with Clarence Fisher.  That was pretty cool, and you'll notice that I refer to that moment in the podcast. 
    Second, I think I make a rather bold statement when I tell the audience that it's selfish of them to keep the good work going on in their classrooms to themselves.  It's selfish to not blog, or otherwise publish.  Just plain selfish.  How dare you keep the good stuff to yourself?
    Too harsh? 

Blog/Comp Map

   

This diagram of how blogging and composition are interconnected/related makes my brain hurt.  (In a good way. )

No Stories Left Behind

    Will wrote a post recently that is helping me to connect with a problem that might be beginning to stir in my blog, as well as others.  He writes/asks:

I read lots of stories about kids who are getting it, even in Doug's post, where they are reading and writing and commenting and learning. You read Bud or Clarence or Vicki or any number of others and there are stories that border on transformation. (In fact, Vicki's latest post is titled "My students inspire me as they "get" Web 2.0.") But I don't read much about the kids that aren't engaged. And I'm wondering to what extent that happens as well. And further, I'm wondering to what extent they compare to the adult educators we're trying to teach about these tools who choose not to engage. The simple view is that this is generational, that kids are more available to the tools because they live in a connected world or because, well, they're kids and more open to new stuff than adults...but is it?

  I don't think that it's as simple as a generational thing.  I don't think Will thinks that, either, but I do understand where he's coming from.  Generation M is plugged in, right?  The rest of us are trying to catch up. 
    Except that's not true.  Will has something like two decades of educational experience.  David Warlick has as much if not more.  Barbara Ganley didn't start teaching last week.  Other teachers in the blogosphere are not new to teaching, but might be the early adopters of new technologies in their schools, districts and/or communities.  I've only been teaching for four years, so maybe much of Web 2.0 comes easily to me. 
    But that's not why I'm writing tonight, even though the question of why blogging is or isn't for everyone is an important one, worthy of lots of conversation by folks smarter than I.
    I'm writing because I see a potential problem developing in and among the edublogosphere that is becoming more and more my professional space. 
    A few months ago, my wife and I published, in English Journal, a column entitled, "Why I Despise Nancie Atwell" by Sarah J.H. Brooks. (Note: The link requires a paid subscription to the journal for viewing.  Sorry.)  The well-written piece is about the author's frustration with best practice texts, specifically In the Middle, one of those books that my generation of reading and writing teachers is and should be devouring in preservice coursework.  She’s frustrated because she only sees the success stories, and not the stuff that didn’t go so well.  Let me be clear: the Brooks' piece is in no way a condemnation of Atwell's work.  We need best practices texts, and Atwell's text continues to inform my practice as a language arts teacher.
    But best practices don't work for every teacher, in every classroom, on every day.
    Best practice texts are, largely, excellent attempts to share and promote those lessons, activities, and philosophies that are, at least in theory, "proven" to be successful in a variety of educational contexts.  Best practice texts, written by exceptional educators, have informed my practice, and will continue to do so.
    Many of the blogs that are in the sidebar to the right of this post on my site are, in my humble opinion, some of the best practice texts of using technology in education.  I value the good ideas and lessons that my colleagues in the edublogosphere are sharing on a daily basis.   
    The only problem with best practice texts, too often at least, is that they turn classrooms into Mickey Mouse spaces where all goes well and there's never any trouble.  Every student in these books finds success in the classroom.  At least, that's how the texts present classrooms.
    Again, this is not universal; many good texts share failures as well as successes, but not nearly enough. 
    I do not want this blog to become a text that misinforms as it informs. Nor do I want to read blogs that paint stories of success while ignoring the stories of students lost or unsuccessful along the way.
    We aren’t going to learn anything by merely telling half of the story. And omission, intentional or otherwise, may blur the narrative.
    Now, I’m not saying that this is happening, but, as I prepare to embark on a larger blogging project than I’ve ever undertaken, I want to make a public reminder to myself to tell as much of the story as I can, without shading or blurring information in any way. 
    And I think it’s reasonable to ask that those of you who are also blogging to do the same.
     I know many bloggers are doing just that.   I encourage them to keep it up.  Let's make sure that Will, and all of the rest of us, aren't missing the stories of those students not engaged by these technologies.

Barnraising Afterthoughts

    Just spend a crazy couple of hour writing/drafting/talking/developing the seed of some curricular tools and resources over at the EdTechTalk Barnraising.  I think the core of curriculum is developing, but it will take a significant amount of time and resources over the new few weeks and months to flesh out and create a useful resource for teachers.  We've all been creating our own tools and webpages to help us to share knowledge and help other teachers to use Web 2.0 as a classroom device.  It'll be nice to create a central place to develop and share all of our work. 
    I hope that's what the EdTechTalk wiki will become.  But it'll be up to all of us to make sure that what we've created becomes more than a collection of neglected wiki pages.
    Here are a couple of things that I'm thinking about as my brain is in super-connective thinking mode.

• The wiki at EdTechTalk could become one stop shopping for anyone getting started and for those looking to further integrate Web 2.0 in the classroom. 
• Lots of really smart people have lots of great ideas spread all over the Internet.  How do we centralize that so as to be efficient and not recreating the wheel all of the time?
• How do we get stakeholders invested in using a central place for all of our resources?  (I don't mean that everyone should only use one place to write or share, but I do think we could be lots more efficient and effective if we can begin to at least link back to one or two central resources, as well as link ourselves to a few key places.)
• What are the essential resources/pages/ideas/people that should be linked in to the EdTechTalk wiki?  Who will make the effort to make sure these links get created?
• What am I overlooking/missing through the haze of my excitement?
• How does centralization like I'm attempting to describe hurt/harm/conflict with the idea of Small Pieces Loosely Joined?   
• How can we use the category features of MediaWiki to create a resource that contains multiple ways of organizing and accessing information?
• Can we pay people to develop some of these ideas further?  Where would the money come from?  Would people want to get paid to develop wiki materials that might and probably will be changed over time?

Can you tell that my mind is racing right now? 

But Who's Watching the Bloggers Who Are Watching the Bloggers?

   

Mediashift, a new blog from PBS that will focus on New Media, made its debut yesterday.  Looks pretty interesting:

And each week, I’ll pose a more pointed question to you all to get Your Take. The following week, I’ll do a roundup of the best of what you’ve offered to share with us. And once per week, I’ll do a feature called Digging Deeper that will include deeper thinking and even interviews. Eventually, I’ll start a weekly podcast, add audio and video to the site, and do more stories that include you in a two-way conversation.

And I hope that together we can break the bonds of traditional blogging and journalism. The more I think about the traditional way of doing journalism, the more questions I have about it. If I’m a movie critic, for instance, why does my view rate in importance? I got in free to the movie, the movie stars are there for me to interview, why do I know better than you?

And as a journalist reporting a feature story or news story, why do I only talk to the usual analysts and experts? Why are the same people quoted over and over again in all the different news outlets? Are they really that much smarter than you are?

I'm subscribed.

Blogging in Word

    I've just installed Blogger for Word, a plug-in that allows me to use Word as a text editor for any of my Blogger blogs. 
    It's handy, useful and cool.  And free.  That passes all of my tests for new stuff.
    Thanks, Dave, for the link.

The Value of Xanga

    I've been wondering an awful lot about the educational uses of online journals.  This thinking has come from our recent foray into the blogging/journaling differences.
    It seems like online journals are getting a bad rap.    And perhaps while they don't have a place within the content of my language arts classes, they may very well have an educational purpose or two.  Students, it seems, are willing to share an awful lot of themselves in their online journals, perhaps because the freedom of hiding behind an online "identity" is helpful.  Or maybe because sometimes it's easier to "talk" to a keyboard than it is to talk to someone standing in the same room. 
    Such sharing, particularly from teenagers, has a great deal of value.  For multiple reasons. Nancy suggests that online journals, with their frightening posts, are worthy of study because: 

What I find disturbing is that the emphasis seems to be on limiting students' ability to read these "frightening" posts. I wonder what is being done to try to get at the reason WHY students are posting such things in the first place. Am I just out of touch? Am I worrying about something that everyone else knows can't be solved?   If so, that is more frightening to me than the posts themselves.

Chris Lott mentions another reason when he writes:

If a student is just being exposed to the medium {of blogging}, they are like students in their first creative writing class. I am less concerned with what they are writing than with getting them to write, and to do so regularly.

Students new to blogging can use personal writing to familiarize themselves with the format.  That's a good point.  But I think that there's something more important that these journals can be useful for in schools.  But not all schools -- only those schools that are interested in students   as human beings instead of products to be completed or vessels to be filled. 
    Can you imagine the power of a school counselor getting an update or status check on a hundred students via a single mouse click?  For those counselors willing to pay attention, and those students willing to share, online journals can be a valuable tool for assessing the well-being of students. 
    I'm thinking specifically here of a recent exchange between two of my blogging students in our weekly all-school meeting.  We have a section of that meeting devoted to sharing "I Appreciates" -- moments of sharing positive things that that have occurred in the school community.  One student was thanking another because someone offered some reassuring words in a comment on his Xanga site.  Those words helped him get through the day -- and they came from a student that he didn't really know.   The community was strengthened via  Xanga.
    Of course, there are probably plenty of reasons why getting involved with the personal writing of students  is  problematic.  Here's one.   I'm sure that you can think of more.
    Our students are making their writing public through these sites.  Instead of running from these journals and their "frightening" posts, let's figure out how to work with them. 
    Right?

Deadline!

    Tonight, I am finishing up a piece of writing that my wife and I owe our editor.  It's overdue -- but we did have a baby a month ago.  That's worth some extra time, right?  Our kind and generous editor thought so.
    Actually - - I can't believe that my wife and I have this writing gig.  It's perhaps the biggest professional honor that I could get. 
    And so instead of finishing up that piece, I'm writing a blog post here about how much writing for deadline freaks me out.  Figures.