homoLudens

Thinking out-line and on-loud again. Since migrating to a new server, readership is up at eBN and Galileo
Library and Li-Ink, and down here. The change in audience makes for comfortable writing of drafts.

The Bay Area Writing Project (BAWP) is involved in facilitating two beginning weblog trainings during
the November 2003 National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) / National Writing Project conventions in San Franciso. One is for Writing Project (WP) Tech
Liaisons (TL) on Thurs., Nov. 20. The other is for NCTE, an all day
workshop on Tuesday,
Nov. 25. For the former, you’ve got to be a WP TL; for the latter, you
have to attend the NCTE convention and pay the special all day workshop
fee.

As a member of the Educational Bloggers Network (eBN), Galileo - my new school - has
offered to host
those two events in its library. We’ll have two proximate but separate computer centers, one with 16 workstations,
the other with 30. All computers are Pentium 4 Compaqs. Internet
connection is through a locally administered server connected through a
district T-1 line. Library teaching
assistants will be available
for greeting participants and assisting in both workshops. The school
is located at Van Ness Ave. and Bay Street,
between the Marina, Fisherman’s Wharf and Chinatown districts of the
city’s
northeast quadrant, within an easy 5 minute walk of the cable car stop
at Hyde and Bay. (Yes, that blue on the map is the Pacific.) From the
downtown convention area, a person could walk out of a hotel, climb on
a car, ride over
Nob Hill, hop off at the end of the line and see the bay, Ghiradelli
Square, and the Golden Gate bridge. Cost for the use of the facilities
is at a
standard school district rate, well below that available from local
university, non-profit and corporate facilities.

For Sunday, Nov. 23, Galileo has also offered its facilities to
eBN
and
the Web
design team of the
Kern County Superintendent of Schools (KCSOS), Bryan Bell and Erin
Clerico, for an
intermediate Manila training and an introductory Frontier server
adminstration training. With BAWP support, Bryan and Erin can offer 7
hour trainings at something like $110 per person to a small group of
eBn members interested in Userland software in educational settings. We
assume that
attendance by this group would not draw traditional participants away
from the on-going NCTE scheduled events or exclude eBN users of other
blog
tools from connecting with each other during the NCTE convention
period.

Such a connecting of edBloggers was first mentioned more than a year
ago as the edBlogger 2003 convention idea. But it’s not a convention
anymore. It’s just one gathering, this one in San Francisco, hopefully
more in any number of places during the year. Neither the first nor the
last. I’ve earlier expressed
some (I think) healthy skepticism about naming such a gathering as a
“convention.” The recent brouhaha over the bloggerCon shindig at
Harvard has me even more skeptical. To return to an old theme, blogs
are just digital paper. What writer wants to attend a paper convention?
OK, OK, a few: folks that are interested in the qualities of a
particular kind of paper - its resiliency, its pliability, its
longevity, its manufacture, its shipping and storage and
distribution systems, etc. Well, we can offer that kind of intensive,
sub-cultural fest for Frontier and Manila users at Galileo in San
Francisco in November. And eBN members with no interest in Userland products could find less
particular but equally satisfying ways to connect
with blogging teachers at NCTE . No invitations necessary. Just a series of wide open opportunities. Here are some ideas:

1. eBN could easily host a convention blog. I have my doubts about
   the usefulness of this in terms of workshop coverage, but it is a great
   way for bloggers to ‘digitally’ run into each other.
2. BAWP is a hosting institution for NWP. IWe’ll have a BAWP booth at various events with
   some local bloggers and a few iBooks equipped with Radio Userland. This
   would allow eBN visitors and newbies to try out a simple blogging
   interface without our having to arrange for expensive convention center
   internet access. We could simply upload the Radio blog content a couple
   of times a day from a local internet cafe.
3. We
   could arrange and publicize informal, pay-your-own-way gatherings of
   eBN members for coffee or lunch a few times during the convention.
4. Given the ubiquity of fine restaurants, it would be easy to
   invite folks to a scenic, fairly inexpensive spot for dinner on
   Saturday, Nov. 22. Maybe this could include some local bloggers not
   directly connected to eBN but with some interest in, or for,
   educational bloggers.

There are probably lots of other possibilities to add to that list, but
a review of the rationale for piggybacking on NCTE is in order.
It follows on the notion of blogs and websites as simple digital paper, and of
computer technology as, among other things, an increasingly
user-friendly
form of communication for teaching and learning. The more invisible
that technology is, the more powerful it is. This is, in fact, the
beauty of weblogs and content management systems. So I think it’s a
good idea to root communities of tech users, of bloggers in this
instance, in various disciplines other than technology. Why convene at
tech and ed events? Hell, let’s people the actual content areas and
pedagogies. Besides, funding to attend traditional conventions is
easier to come by than for “blogging” events. Bloggers, as users of
digital paper, can and should
comfortably show up at conventions of English teachers and teachers of
writing, at art education conventions, at science and math
and dance and physical education and remedial reading and auto
mechanics teacher conventions. edBloggers can, should and will be
represented in all teaching disciplines.  NCTE will also have an excellent technology integration strand in its workshop listings.

NCTE, as the largest convention of teachers in the country, is a great
opportunity to test out this notion of crossing the pedagogical divide
between blogging teachers and colleagues who might want to try blogging. It
doesn’t hurt that NCTE’s
happening this year in what is (IMHO) the most beautiful city in the
country.

So, what do folks think? Most important, who’s interested in either the
introductory Frontier admin training or the intermediate Manila
training?

New entry over at the librarianInk Journal department,
Part of it goes: “It’s quite a change to be hanging with high schoolers.
In middle school, we learn to say, ‘Before you sit down, pull out your
chairs quietly. Now before you do anything, please listen again to what
I am about to say. No, don’t move. Listen! Now that MOST of you are
listening, before you sit down, please pull out your chairs quietly.
Remember - quietly.’ SCREECH! CRASH! BANG! “Sigh. OK class, stand up and put your chairs back in. We need to practice this???”
more…