archived weblogs
Here is a problem I've encountered with trying to save weblogs from the old days.
This one:
https://web.archive.org/web/20130420210206/http://violentdeer.blogspot.com/
is now only available by web archive (wayback machine). Somehow the scammers have taken the URL, so that when you try to go to violentdeer.blogspot.com, you get spam. When you find it on the wayback machine, you get what it was: a very interesting weblog set up for and by international students.
Another one,
http://eap2walmart.blogspot.com, has a project I'm very proud of, where students literally explored both sides of the issue of a new Walmart appearing between Carbondale and Murphysboro (nothing
new about it these days, I'm sure). It was an excellent project and deserves to be saved.
But I can't find any log-in information - no email, no password, no nothing. It too will probably be scooped up by the spammers if the site goes dead as Google promises - nobody logs in, nobody uses it, etc. I am still looking for email and login for this one. I don't want it to die.
If it does, thank God for the Wayback Archive.
Labels: cesl, internet, weblogs, writing
weblog museum
A threat by Google has spurred me to action. Briefly, they have warned me that weblog accounts not logged into will eventually be deleted. Fair enough. I sat on that warning for a few months but cannot sit on it any longer.
I set up a lot of accounts. Often, I would set up a new email and set of weblogs for every new teaching assignment I had. Why not? It wasn't especially lying to have weblogs on their own accounts, since often I was teaching students how to log onto them and post things themselves. Sometimes of course students would mistakes and start their own weblog when they were trying to post on one. Or, rename the entire system with their own name (this apparently happened to the CESL student account, after I was no longer in charge).
The idea would be to gather as many of these accounts as I can find, and preserve them in such a way that they can be enjoyed and consumed as part of a larger display of weblogs being used in education. There are a few that were used for other purposes and of course, I may want to preserve those as well but possibly in another venue. The ones used for education alone - most for ESL students communicating to each other and about ideas that they've found in the U.S. - are extensive; there are many, used in a wide variety of ways. And I haven't really even found half of them.
I'm on my way, though. If you look at the big picture there are several things to keep in mind: 1) weblogs offer a unique, public way of presenting information; 2) they were extremely useful in teaching ESL in that they were like a public forum yet not heavily trafficked; in other words, students could
feel like they were putting themselves out in the public square, yet not get the damage that a true public square would do; and 3) we are really talking about the early days of weblogs, when they first arrived on the scene and were being used for all kinds of purposes. This kind of "early days" era capture is, as in the case of automobiles and all kinds of other things, fascinating to people who study such things, and fascinating in its own right just because it was early. People
will look back and wonder what the early days of linking, posting, writing, etc. was like. Weblogs themselves may fade into oblivion or get cornered into a unique slice of the public communications picture. But if they survive their early history will always be of interest.
Labels: cesl, internet, weblogs
2015 report
OK, I'll be the first to admit it. I got one foot into retirement (I am now teaching 3/4 time, writing 1/4 time), and I realized how tired I was, after about thirty years of teaching. I still have lots of ideas. I do lots of things in my class. But a lot of times, I come home from teaching, and all I want to do is rest.
Part of the problem is that, having ten children, I never get that rest, whether I do extra ESL stuff or not. In fact, the ESL tends to be kind of a break from the children, an enjoyable, academic kind of break, like having conversations with interesting people I know, but I don't have time for it. I'm taking kids to their sports practices, or to the dentist, or getting groceries, etc. But another part of it is that I really
love writing, and I also
love music, and these are sides of me that went undeveloped for many years. So, when I apologize for failing a little at this end, just consider me as backing off a little. I can't possibly keep up the pace I kept for many years.
Nonetheless, here are some interesting things I've been doing in 2015.
First, I became almost entirely a writing teacher, so I had two advanced writing classes. My students are very high level graduate students who are trying to maintain and improve what they consider their weak point. The stronger ones take the class on their own, knowing that there's always a lot to learn. The weaker ones are pressured to take it by their departments, where they really don't want to teach graduate students writing, but just want them to crank out good useful dissertations and articles regularly. It's high-level; the students are bright. I had one do a blog on
gay marriage (their choice) and the other
campus carry (gun control, also their choice). We published everything we wrote, and it was good, and interesting. I helped teach them formatting things online, as well as the usual writing things - citation, reference, etc. I had the usual run-ins with plagiarism. I taught a lot of students a lot of things.
One of my graduate students became interested in the concordance movement, so I became reacquainted with it. The first step was learning more about it as a tool, how to use it, whether it really works. I am genuinely interested in the process of learning how students integrate tools into their writing process - how, why, how easily, etc. They are not especially forthcoming about the tools they use, being convinced, I guess, that so many of them are illegal. Nevertheless, as a class (both of them, really), we discussed opening up the concordance, seeing what it can do, applying the simplest of grammar problems to it, etc. It was interesting. My Graduate Assistant was fascinated. And, interestingly, even the students found one aspect of it interesting: they are stats people. They like to run the numbers. To be able to run the numbers on the words you use, that's an interesting concept. They are still shaking their heads.
We have a conference in the spring; there is some doubt about whether we'll do it this spring, with its main organizer gone now. Last spring, I was caught unprepared, and didn't even present. There are many things I could present, but I presented zip, I didn't even go. I believe I was out of town, but I don't even remember where; perhaps New Mexico. But I
did present at TESOL, the usual, and I could have presented on various subjects of interest, if I could keep from being drawn into the world of personal fiction publishing.
The first would be on cultural flexibility as a requirement of good language learning. I feel that the characteristic of cultural flexibility, being able to unhinge your self-image from its cultural trappings, is measurable, and crucial in the process. I'd like to define it better, and work toward writing about what I mean. I gave a presentation at our 2014 spring conference, and very easily could have given another. But I was interrupted, and, I'm sorry to say, I dropped the ball.
In the course of doing that one, I became interested in Order of Acquisition as a given construct in Language Learning. Actually, I'm more interested in proving that there
isn't one; it's part of my constructivist belief that each learner decides for himself/herself what order to acquire anything in, and each learner has his/her own idea of what is crucial, or what should go first. And, it would be possible to manipulate the system. For example, one could convince a learner to learn all the religious words first (salvation, heaven, savior, etc.) and skip the ones having to do with cooking, if that learner were proselytizing ten hours a day, and never cooking. One's viewpoint determines what one acquires, not an innate natural order. But I'd like to prove that, if I had time.
My TESOL presentation is basically about how grammar programs have messed with people's heads. That's putting it lightly. But something has come up that is tangentially related to this. The War on Passive is something we researched, and wrote a little about, and learned how to teach. In essence some departments, specifically social sciences, dislike the passive intensely; others, namely the hard sciences, still cling to it. There is a wide variety. Read about it on this blog. I could easily ride this one to another TESOL, but I haven't...why not?
Finally, there is the language-as-a-self-organizing-system project; this has been dormant for a while now, and is beginning to fossilize in its dormant phase. I have written voluminously about it. I haven't given up on it. It needs to be published before I give up altogether. Hello?
Meanwhile I help out at the office. My classes are full. I enjoy teaching, and I also teach American students these days; I like that too. Texas Tech is benevolent and enjoyable to me. I avoid politics. This year, due to wife's surgery, mother's near-death health experiences, and family issues, I avoided all office parties, poetry readings, etc. as well. I am in demand at the poetry reading, as people like haiku, and believe it or not, one
can write bilingual haiku that pulls on both language universes in seventeen short syllables; I am one who could do it as I've been literally immersed in poetry for months now. However as I said,
I was busy. Life is full here, the nights are beautiful, and there are lots of stars out, even in the city. And the mountains are even better; the 9000 feet woods beckon. I am, in the end, partially retired.
Labels: creative, krashen, personal, plagiarism, self-organized systems, tesol, ttu, weblogs, writing
report from Lubbock, Aug. 2014
Another International Teaching Assistant Workshop just ended; this is the one 3-week stretch in which I teach absolutely full-time, but it's a whopper of full-time. There is SPEAK grading, Performance test grading, and six hours a day of teaching, all crammed into this three-week gig, and I more or less have to tell the folks at home that they're on their own. Some observations about the state of ITA's and Texas Tech will be found if you scroll down a little.
First, I want to say a little bit about the relative silence of this blog. In fact this blog didn't really move with me and my professional career to Texas Tech; it has stayed behind, really, as a repository of all good stuff that happened over an 18-year span in Illinois. But it's about time it moved, and I'll tell you why: I seem to be stuck in the process of converting all my interesting experiences into professionally-written, book-worthy ideas, and one reason is that I don't really use this blog actively enough anymore. Instead of pulling, bending, changing, etc., I just took a break and went into fiddling for a while. That has been successful; I have a band, I play bluegrass, I'm happy. But I don't intend to let my professional ideas rot on the vine back here. It's time I dredge stuff up and either publish it or drop it.
Now the nature of a blog is, it's fairly casual, and it's published, whether it's polished or not. I'm ok with that. If this is as far as some of these ideas go, that's ok. But I'm taking the red and gray of this blog and remaking it in the Texas Tech red-and-black soon, and that's because I want to keep it current, and keep using it instead of letting it collect dust. That's my first announcement. Look for some changes here soon in the design aspect. A person has to change once in a while.
Lubbock is at the searing peak of its summer; though we took a break for about a week in the mountains of New Mexico, I am now back crossing my beloved 19th street four times a day and in the process of so risking my life, I've decided to make sure that whatever feelings I have about language, acquisition, etc. I'd better get them in print sooner rather than later. So I'm thinking of devoting some energy to that process in the near future. And I hope you'll see evidence of the following: 1) a book about language as a self-organizing system; 2) a collection of essays and other writing about language acquision, and 3) a book or collection of writings about how technology and grammar intersect. I've been talking about these things for years. The heck of it is, I know where this writing is (on my blogs, in my Google docs, etc.), but it just collects dust where nobody sees it; if it were in book form, I could at least get it out there, where it might do some good. Not that anyone buys my books. But, books collect ideas under one cover. Blogs don't. Google docs simply maintain them. Books publish them.
Walked to the ITA workshop on its last day; walked home; walked to the pool, swam, and now I'm about too drained and exhausted to even do the multitude of organizational tasks I've set out for myself, for my afternoon and what little free time I'll have before the semester comes crashing in. But, I got some pictures uploaded, below, at
my home weblog, and my
lubbock weblog, and those are really my most immediate organizational task. I'm still finishing my
ITA workshop blog, which has three entries. This last one has social media, teaching philosophies, and a tour of world cities. Most of all, in my opinion, it still proves that to me at least, the blog format is one of the best places to simply publish interesting stuff. Nobody takes it too seriously, yet by simply remembering a well-chosen URL, you always have access to the best of people's creativity, the things you can get them to say. Teaching philosophies, in particular, help them to crystallize their feelings about what they're about to do, and, since they are graduate students, they take their writing seriously and give you a good picture of various departments and issues of teaching within them. I'm proud of the work my students are still putting on blogs, and in this case I'll say one thing: in three weeks, all we could do was write the stuff and put it up there, really; we didn't worry too much about "revision." But, organization and perfection were less important than simply getting it up there. Students were coming and going the entire three weeks; this blog represents the time they spent in that classroom, discussing writing and the issues of social media, as well as talking about their own cities. I'm proud of that memory and will fix up the blog to reflect that, as soon as I have time.
Unfortunately, however, I lost the password and even the logon of
the last one, which also held teaching philosophies, and this brings up an organizational nightmare of the blog world: one loses passwords, especially if one is ADD or trusts the old pen-and-paper method. I'm working on it, folks, I promise.
Which brings me to my last point. The CESL weblogs, also, are collecting dust, turning into a museum of the era in which we used them. Blogs are ok for that. I guess it's ok if people at CESL simply forget that they're there, and they sit there with all their beautiful pictures and show what people did way back in the early 20-aught years. I have them rigged, I think, so that if anyone jumps in with crude comments, I'll know. As they get stale, they move down on Google indices, and people are less likely to stumble upon them. But even now I use them. Students have research papers on them, and I call them up. They reflect the idea that you can take a corner of a public discourse environment, you can make an interesting project, and you can leave it posted indefinitely, for its creators to use, and for anyone to see and comment upon. If anything, it's making the web more civilized, and calmer. And that's no small change in today's world. My last organizational task is to link up these weblogs, so that one can more easily have access to them, or see them in the order that I'd like you to see them. Look for more on that, here.
Labels: cesl, internet, self-organized systems, ttu, weblogs, writing
report from Lubbock
It's been almost two months since I posted here; you might think I'd died, or fallen off a cliff, for as much as I've had to say about professional matters in general. It's true that I post a little on my other blogs, which I'll mention, but most of all, I've just been busy, and as I get older, I get a little more tired, and find it more difficult to go out of my way to point out something interesting.
But it is a new term, and I owe you an update, which I will provide. I teach a new class in writing dissertations and theses, for high-level graduate students. I used my eap2 skills to set up a writing project such that we would study a public issue (in our case Lubbock water crisis) and investigate how people feel about it; it's a fairly straightforward project on the perception of people toward an environmental condition (again, eap2 prepares me well) but the class is developing the project together, though they will write reports individually. If it ends up online (which I'd prefer), I'll keep you informed. Otherwise I'll just tell you what I've learned. In essence I've learned how theses look different in different departments, and use different styles, and carry different expectations depending on what any given department would call "data".
The other class is a high-level ITA speaking class, but the difference at Texas Tech, from other places, is that we (and the self-made textbook we use) identifies and graphs out discourse features that are crucial in the conveying of meaning and intent, features such as prominence, tone, thought groups, etc. We actually categorize and measure these things so as to give students, many of whom have adequate pronunciation and grammar, more insight into what is really hampering their ability to communicate successfully. It's very interesting and, in my view, somewhat cutting-edge, since other programs don't even really know how to
talk about some of these.
My last assignment is at the Univ. Writing Lab, but it's really my favorite, because I enjoy the people and it's more like working as part of a collective of very smart people who all practice a craft together; this also is a little more like CESL, and a little less like an academic department. Frankly, my office building is a little like Europe, with teachers of Portuguese, Italian, German, French and Spanish but about as much true camaraderie as the EU as well, and you have to give the office staff 24 hours to copy anything, and sometimes I long for the more free-wheeling ESL life.
It was at the writing center, however, where they actually assigned to me
this set of youtube clips which finally stirred me up to post in this blog. It's an interesting set on the problems in writing that ESL students have when encountering and trying to master writing in English. It stirred lots of memories in me, and awakened my passion for ESL writing, which in fact I am teaching, both at the lab and in the dissertation class. In this movie I saw my old friend Deb Healey, and was reassured that my skills, developed over decades, were valuable. I think the movie deserves its own review, which I will provide above, but in the meantime, I just want to say, I'm still here, still kicking, still teaching, basically, and walking home, since somebody lifted my bicycle in May.
I have two projects, both somewhat shelved, because it's so hard to get to the kids' schools, and soccer practice, in the time available to me. And, the walking, even the six blocks that it is, across a ten-lane road, exhausts me, for some reason. My shoes got to the point where nails seem to be sticking up into my foot but I've been to busy to simply buy new ones, or more appropriately, buy ones that are better designed for long walks at night. My two projects are as follows: I'm writing a book on language as a self-organized system, and in general I store my work
here, though I have the book itself elsewhere. Also, I have begun a serious study of text linguistics, which is really the linguistics of texters, as opposed to the linguistics of big books and entire tomes, which some people think it is, and which appears when you google "text linguistics." The fact is, this new field, the study of human communication behavior when phones and computers are mediating it, needs a name, although "computer-mediated communication" is close to acceptable. I struggle with it, because I'm really after text linguistics, yet I can't call it that; the name is taken.
So that's a report from the Hub City. The clouds come over in enormous colorful gusty-looking monsters but it rarely rains. The painters have moved in and sprayed chipped paint all over our yard thus causing us to suspect that our sunflower crop will have lead in it. Finally, the boys are both on soccer teams, thus causing a flurry of cross-town transportation issues not to mention finding matching shin-guards, a ball, filling a water bottle, etc. All for the purposes of activity, which supposedly makes them sleep better, but in fact, it's usually me who falls face-down on the pillow long before they do. I've found that wearing a fine-looking hat on nineteenth street increases my chances of being seen across ten lanes, so I do, and now people look at me oddly but go around me, and I limp across those lanes getting in the bicyclists' way.
Labels: cesl, chat, ita's, linguistics, self-organized systems, toefl, ttu, weblogs, wikipedia, writing, youtube
remake
You may notice a few changes in this weblog; ok, I admit it. I look at it, and look at it again, and, yes, I haven't changed its look since, what, maybe never. That's right: I started it in 2004, I took any old wrap, and then I kind of liked the pink-and-gray, and then, I just didn't do anything about it. For eight years, I've simply used this as a place to talk about what I've learned while teaching, or elsewhere. I've learned a lot; I've never had a shortage of things to say. It's a kind of record of what I've been interested in over the years.
These days I get requests for guest posts, or things that people make and write that they'd like seen by a wider audience. I'm not sure how wide my audience is; you can check by pressing that little green button below, but, since I've never done much to cultivate my audience, it's never really grown all that much. I decided at one point
not to encourage traffic or make it any more commercial. For that reason, I'm sure, it's unusual in the world of blogs. There probably aren't many of these pink-and-gray template blogs around any more, for example, but I'm not even sure if people recognize it as simply ancient, unadorned. I welcome visitors and guest posters; I'm a little slower at creating my own content, in any case.
I'm redoing the links, the look, a few things about it, but I'm doing it slowly. For one thing, I had to admit finally that I've moved to Lubbock. OK, and let's get rid of some of these dead links. See if I can keep it at least
current. Thanks for sticking with me!
Labels: personal, weblogs
112 update
You may have noticed that my posts are fewer and further between, and there are lots of good reasons for that, not the least of which is teaching 20 hours, furloughs, busy schedule at home, etc. Just not enough time in the day, not enough time on the computer that has my work on it.
But this doesn't mean I've been slouching with my classes. We have been studying intelligence, so I gave groups of students (in two classes) topics that they could choose from and was grateful when they chose topics I liked: a group in each class chose
multiliteracies (21st century skills), and another group chose
gifted education. Two groups also did
educational toys and videos; and one did
men vs. women (in IQ).
If you open the links that lie beneath these group titles, you will find students' reading reaction journals which, unfortunately, are sometimes put in the wrong weblogs. Each weblog should ultimately be a collection of articles and links pertaining to that subject, though unfortunately things don't always work out as I'd planned. It has however allowed me to read a bit on the topics.
I was interested in multiliteracies partly because a friend has written extensively on it yet I still wasn't clear exactly what other literacies there were besides the traditional two (reading and writing). Even now, and after reading a number of articles including
his (Vance Stevens'), I'm not clear on how to define the different literacies one would surely need as we go into the 21st century. My students went out and actually asked young SIUC students what kind of computer skills we should be teaching our young people; if getting information from the computer and using it involve so much more than just reading and writing,
exactly what else is valuable? It seems that evaluating web content is extremely important, and involves a different set of skills than, say, knowing
where in a library to find a book; but, those skills, as far as I can tell, are mostly centered around reading itself. Multitasking is an interesting skill, as it's taken a hit in the mainstream media; but, is it really more necessary now than it used to be? Only because we make it so. The young are proud to say they can text and drive, no problem; they can facebook and write a paper, too, all in an hour. We on the other end are pretty sure that both their driving and their paper-writing are not as 100% as they were, say, pre-texting. But they still value multitasking at the driver's license center and studies show it to be one of the (possibly fluid-analytic?) skills that decline with age...as if there is something elemental, and important, involved.
In the area of gifted education I've had a bug under my ear ever since I found out that much of the original research done on it was flawed; in other words, we should not sit around and wait for education schools to tell us what labeling our children in the public schools would do, either to their education, or to them. I suspect that nobody every really thought it out thoroughly, and somehow I'm not surprised. The articles my students turned up showed it was a hot topic in both the USA and Canada; the very first, in Canada, had something like 550 comments on it, mostly negative, though parents freely admit they would
always accept a gifted education program for their child (as I have, several times), if offered.
The writing on both topics is interesting, and still coming in; I don't mean to neglect the other two groups either, as they have interesting topics too. Each weblog ultimately will house the story of how they went out, spoke to SIUC students about the topic, and got data about how people felt....should be interesting.
Labels: cesl, internet, siuc, webheads, weblogs, writing
105 arrives
It's a busy time; I'll be the first to say, I'm letting this poor blog rust a little in the fall dew. A lot of personal issues keep me occupied; at work, I'm the new grammar coordinator (see below) which brings an enormous material-shuffling responsibility which I'm not quite caught up on. For a variety of reasons I'm way behind on everything, but I thought I'd comment on the aspects of the world that I see rushing by like rocks in a river that one is rafting on.
Google docs - my first apology is for not putting my writing on google docs better, more clearly, more cleanly; I need a lesson, and haven't had time to get it. I'm a fan of google (this blog remains, years after others have faded or become unavailable)...and I've found no better place to put things. But I haven't had time.
Facebook - CESL Facebook continues to be quite a sleepy spot, with few new pictures and an occasional ungrammatical post. As some students post great pictures on their own sites, I don't even link to them or point them out. Why should I? Would this really help CESL? Or are we better off having a sleepy, but decent, spot?
In the larger picture, Facebook now has a "Places" option and once again makes you part of it whether you're aware of it or not, and you have to be well aware of all the privacy controls on the inside of your account, to change anything. With this "places" option any of your friends can know exactly where you are (and why, again, would I want this?)...and this of course assumes that all our friends have secure accounts, which are not subject to the kind of tampering that makes one of my friends, already, try to sell me some kind of spam junk. No, I'm sure all my friends are ok, and so are theirs, and theirs, although I'm also aware that quite a few accounts have been broken into. But, again, why would I want
all these people to know where I am, all the time?
Grammar as a discrete topic - We remain one of a minority of programs which teach grammar as separate from writing, speaking, etc. Our students remain grammar-challenged at the top, whether that be because they were grammar-challenged to begin with, because a discrete class doesn't help them (and even
hurts them???)...or because whatever we've been doing, we haven't been doing well. I intend to find out and advocate for the best solution (furthermore, I'm interested in your opinion). I have the chance to put into practice several fundamental aspects of my philosophy: 1) grammar is more about applying principles when making sentences, than about filling in the proper form in a blank; 2) grammar is not rocket science; if the vast majority of American children can understand and learn it, adults can too; 3) when adults learn a complete system, questions about the big picture are inevitable, but answering these questions is basically a distraction from the problem at hand, which is stated in #1; and, finally, 4) every class must keep the big picture in mind, even while rushing through minor grammar points, pressuring the students, getting them to learn single isolated patterns; the big question is, are they taking everything they have learned, and using it successfully? I say, if we haven't applied these principles successfully, then we haven't
tested out whether a discrete grammar class can help a program. And I intend to try.
Self-organized system theory - I've done virtually nothing about this, being too busy. Too bad. It's a theory dying to be spelled out. And it may have to wait until I retire!
Google Wave - Came and went, without me even trying it. Too bad! If I had designed it, it would have had more pop art in it, I suppose.
Nings - seem to be out of the picture. Again, I barely knew what they were. My yahoo e-mail address was cancelled, because I didn't log on enough. Free things are taken away, faster than you can sign up for them. My new philosophy is: simplify! Either that, or log on regularly, just as a matter of course.
TESOL 2011 - Love New Orleans, love TESOL, might miss them both. Sorry! I did make proposals. But I always do, and my faith in their innovative character is running a little low.
Weblogs - I still use them. But there is so little interest from the rest of the faculty that I barely keep them current. I am having trouble, in fact, keeping them presentable, when students more often post on the
wrong ones than the right ones; when students confuse it with the moodle, etc. To me there is still great benefit in making work public. The light and the air hit it. People see it and read it. It becomes part of the scenery; it shows what we do, what we read and what we write. I'm proud of that. But I apparently am a voice in the wilderness here. And even with the advent of mass spamming (which plagues the blogspot system), it's still worth it.
Moodle - a great system here has spared me from whining and moaning about Blackboard and its monopolistic byzantine system. Instead, full professors are whining and moaning about Blackboard, and we are using a system called Moodle which is working well, downloaded for free. It's kind of like the way the university switched over from a private e-mail server that cost tens of thousands, to g-mail, which was free, and wondered for years how that was even possible. But it was, and they did it. This system also is plagued with some spamming; people need to figure out how to get these porn junkies off of the interstate. But in every other way, it seems to be a huge, and wonderful, innovation in the world of education. It's a system, a meeting place, a glass window showing everyone everything. Both enlightening, and dangerous.
Labels: blackboard, facebook, personal, self-organized systems, weblogs
death by stoning, ground zero
By far the high point of the term (104) at least as far as weblogging is concerned was a comment produced by
Mesfer's article report justifying Iran's right to follow its own laws without regard to pressure from the rest of us. At first I was surprised at myself, that I had read what he had written and merely corrected the grammar, without worrying that he would put it online and draw such a comment. He was, after all, saying that it's ok to stone a woman publicly; how callous I am, that I could read that, and basically say nothing. The commenter (Lovely and Talented) at least pointed out the obvious objection that the rest of the world might have to this situation.
In the situation I'm in, I've become so war-weary from the cultural battleground's missiles, that I often let this go by, and simply let my students face the music themselves; after all, they knew this was a public forum, and that anyone could respond; they know they are in the west, and that what they write can and will be read. I'm proud of that. I don't need to protect them from that.
My idea about Ground Zero is this: This is an important place, and always will be. This entire neighborhood should be opened up, and religious organizations should be
encouraged to build here: all religious organizations. Make it a world center religious marketplace; make it a tourist venue. Our pride and our identity is that we are better than the narrow ideology that made this site famous originally.
I don't mean to confuse the issue; the Iranian government, though it may have supported terrorism in some cases, is not the same as the nineteen guys who actually blew up the World Trade Center and were responsible for the deaths of thousands. Nor are either the same as the people who plan the Ground Zero mosque, or my well-meaning student, who just feels that the west should stop telling Muslim countries how to run their countries. The mosque controversy has struck a nerve not because people feel they are the same, or because they don't care. It has struck a nerve because they feel instinctively that it is now sacred ground, and that we should move carefully with every step.
And this is why the mayor of New York has a huge problem. On the one hand, he cannot deny the Mosque funders, and still maintain that we are a free country, open to all religions and faiths. But he
can annex land, declare it part of a national sanctuary, systematically negotiate to annex all land nearby, open it to all religions, the highest bidders first, charge annual rent to maintain city-run, open-to-all-faiths religious tourist facilities, and create a world-famous area that would draw millions. Actually, New York draws millions anyway; it does this because it is, by itself, a diverse collection of cultures and beliefs all placed in close proximity.
Whenever cultures come together, there is conflict; I speak from experience. New York City is living proof that this conflict can actually make us stronger and better. We cannot back down from accepting the diversity that makes the fabric of our city and our nation. Instead, we should embrace it, implant it in our heart, and then invite the world to walk in our streets.
Labels: cesl, personal, weblogs
New CESL web site
One can't watch fifteen years, and over 300 pages of CESL web resources go under without at least commenting. There were many reasons for the new, simplified look of the CESL main web, which I will get to below, but mostly I want to say that although I recognize the reasons and can't argue with them, I feel sorry that an era of CESL's putting resources out to the public is now apparently over.
Here are some of the reasons the web site is now smaller, slicker, and less ambitious. Its 300 pages once included student work display (old CESL Todays), TESOL presentations by faculty (mostly me), teacher links and resources, student links and resources, and directories meant to help the ESL/EFL community in general. These pages were widely linked to from all over the world and contributed to CESL's good standing in Google, which rates highly the generous well-connected nature of a benevolent organization. But the directories were hard to maintain; they took precious faculty time; their links easily got outdated and sometimes the outside places they linked to were bought out from under whoever started them. Thus our links became like an unweeded garden with snakes everywhere. Also, SIUC has become increasingly sensitive about
all pictures on the SIUC web system: are they marked? Do we own them? Are the rights clear? Are they Alt-tagged properly? There was no way we could go back and find the authors of all those photos; it wasn't possible. We had hundreds of pages of photos that were for all intents and purposes given to CESL, but completely unmarked. Finally, SIUC constantly changed its requirements; it would force us to put a template on our pages, but then make those templates unsightly; it had marketing requirements and space restrictions, but these often changed. A strategy to use the actual SIUC space as little as possible actually makes sense in the big picture, as long as we can move the other
functions elsewhere in a reasonable amount of time.
The days when CESL could make a directory that people in the field could use and appreciate are apparently over. Although Google searches involving tesol organizations, plagiarism/esl, facebook/esl, twitter/esl, second life/esl, chat/esl, and esl program marketers
all call up CESL pages in their first page (and this, presumably, was good for CESL), these are now dead links, and may not be returned to life; if they are, visitors will be forwarded to some site which is willing and able to hold the resources. Students looking for writing, reading, listening, grammar, and speaking links will be directed to the weblogs where these can be held without the restrictions of the SIUC system; people looking for past published student work (some of which won awards, or was used in other venues) may or may not be able to find what they are looking for. The era of resources was a good one, and made us famous, in our own way; I'm not sorry we did it, only sorry that it seems to be over.
Labels: cesl, siuc, weblogs
another term flies
As I sit here, we are heading into a Thanksgiving break, and then, another Christmas break, which is really quite long, and gives us a little time to breathe, as teachers who really only have this one season. But I also would like to reflect a little on trends in the field, and what is happening around me.
First, I am lucky, I'm sure, to still be working in a rapidly contracting world, where jobs in particular are flying, and everyone, it seems, is looking for new and clever ways to make a living. I'm surprised more of them don't end up in places like China, Brazil, or Ireland, where they still have an economy and they hire bright people to do cool things. I frankly don't know what will happen to esl/efl around the world; the crashing dollar has traditionally been good for our field, but a complete lack of jobs elsewhere in the country might not be so great.
Second, the rapid gain of technology in all fields is of course both a curse and a blessing. Who has really integrated it successfully? The divide between the online teaching world, and the brick-and-mortar traditionalists, is getting wider, coming to blows even. Teachers are threatened by those who are willing to "do it online" for cheaper, and from any corner of the world, like Phoenix, or 'Smith University.' I actually am not so quick to criticize the quality of online instruction, or quick to ridicule the traditional teachers' fears; both are valid, and there is no way to reconcile them, really. Any talk about a "New Academy" (I've copied the link below a few posts) is a little early; nobody's changing, or if they do, it's over their dead bodies, pretty much. Administrations see the future and try to push teachers into "online development". Teachers see the future and dig in their heels, doing what they've always done. And I'm speaking even for myself, a leader in the technology-integration area. When I'm out of time, and the chips are down, I do what I've always done. It's "teaching" as I know it, and, I'm always short of time.
The static web, and the blogs, for that matter, have the look and feel of foreclosed houses. I've become impatient with my own inability to get around and fix all the broken links, update wherever possible, keep things shiny and useful. The world moves onto Facebook and Twitter, and we, left behind in our old pictures and ancient design, have nothing to say, except, "we've been here forever." The blogs feel so much like "old media" that I have trouble presenting them to students as "fresh;" they, for their part, don't seem to mind, but I have less time to ask them, and we have trouble just getting their skills up to the point where they can really use English with each other, and they of course are seeing things a lot more in terms of tests, and particularly the TOEFL, which they need to pass yesterday if not sooner.
This talk about the "New Academy" being all more collaborative, also, doesn't sit well with me. I like collaboration; I'm all for it, and feel that when we work together we get the best of all our skills combined. But, I find it hard to set up and maintain. I think there are thousands of wikis out there that are, basically, blogs with 1 1/2 users; actually, there is lots of real collaboration out there too, but I'm not sure a single busy teacher like me really has access to ways to make it work in our favor. My own way of storing information, literally on blogs and static webpages, is hopelessly outmoded, but I haven't had time to explore diigo or even exploit twitter for all it's worth. The collective wisdom is rich and many-layered; but, the free moments of a teacher under pressure are so scarce, it's all I can do to produce my students' grades.
The program has a new Moodle; this is good; we were not doing well in getting Blackboard or getting our students to have access to it. The Moodle is interesting. I, however, have been too busy; I scarcely know it. I'm interested though. If my students can have instant access to all their grades, everything that's happening, everything I know or have to say, why shouldn't I give it to them? I do, after all, teach them English first, teach them how to make sense of this world, second. Sense, that is, as I know it, best foot forward, showing them our world. Our rapidly changing world. Have a good break; I hope you get some rest.
Barone, C. (2009).
The New Academy.
EduCause. http://www.educause.edu/Resources/EducatingtheNetGeneration/TheNewAcademy/6068. Accessed 10-09.
Labels: blackboard, cesl, facebook, internet, personal, weblogs
Miranda's presentation
Ma, Sin I (Miranda). (2009, Oct. 27. Web-blogging in ESL writing: Weaving a class into a community. Saline Room, Student Center, SIUC. Based on class weblog at
http://f09ling101.blogspot.com.
Miranda's presentation was well-attended; the room held only about twenty, but there were people leaning on the wall behind the last row, so it was standing-room only and crowded. She had put her students in charge of making assignments and then basically turned them loose, allowing for a freer environment and lots of lively exchange. When asked whether it improved their more formal writing, she said that it did clearly make them more fluent; they write more and without worrying as much about the outcome. She was asked how they were graded, and how they were put in groups; she was asked if she gave corrective feedback in a public place. When she said that she had berated them a little for making so many typos, they complained that they didn't capitalize "I", for example, because they were used to typing on Word, which always did it for them. The weblog was therefore a rawer, more informal environment, and they just accepted that for what it was and wrote a lot. One teacher, L.H., even commented that the blog could thus be used to wean them from dependence on spell-check.
She was asked if a teacher who set up a blog had more of a burden, and she agreed that she did; but, she thought it was worth it. I don't include all her answers here because I didn't take very accurate notes. But, what interested me was that there was great interest from the community in what she did. People remained leaning on the walls throughout the presentation. Good job, Miranda!
Labels: bib, linguistics, siuc, weblogs
New Jersey
Leverett, T. (2009, Oct. 24)
Integrating chat into the writing class. Invited talk, New Jersey Higher Education ESL Conference, Montclair State Univ., Montclair NJ.
This was essentially the same as my presentation at TESOL in Denver; I was asked, in Denver, if I could come to New Jersey to give it. New Jersey was stunning in its fall colors, and my hosts were generous and friendly. Teachers were eager and somewhat stunned to hear about both weblogs and chat; how could one really use these? But I showed them, and showed what we did. Also, although I welcomed the opportunity to have and use the "backchannel," there were no takers. ESL teachers don't, apparently, bring their hand-helds or twitters to conferences such as these.
The script this link opens up to is a rough draft of my talk, but it is connected to the rest of the presentation also. I would like to update it; I'm running out of time.
Labels: bib, chat, personal, weblogs
dominican republic
Leverett, T. (2009, June).
Digital fluency and the role of the teacher. Invited Plenary, Annual Conference for Teachers of English, Santiago (Jun. 8 & 9) and Santo Domingo (June 11 & 12), Dominican Republic. Included two workshops:
Using weblogs to integrate writers into target communities and
Technology as gateway to opportunity.
My week in the Dominican Republic was fantastic; I especially loved the people and the food. Also great was the music and the Caribbean atmosphere, the old downtown of Santo Domingo, for example, which was the earliest settlement in the New World, or the old town of Santiago, where it rained a lot but we felt we were in the heart of the country. This is a country where people have a lot of spirit, and I made close friends with English teachers of a very interesting and beautiful country.
The big news there is the possibility of Dominican teachers forming a TESOL, or organization of teachers, but I am less involved in our own US TESOL to help make that happen; I would certainly love to contribute. I'd love to see them get on
this list as soon as possible. The same holds, apparently, for teachers from Guatemala who were there with us.
I wrote about the trip personally, and you are welcome to read a
full report at your leisure. Let's just say, what a wonderful place. I feel that I learned more than they did, and one thing that would make me very happy would be to be of continuing assistance to Dominican teachers as they struggle to integrate technology and improve the standard of English teaching in their nation. I think it's important for teachers to be connected and feel connected to teachers in other parts of the world, and to this end, I felt the trip was a success. I wish them luck in the future also, and hope to see some Dominicans up here in Illinois one of these days. Finally, I close with a poster picture of Santiago, where it rained hard during the conference, and at other times, and, while the rain put a kind of sad feeling onto a joyous and light-feeling place, it didn't diminish the beauty in any way. My plenary, in fact, was given here during a thunderous lightning storm, outside and under these various canvas awnings. It was remarkable, in every way.
Labels: bib, personal, weblogs
Error Correction Frontier: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
This is a session report, which starts with what I consider most memorable, because it is that little folded piece of paper that is disintegrating in my pocket and has to be written as soon as possible. I have more detailed notes which will follow as soon as I get to them.
This was a discussion that met at 7:00 on a Saturday morning; since discussions were intended for 20-30 people, we made only 30 handouts but they were taken right away. Probably about 50 came but only about 30 at any given time as there were people coming and going throughout. I started by laying out what we promised and what we wanted. We were aware that it was a hot-button issue and we had promised to keep the conversation civil and focus on what worked in terms of editing, especially grammatical editing. The room was full of writing teachers who essentially cared very much for their students and wanted to know what was best for them; this impressed me.
Two people stood out in my memory perhaps for the emotion in their voices as they spoke. One was a woman who wanted her students to be able to communicate at all costs. I took this as an anti-correction statement, but, it seemed to me that everyone wanted that. She didn't directly prove that pointing out errors
repressed their communicative abilities though that point has been made.
Another woman said that she couldn't bear forcing students to write three drafts of anything that at its base wouldn't pass the exit exam; after they had done three drafts, she couldn't flunk them in good conscience, yet she realized that really their papers probably wouldn't pass. So, she had become a "front-loader," grading the first draft progressively more heavily. It was at this point that I spoke up, agreeing with her as a "front-loader," since it's what they can create on the spot, with their own skills and process, that they take with them to the next level. Everything else has my input in it, and is, therefore, a representation more of what I want, what I say, and what they think they need to do, than of what they do on their own.
Another woman deserves mention: the one who says that since she systematically removes a point from every essay for a missing -s, she virtually wipes out the problem by the end of the term. She simply uses behavioristic punishments to teach them to edit their own papers, and it's regular enough to work within a given framework of one course.
Transcripts of the session itself show general unanimous support for the idea that students should learn to self-edit, and that teachers generally edit with that goal in mind. We sometimes edit to justify a grade, or to show them what will be most costly at the next step up, i.e. an entrance exam. People had different experiences with where students were going after their writing experience; the question was basically how to make them better prepared; how they could be better armed for what followed. One teacher asked if anyone else gave them stock phrases that they could use. Another mentioned that the SAT had gone to using a holistic approach, and asked if anyone had experience with that. Another mentioned "Myths in second language writing" and recommended it. One confident gentleman said that all feedback should be consistent, manageable, timely and meaningful.
Presentation homeLabels: grammar, personal, weblogs, writing
091 in the rearview mirror
I've been so derelict on my own weblogs, I've not only failed to point out the highlights of the term, but also failed to keep up in a lot of other pursuits. It's not that things aren't happening, they are...only that I'm so busy, I can hardly document it. Here are some highlights...
-TESOL '09 coming up, in Denver, and I'm barely prepared; haven't had much time to put into it. Scroll down the template to see what I've done; three things are coming, and I'd like to be a little better prepared for each...
-CESL blogs work their way up on Google, and in the process draw in more unusual visitors. This is partly because the
eap2 blog won a prize and therefore a big link, a few terms back; it's drawn visitors and google thus found all of us & put us up a notch. People write on blogs like the
US economic problems blog, which is outdated, about an entirely different economic problem, yet if it comes up on google, people will go there & find it.
-one of my favorite exchanges is
here, where a student wrote about the Japanese education system, and the author found her, responded, and even included a letter from a third person. The topic at hand here is how English is taught in Japan, and it's very relevant, not only to the student and the career she's looking at, but also to various other people who find their way here. Another exchange happened in December as I was leaving for break, when a researcher found our papers about falcons; you meet some cool people writing in public, and putting ideas out on the table.
-much of the world continues to move over into Facebook; I try to keep up with it, and as a result get drawn into FB myself where I find increasingly more old friends who I love to have in my life again. A number of questions arise: what are the risks, for our students, for our program, to be all over main street? How can computer pop-art evolve to be totally useful in this venue? How has it transformed chat, if at all? And, will it implode under the weight of its own social transformation? Maybe I haven't worded my questions properly; at the moment, I'm in awe, and newspapers & the U.S. Postal Service are both due to collapse at any moment. My own
FB bib suffering from neglect as an unweeded garden. But who needs it? The whole world is in the trees, twittering into their facebooks, and I here, on the ground, barely get in there to post a status. I enjoy the process, though. I see old friends who remind me of old times, connect me with the earlier eras of my experience. I also had my students
write about facebook; most of their essays are posted on the now-famous eap2 weblog, but give a kind of panoramic view of their mixed feelings toward the changing social atmosphere...
Finally, on the home front, CESL classes are full; a diverse and interesting crowd continues to fill them up. And I'm always amazed at how, though people have to leave Carbondale eventually, they leave a part of themselves here, and pine for it, in their own way, at whatever faraway locale they end up in. My next job, publicizing an SIUC reunion in Denver at TESOL 2009, I'm going to remind people that CESL and SIUC continue to keep their image out there, remind people of SIUC's long and colorful history as a mainstay of the esl/efl world. Hang in there, SIUC: things keep changing, and as much as we complain, these could still be the good old days...
Labels: cesl, chat, facebook, pop art, siuc, tesol, twitter, weblogs
of passing interest
Phillips, S. (2008, Nov. 11).
Can MySpace make better writers? Miami Herald. http://www.miamiherald.com/news/education/story/756156.html. Accessed 12-08.
Brogan, C. (2008, Nov. 29).
Cafe-shaped conversations. Chris Brogan weblog. http://www.chrisbrogan.com/cafe-shaped-conversations/. Accessed 12-08.
McDonald, J. (2008, Dec. 1).
The uncertain future of blogging. Fastforward blog. http://www.fastforwardblog.com/2008/12/01/the-uncertain-future-of-blogging/. Accessed 12-08.
Nelson, C. (2008, Oct. 18).
How not to use blogs in the classroom. Explorations in Learning. http://secondlanguagewriting.com/explorations/Archives/2008/October/HowNotToUseBlogsintheCla.html. Accessed 12-08.
Barenblat, R. (2008, Nov. 23).
What if we give it away? Velveteen Rabbi. http://velveteenrabbi.blogs.com/blog/2008/11/what-if-we-give-it-away.html. Accessed 12-08.
Labels: bib, facebook, internet, weblogs
more stuff to read
if I get time:
Optenet. (2008).
2008 Internet Trends Study (pdf). http://www.optenet.com/mailing/pdfs/TrendReport.pdf. Accessed 10-08.
Boase, J., Horrigan, J., Wellman, B., & Rainie, L. (2006, Jan. 25).
The strength of internet ties (pdf): The internet and email aid users in maintaining their social networks and provide pathways to help when people face big decisions. Pew Internet and American Life Project Report. http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Internet_ties.pdf. Accessed 10-08.
Taylor, A. (2008, Sept. 5).
Old thinking permeates major journalism school.
Mediashift. Accessed 10-08.
Rundus, R. (2008, Oct. 1).
A tipping point for the blogosphere? Fayetteville Observer online. http://blogs.fayobserver.com/rundus/2008/10/01/a-tipping-point-for-the-blogosphere/. Accessed 10-08.
Bauerlein, M. (2008, Sept. 19).
Online literacy is a lesser kind.
Chronicle Review. http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i04/04b01001.htm. Accessed 10-08.
Labels: bib, facebook, internet, weblogs
Developers' panel
Sponsored by Scott Gilbert and the web developers' group here at SIUC, featured three people, all very different; two were professional developers, a third was an Art & Design professor here at SIUC, the best I could gather. Following is sketchy notes of things I again don't want to lose.
UPS- brilliant, simple, organized by color. A good example of color used effectively in web design. BBC- another example.
The website is the storefront of the future. Your first impression of a business is through the website. First impressions are very important. People don't spend a lot of time cruising around: you have 1/3 of a second to catch your viewer's attention.
Kareem Rashid is an up-and-coming developer; people like his site because different things make noise when you mouse-over them; it gets annoying after a while, though. Developers are attracted; they always want to go there, and see what's new.
These days the web has moved up to #3 in the paradigm: business cards (1), letterhead (2), website (3), and envelopes (4). Align them. Make a single brand.
Introducing sound is the new thing, but it has a down side.
The internet is the ultimate in instant gratification. People are in shopping mode- get in and get out. Get your information. If it's not easy to find, go somewhere else.
But the laptop has brought us from the desk to the couch. We are now competing with the cat and with other media for the attention of our viewer, who could very well be in bed for all we know. The laptop could be virtually everywhere, and is.
One developer spends time with communities, such as W. Frankfort & Murphysboro, trying to get them away from depressing and dry presentations of community (Here's our field, we'll give tax abatements, c'mon, Honda plant, please!) They're hoping for a dwindling market of opportunities, as fewer people are shopping for communities, yet in fact, plenty of people are shopping. And that's what they really want: people, a feeling, a warm feeling of wanting to be part of this place. How do you find the
story? Get people to tell their story? Get a people-rich story? Silicon Valley made its name, supposedly, by being the first place to present itself as a single town (which one?) that was able to say, you can walk down the street here, buy a cappucino and a roll, talk to your neighbors. Now, it's a huge place, successful.
Designer's big challenge: there are always people there who are using the web for the first time. They don't know intuitively where to click. Form follows function, though sometimes good form becomes a talking point itself. Craig's List, the bane of newspapers, most hated website in the print journalism world (costing them millions, ruining jobs)- widest possible audience, ugliest possible site. Will have to upgrade, most certainly, as FaceBook did. Everything must evolve and get better; it's too easy to start a Bob's list and compete.
ETC.- a site for traditional artists.
Lots of people want to use video, but don't want to have to go through YouTube to do it (see SIUC's site).
Google makes its money from advertising; you bid on how much you want to pay per click to have your name listed on the side of Google searches. John Chou, what he did & why it works- why he's making $100,000 per month- read about it on johnchou.com, if I spelled that right. He's the marketing guru.
Animation used to be so expensive- how did they make it so common? Flash. Adobe Flash, to be specific. One developer had a vision of a rubix cube in which every side of every cube went somewhere- an interesting vision. Or a painting, turning into a puzzle, click on pieces and they turn into more. George McCloud is an internet artist. m & m commercials- an example of Flash live, done with MAYA. Developer's rule:
Have the arsenal to defend the decisions you're making. Always use personal experience with a client to make it real (referring to getting clients to understand what viewers are seeing...
Companies are conservative, and will not take chances unnecessarily. Smart designers therefore will texturize, give a touch to a site, to show their personality. Some designing stories ensued, dealing with people who either knew or didn't know well, their own markets. Some success stories too. Web designing going on at the moment for WDBX (radio station), credit union, Murphysboro, & others. At the end of the day, there's something to be said for the person who pays the bills. Photo shots are much easier to get than they used to be; you used to have to hire a photographer & a model, etc., now you go to the web & pay a few bucks. ALIAS sketch allows you to draw stuff out; Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop allows you to play with stuff, the WAYCOM tablet (??) is waycool. Allows you to do all kinds of stuff.
Newspapers tried taking their brand onto the web, but it didn't work. Now, they're setting up regional networks where people tell their own stories, which then filter into the main system.
Some ideas I had:
1. connect ceslstudents weblog with whoever has posted most recently, so that there's a running tab on who's using what.
2. CESL You-Tube weblog, has to show movies, plant them, be a place to watch us in action.
3. surveymonkey- an easy enough way to ask people how they feel about our website, what they use, and when. And whether it's actually
doing what it is supposed to be doing.
Thanks to Scott Gilbert, and the three panelists. I mean it.
Labels: cesl, siuc, weblogs
hear ye hear ye
This article in the local paper, the
Southern Illinoisan, shows a couple of things besides a dubious implication that the west side of Carbondale is falling into economic malaise. Being a west-sider, I was curious to read whatever they chose to imply, but, following the advice of the person who pointed out the article to me, I read the comments and discovered that:
-comments of these news articles are very widely-used venues for public discussion of issues, in this case apparently unrelated to the story at hand. In other words, at least two people got tired of fighting on a site
where their comments were being edited out too quickly and moved over to this article, where they thought they could argue about the Peace Coalition, in the site of an article that was about the economics of the west side.
-the comments
are being edited vigorously and constantly; there are fewer now than when I first looked, and the proof of the above may be entirely gone before you look at the link. Furthermore, my guess, by the look of it, is that they are more likely to be edited if somebody (anybody) objects to them; and that this (objection) has become a tool in various wars of words over the issues involved. Thus the page itself is not only a free speech forum (in a limited way) but also a battleground for control over what remains and is read on the site permanently. Editors are clearly not averse to removing enough comments so that what remains is no longer clear or coherent, or at least frequently has unexplained gaps; one cannot tell what someone is responding to or referring to, but perhaps that's because the referent has been removed, and now the entire comments section reads like a cut-and-paste random collection of incomprehensible but clearly antagonistic remarks.
-does this forum experience change the dialogue in a region, as the
SI is really our own and only regional newspaper? Not sure, but I can assure you, it has a different look, a different tone, and a different vitality than the ink-and-newsprint newspaper itself.
-i do not see a whole lot of "pimp my blog" here- people are not commenting to get attention, or drum up business for their own site- which I know is something that some comment sections have and even encourage. Comments themselves have taken on their own character, their own culture, and are different in different places, particularly in heavily-read blogs, amongst bloggers themselves, or at least in comments sections where each signature leads to another blog.
It is encouraging that people are reading in their free time; using the web to discuss, argue, and negotiate; actively using writing informally yet strongly and purposefully, even if what one often sees is choppy, short, unclearly referenced (perhaps through no fault of the writer's)- if not relevant to the community, or to the argument at hand.
Labels: internet, personal, weblogs, writing
