Well, everyone’s gotta have something they throw into the ol’ Christmas bowl and, for reasons beyond my control, my contribution seems to have become gingerbread housing.

In terms of recipes last year I used this one, which was pretty useful (good icing) but not so great on the Gingerbread – unless you happen to be constructing a Gingerbread fortress (it’s pretty full on). So this year I was looking at this one or even the about.com version here and was wondering, on the very off chance, if anyone had any tips or recommended recipes for this kinda thing…

• Blogsavvy: Structured Blogging – Wizard or Magic?
  My take on Structured blogging… a large ‘hmmmmmm’ but I could be wrong? Might test out some of this in edublogs.org

• In Photos » Blog Archive » Matt and Donncha
  This’ll be a good historical photo, subtitled something like "before they took over the world" :)
• The FordLog » Shoot first ask questions later
  Peter Ford on the value of Flaming, I’m with him on this one!

Gah, am getting totally stuck trying to think of a name (and grab a URL) for this internet literacy / freedom / learning to swim / responsibility / trust in schools & education thing. I know what I want to do with it, collaboratively create a simple manifesto about how the net can and should be used in schools (and how it shouldn’t be blocked & feared), and then add some things like signatories / press packs / arguments / mini-papers etc.

But for the life of me I can’t think of a name which’ll fit nicely with a URL.

The Online Literacy Association (TOLA) – nope, tola.everything taken and not exactly catchy
NetGen – nope, netgen.everything taken, netgeners.org too rubbish
EduLit or EduTrust – sound too twee don’t they?

Am utterly desperate, am starting to think that we should be all web 2.0 about it and call it ‘pang’ or ’66’ or something and define it after that. Gah… here’s the original post again… ideas???????

• Funny
  C’mon Will, time to change, get yourself an edublog and we can leave comments like ‘funny’ without having to sign in ;)

How many blogs are about run by teachers and professors? The answer is a disaster

I’ve been hanging in on Ewan McIntosh’s “edublogs” (his blog, no relation to the .org) over the last couple of months and he’s been at Les Blogs, especially as part of a panel on Les Blogs where you can watch his panel presentation (.wmv 72Mb). The recorder could do with a shotgun mic but I have to say I prefer film to audio for this kind of thing.

There are some pretty classic quotes in this, including the above. For example the first panellist is introduced as:

one of the few deans who is blogging

the cyberportfolio, it’s a mix between blogs and portfolios

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m in danger of sounding a bit like an exclusive jerk here, but the total & blanket ignorance of what I might describe as the edublogosphere and of the broad and innovative uses of blogs in education over the last 5 years in these kind of forums does worry me. What I write and speak about is almost entirely developed on the shoulders of the amazing work that’s been blogged, published and continues to be practised all over the world. Bloody hell, I’m sounding like Dave Winer (not that that’s necessarily a bad thing ;), but a lot of people need to stop themselves before running off on these “Gee, we figured ‘why not use blogs in education’, aren’t we unique” spiels.

To quote Peter Ford:

Educational blogging consultants seem to be springing up all over the place, some aiming for the guru-status of being paid for hot-air production about blogs and related technology that they never have used at the chalkface.

….but to be fair ;)

I would like to think though that the majority of blogging consultants are driven by a vision to see teaching and learning transformed because their own practice has been transformed.

Who then says about the most relevant thing that can be said about blogs in education at the moment, something that I’m grappling with day after day:

If a weblog is like a polar bear then the best place to see it is roaming free. I worry though that some people are trying to trap and tame weblogs, the equivalent of putting the polar bear into a zoo where the magnificent beast will live out its days repetitively trudging up and down the confines of its cage. Safer it may be in captivity but it was made to be free. Eliminating every risk from our students’ lives is not the role of education in my view. Our job as educators is to ensure that students are digitally literate and cybersavvy so that they are equipped to weigh up risks for themselves. Weblogging offers an authentic platform for real responsibility to be developed in students. Take away the authenticity and you have little that is of use in the classroom and beyond.

[p.s. I know this is old news but it’s been waiting for me to write it forever… thanks for yer indulgence]

Via Lol, this is bloody scary.

A BARE-CHESTED youth in Quiksilver boardshorts tore the headscarf off the girl’s head as she slithered down the Cronulla dune seeking safety on the beach from a thousand-strong baying mob.

Up on the road, Marcus “Carcass” Butcher, 28, a builder from Penrith, wearing workboots, war-camouflage shorts and black singlet bearing the words “Mahommid was a camel f—ing faggot” raised both arms to the sky. “F— off, Leb,” he cried victoriously.

It was one last act of cowardly violence on a sad and shameful day that began as a beach party celebrating a kind of perverted nationalism that was gatecrashed by racism. [SMH]

WTF is happening here? These guys are a loooong way from the poverty and despair of the North of England or the outskirts of Paris (or even my hometown Birmingham)…. I mean, rioting on a bloody beach??? Eh???

It’s a tragic reality, Australia is in many ways a very very racist country. ‘Nationalist’ parties wanting to stop/block immigration were formed about 40 years after first ‘settlement’ and compounded by the shameful ‘White Australia’ policy (parts of which survived till the 70s!!!) they haven’t lost their attraction to third or fourth generation immigrants who stupidly, obnoxiously spit out their drunken bile on first or second gen-ers. The idiots should look closer to home, their grandparents were, of course, in exactly the same boat.

• How would you change MySpace? – Download Squad
  very very relevant. am printing this one.

Wow, it is soooo hot up here in Brissie… and thought I’d wear strides for my presentation too which isn’t helping!

The wireless has also been on and off so I haven’t had much of a chance to do anything really – and of course the interesting sessions don’t help either ;)

But I did get to see that Josie has posted the nominees for the second edublog awards and it’s very cool to see that edublogs.org blogs Smelly Knowledge and Joyce Valenza’s Neverending Search together with uniblogs.org blog Beyond the Adventures of the 14 days thesis have made it onto the nominations for best newcomer, best librarian and best newcomer respectively.

Oh yeh, and edublogs.org got nominated for most innovative edublogging project, service or programme :) Although there’s some pretty darn tough competition from Elgg (who’ll probably get my vote to be honest), EdTechTalk and the ever excellent Stephen’s Web (“He’s my god” an attendee at this conf. told me before lunch)

UPDATE: Voting is now open here so go and, um, vote!

How’s your abstract looking for Blog Hui?

Seriously… I know how painful it can be in terms of waiting for these things… but why don’t ya go and make a bunch of kiwis very very happy by proposing a paper, poster, praxis or workshop… beautiful Wellington combined with a quick scoot round the island sounds like a good way to spend the middle of March to me!!!