This post has two purposes:
- Do I have any “readers?”
I know one or two people poke their head in the door to this blog. Do I have any readers in the educational realm? - Lay down a marker for myself.
Clearly, this needs to be written.
I pinged the other participants on CS-ED.org today, to see what was up. This was one of the original premises of the CS-ED.org community: if you didn’t write anything for a week or two, someone was supposed to write you, and find out if they should notify next of kin. So, in that respect, I’ve simply behaved in keeping with the (unwritten) code of conduct on CS-ED.org.
Unwritten code of conduct? Sounds like a secret society or something… I like it.
No, really… I kill me. In dropping a note to everyone taking part (so far… I want this community to grow!), a response I got back was:
... kind of waiting to see some output of others (that looks really bad written down) to maybe kick my brain in one direction or another ...
I’ve know this for a while: to bootstrap a community, you need some people who are going to dive in and just do it. Now, that can be intimidating (in some respects), or useful (as exemplars, etc.). However, there is _still_ something missing. The Getting Started piece I wrote is all fine and good, but it’s isn’t prescriptive; it doesn’t tell you what to do and how to do it simply. In short, it isn’t a Busy Educator’s Guide to Blogging.
I see an opportunity here. I could write it myself, which could be good, or I could leverage some community. I like that idea. It could be my dive into the edublogger community, get some other people to pitch in to the writing, and (perhaps) in the process get some other people interested in joining in on the CS-ED.org fun! Perhaps this is a good place to turn on the Wiki that I’ve got hiding, almost ready to go… hmmm.
Ping... Ping... Ping...
PS – If anyone out there is a computer science researcher, educator, or reflective student, let me know; perhaps it would be good to grow the list of blogs on the RHS of the page… who said you have to be “hypertextually local” to be part of the game? (Or, was that part of the unwritten code of conduct? Pete? Can I get a verdict on that?)
PPS – Whatever.
Growth – good. We need more people who will actually post something on the order that you and I do.
There’s got to be a way to get more folks involved in this…
To be fair, the new members responded the way I expected: they’re busy. They joined in mid- to late-March, when Spring is kicking into full speed. Now, we’re at the end-of-term madness, which is not the best time to launch into a new enterprise.
I’ve been slowly attempting to track more ‘edublogs,’ or educational weblogs, and plug CS-ED.org there when possible. I’ll also be going to BlogTalk, a European conference on weblogs, at the end of May (23-24). That will be another place to plug the project, and perhaps get other people to take part in advertising (for us). (This is also an excuse to visit Vienna…
I’m also working with a classmate on a tool that allows you to “subscribe” to the XML feed these sites generate. This way, you can say “Keep watch of these ‘n’ sites; when one updates, send me an email that night with the content of the update. This allows you to keep track of things easily, and know when people post to their blog–keeping track is as much a part of being in the community as posting (well… sorta), so it should be a nice little addition.
I agree, though… we need a few more steady posters. Given time, though, the new crop of bloggers may turn into them. We just need to give some time.
Patience… water, time, and patience will wear down mountains. Or, drive you bonkers. But why start counting now…
M
Who knows when you’ll get readers? Saw your comment on the recent eBN posting about Peter Ford and schoolBlogs. Join eBN. That way we’ll put you in the news and you can wander around the php membership pages looking for the like-minded if you have the inclination. We need some SiT-level tech types who can ‘dis perl and still thing about using this crap for education. [This thing eats some html tags, huh?]