Category: Uncategorized

I do believe that there is a connection between Critical Mass and the Long Tail. They are not separate, but part of the same continuum. You are right that if the long tail “GETS a critical mass, it ceases to be the long tail and becomes, instead, the Big Spike” except that there is an unnamed bridging area where the long tail merges with the big spike. I was talking about moving the more diverse elements of the conversation up the tail to get closer to or even a part of the big spike.

If it were easier to access the diversity of conversation it would be correspondingly easier to demonstrate the real value that is already present in the blogosphere. I like what you said that “My success from blogging is not dependant on having 45 people reading every deathless word. If nobody reads my blog, I still win.” The problem I see is that a major benefit of blogging is the opportunity to get diverse feedback for your thoughts and diverse access to the thoughts of others. If, in fact, you are the only one blogging there is no benefit beyond writing out your thoughts in a file on your own computer.

I see that Rovy took your post in a different direction, and he is also right in stating that “the critical mass is the entire population in the curve, including those on the high-end (most popular blogs) and those trailing out near the end of the tail.” The feature that distinguishes the members of the big spike from the members of the long tail is a critical mass in the readership of their individual blog. We do not need to cross that line for each diversant blogger, but we do need to introduce people not to blogging as a practice (because most people are aware of it) but to the richness and diversity of the conversation, we need to introduce them to the value that is present so that they can participate or appreciate the richness of ideas that are being presented through blogs. All the “ranked players” know the value of mixing ideas and distilling new insights from the mixture (that’s how they got “ranked”), what they ned to see is that that rich mixing is improved and accelerated through the medium of blogging.

I have been thinking about this a lot since yesterday and I realized one of the major problems with this conversation is that it is taking place in the blogosphere – we’re preaching to the choir. If any of the ranked players want to get started they should not email a blogger to get help starting, we should take the discussion to them through publications and presentations. We should be presenting this at AECT in October. We should gather a rich variety of blog feeds to introduce people to the diversity out there and we should show them how to explore for new ideas according to their interests and we should show them how to lurk. What we should do is make writing lower on the list of things we teach and emphasize exploring and reading as the first steps to participation.

We’re not too late for the second deadline for submissions to AECT this year. What do you guys think?

Rovy has taken my previous post exactly where I wanted it to go. I agree on all his points. The educational bloggers with the highest rankings are still worth reading for those who are not wholly into the technology side of things, but we meeds to develop those “unexplored corners of the blogosphere” so that they do not require so much digging to find. I have been doing this for months and I still have not found the kind of variety that we need.

I believe that those well-known members of our field need to find a way into the discussion. We need to get the variety farther up the tail. And if anyone can direct me to some of those hidden places of variety I would be most grateful.

I wish to thank Nate and Rovy for the conversation that they have been having about the digital divide and the participation or lack thereof in the blogosphere of many distingushed educators.

I have been following this conversation from Rovy’s side, but I finally did what I should have been doing the entire time and went out to find Nate’s blog for his full thoughts – what a treat. The conversation, which I already appreciated, was even better and more crucial than I had realized.

I have been having a very similar conversation with Andy Gibbons, who is one of those distinguished non-participants. One of the reasons for this digital divide, I believe, is that the conversation within the blogosphere thus far has been two dimentional – it has been more focused on the technological aspects of improving education and has not had much depth as far as broader theories of learning and instruction are concerned. This is not conducive to bringing in those who are not interested in the technology for technology’s sake. What we need is not just a critical mass, but a crtical mass of variety in the ideas being discussed though the medium in question. That is where it will begin to gain the validity and prestige that will bring a wider range of people in. So far there is no vision among the non-bloggers about how fundamentally different the world is as a result of these new communication tools.

I believe that the critical mass of topical variety is the lack of critical mass that we must address. Thanks again to Nate and Rovy for this conversation, but even more thanks to both of them for having a broader range of substance on their own sites than I generally find among educational bloggers.

I have noticed a number of posts lately in reaction to the grand entrance of the “Guru of the Obvious” into the blogosphere. I have to admit that I am slightly jealous of someone so brazen as to blatantly try to goad all of the most popular bloggers into linking to his blahg to increase his ranking.

I have also noticed a few other practices – such as not allowing comments. I think I know why he has set his blahg up that way – comments do not help ratings but trackbacks do. He may claim that this is an attempt to avoid comment spam but I personally receive 20 times as much trackback spam as comment spam. I would not be put off by such tactics if he had anything at all to say, but he doesn’t. In response to a question related to his lack of content he said “I have been so busy fielding lucrative consulting offers and fending off media requests that I simply do not have the time to write everything I would like today.” What he failed to say was that he had been to busy to write anything of any substance.

Courtesy of his “no comments” policy I refuse to trackback to the blahg of Leon Lighips, but if you are reading this post the chances are pretty good that you have already read posts linking to the “guru” from those he is planning to take down. Too bad he has nothing with wich to replace them.

I am teaching a class on using technology to enhance learning and we have been having a discussion about the importance of teaching higher order thinking skills. When I read Rovy’s post: Internet, Information Flow, and Implications for Education it occurred ot me that the importance of higher-order thinking skills has grown because of the changes brought on by emerging technologies such as the internet. We have talked in class about teaching these skills with technology versus teaching these skills without technology, but I just realized that part of the reason that the skills are so essential today is because of technology.

One of the downsides to the popularity of online degree programs has finally been addressed. Wired News reports that the Department of Education has released a searchable online database listing every accredited postsecondary educational institution and what accreditation they have. I have looked at the site and it is pretty slick. now all we have to do is get people – prospective students and employers – to use the database so that the fraudulent degrees are detected or avoided.

I found the same problem as Randy documents in The long pause.

I found that I soon lost interest in all the blogging about blogging and how lbogs were a perfect fit for improving learning. I still value blogging, but I do it for myself. I try to say the things on my blog that I want to say, not the things that will get other people blogging with me.

I am ready to leave blogs and blogging as a tool that teachers may use rather than as the tool for the future of teaching. In other words – if the blog fits, use it.

I have a hard time blogging about what Brian Lamb or Stephen Downes spoke about because I’m sure that everything they talked about are available – through them – online. What I will say is that it was very enjoyable meeting them, listening to them and talking to them.

I will pretend that there may be a person who actually reads my blog that does not read Brian already (or to assist my memory) and put a link to his presetation which is available on the web. He gave it from the web, but it is a wiki so it will have changed a little bit by the time anyone can visit it from here.

I also want to thank Brian for posting a list of blogs by bloggers who were at this conference.

I guess I do have a few ideas that I would like to post which came through the combination of the two presentations.

It is a natural event to copy the workings of the previous technology (Stephen discussed this idea). Brian says “Lets move on beyond that replication.” I don’t think we should avoid that, but that we should recognize that in that stage there is more growth to come, but in replicating the previous technology we get to come to understand the new technology and the old technology and what is better about each. This is how we find the relative strengths of each technology and that is how we have a chance to place them in their proper relative balance. By “proper” I mean the balance that best meets our needs or creates the best complement between the technologies. I don’t agree with Stephen that the new technology always obliterates the old technology. New technology displaces old technology unless the new technology essentially outperforms the old technology on a point by point basis.