Here I am again. It’s nearing the end of the year and I have a moment to catch my breath between semesters. (Yes, my life is measured in semesters. Such it is with a school-for-life type.) I’ve had this site now for seven years, and for the first couple of years it was such a hotspot for thinking, reflecting, and connecting. And then, for some reason, and I really can’t put my finger on a single reason…so, reasons…I became less and less active. For the last four years at least I have been been trying to jumpstart this site. It honestly needs a shock right to the heart.
Then I saw that Betina Hsieh has started a 30-day challenge with some colleague-friends. They are writing and posting at least 150 words each day, and for accountability, tagging each other. It hit me –> friend accountability. I should have learned this years ago through the collaborative energy of #clmooc or my “public shaming” pacts with by good friend Tim Fredrick (if we didn’t write, the other could shame us publicly as they wished)! I am such a fan of Betina’s reflective writing on her site The Life and Times of an Evolving Academic that I thought I should follow her lead. Then, graciously, Darlene Kriesel (@darlenekriesel) invited me to join in! Before diving in, I wanted to make sure I would be able to commit and be accountable to the others—as I have learned, particularly from Terry Elliott (@tellio) in #clmooc, reciprocity with colleagues online is the lifeblood and source of collaborative energy.
So, here I am. I was looking back to see what would be reasonable to commit to doing. Two years ago (where did last year go?) I wrote a post where I mentioned a very cool postcard Kevin Hodgson (@dogtrax) had created with a data display to account for his resolutions from the year before. So, I thought I could take an accounting of my online reflective writing to see what the hard numbers were for my writing-to-date. And it was worse than I thought. Not only have my posts decreased to a dribble, but my interaction via this site has fallen to the early day numbers when I was making very few connections and having even fewer conversations here. And that was the whole purpose. Take a look yourself.
So, what have I concluded from this accounting? I may not make it beyond the 30 days, but if I have friends willing to lock proverbial arms with me for the next few days, knocking out 150 a day just might be enough of a chest compression to get some blood flowing in this site again. So, yes, I’m in. Let’s jumpstart this! (455 words…booyah!)
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Great post – I like the visual of writing activity. Cool idea for a crossover lesson between language arts and math. Welcome to the challenge!
Writing with others is always fun … are you searching for collaborators? Conspirators? Connectors? We got ’em all in CLMOOC, I’d say.
🙂
Kevin
You just gave me an idea, Kevin…Want to write a post together? I’ve had guest posts on here, but never a collaborated post. Wanna?!?
Maybe we could revisit our old digital writing exchange…dig it up, unearth it, and write about how our digital writing has evolved since then?
Sure. I’m in on it (show me some breadcrumbs .. and revisiting our old conversation about digital writing is a neat idea … where the heck did we put all those archives?)
:0
Kevin
I’m a go on this. Hidden agenda: I am teaching a comp course next semester with 20 of the 22 students who are Saudi citizens. I suspect I will need a virtual drinking buddy or four to get me through the long winter’s haze of my own ignorance. Challenge started. Actually, I am already working on a daily collection of stories based on Matthew Dick’s workshopping tool, Homework for Life. Maybe I could mix that in. Here’s an ante up: https://archive.org/details/Terry_elliott-singingInTheSkyBlueSky for the transliteracy/mashup category.
Raising a glass of words and poems to ya.
Kevin
Gaw. Jog the Web is dead. I did find this and am starting to track down some of the pieces of our conversation, Anna. Terry, you’re in this Voicethread, too.
https://voicethread.com/myvoice/thread/4114327
Kevin
I think I did the Internet Archive on Jog the Web at some point this past year to try to get access to some of our media. I know there are a post or two on this site. Can we piece this together?!?
Yes. Working on it … give me a day or two …
Kevin
Here we go — probably stuff missing but it’s what I found:
http://dogtrax.edublogs.org/2018/12/21/searching-for-curation-a-nearly-lost-conversation-about-digital-writing/
Kevin
Kevin’s post led me here. Terry’s encouragement to acknowledge work of others, helped to. I started using Jog the Web after learning about it from #clmooc, and like others, was disappointed to see it disappear. I have been collecting and archiving information for more than 20 years, using a web site since 1998, and blog since 2005. The tags, like to #clmooc, are a sort of archive.
Thanks to each of you for your inspiration. I look forward to seeing where this thread goes.
Great! I really liked Jog the Web as well. I know a lot of people who use TAGS (I think this is the link: https://tags.hawksey.info/ ) to pull together social media with hashtags. There are awesome automated curation tools now!
This seems like a #clmooc gathering! I, too, need a jumpstart! I’m in— how do we start / tag / connect as we start?
Thanks, Anna
I think you’ve already found the other post, but in case others are thinking the same thing…y’all can head here to find out how to join in!
https://developingwriters.org/2018/12/22/more-modigiwri/