Y'know, this is absolutely marvelous. Via Abject Learning ;o) this piece by Stavros the Wonderchicken is what it's all about. Absolutely. Without a doubt. Yes, yes yes.
As soon as we (well, OK, I mean me) start taking this thing too seriously... start pampering to the "the media moronocracy" (or, dare I say, the educational one too!) then we (yeh, I) lose the point...
"It is the rising current of feeling that weblogs aren't a party (or aren't journalism, or aren't a floor wax, or aren't a dessert topping), that they're something important and serious, that is seriously harshing my buzz. "Let's all take this more seriously", is the message I get from far too many these days, "because then, well, what I do must be Serious Stuff, right? We're all adults here, aren't we?"
Stop it, you bastards."
Which isn't to say we can't share this round the world, can't have this for our schools and organizations, can't spread the word. But is to say that if we carry on this classification lark, especially in terms of what these are not and go down this route of dressing blogs up as discussion tools, content management devices, reflective learning tools or web-publishing for morons then we might as well pack up and go home.
1. There's plenty of stuff that does all of that already there and doing very well, thankyou.
2. It isn't exciting or particularly interesting.
3. It's not why we like them or why they're working, is it?
Perhaps.
For me it's about just doing whatever the hell works for me, and allowing other people to do that too and I guess that's the tension... how can we incorporate subversion without playing to the man? Can we create an underground?
What I'm starting to get is that I can't sell these on what they do or could do. I can only really honestly say that give people these things, sufficient support, drop the boundaries and cut the crap and amazing things might happen (or they might not). Who knows what, I certainly don't, but based on this freedom to express, this exploration, these communities and these principles, it's bound to be good.
12:28:38 PM 
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