An early 90s builder of web stuff and blogging Alan Levine barks at CogDogBlog.com on web storytelling (#ds106 #4life), photography, bending WordPress, and serendipity in the infinite internet river. He thinks it's weird to write about himself in the third person. And he is 100% into the Fediverse (or tells himself so) Tooting as @cogdog@cosocial.ca
Letter to the Chronicle, sent just now:
Mr. Jenkins,
I am a little taken aback, no, offended by your article. The flippant tone with which you address ed-tech and the role of technology is completely belittling. I work as an instructional developer and the online program manager at my school, and yeah…I’d love to think we roll around campus like Xhibit and his pit crew…but that is far from the truth. We look at pedagogy, we look at needs: your needs as an instructor primarily. Your silly analogy of pimping a car and throwing crap on it to make it look like a street racer, well what about your engine?! What are you teaching? What about it is going to make that car go? It would be fine if you addressed this point, but you didn’t and you left your snide, snarky article to hang out there without a point other than to imply that your gadgets and gizmos don’t work. They won’t work because the technology is transient and useless. Well gee, maybe if you helped techs like to us to help teachers like you…you can get to that “Computers, sweet!” moment…or maybe you should be more worried about getting your studetns to the “I learned something, sweet!” moment, don’t you think?
Now…this is the “ON” switch here, press it.
yes i read your site and i still havnt learned what the hell is a feed and what does it do why should i downlaod it if you dont tell me anything about it.
please respond,
Brittany
Dave, after I initially read the article, I just dismissed it as unprofessional quackery. But, when I thought about it a bit more, I realized it was a little more dangerous than that – The Chronicle is still how many of the decision makers on campus get their “news” on “innovation”. Not sure how to properly respond to this, but it’s the last nail in The Chronicle’s coffin, for me.
Hi Brittany,
Bad hair day? Ran out of coffee? Someone call your cat a bad name?
I’m not responsible for delivering personalized tutoring/learing. There are a gazillion resources for learning about RSS. Heck, even on the URL you provided:
http://feed2js.org/index.php?s=more
Any decision to download ought to be your own.
And I am even less inclined to offer any help for folks that don’t even do a bit of DIY effort.
“…but it’s the last nail in The Chronicle’s coffin, for me.”
And the ed tech bloggers take another step further into the echo chamber…
So let me understand- smart people I respect who agree is a bad thing? I never understood the backslap label of “echo chamber”. The Chronicle of Yellow Lecture Notes is an echo chamber that makes no noise.
The coffin was never really open for me. I can count on maybe two hands the number fo times I read it, mostly in the office days when there was nothing else to read. My mental image is just dead moldy trees.
oops, I made an echo. Let’s try something else.
The Chronicle is the leading light of shining virtue among the troll like smelly hordes of techno twitter freaks who wish only to bring down the shiny tower of academic purity.
There. I burped.