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May 15, 2003
Writing & Learning in the Storefront
Sebastian Fiedler, in Seblogging: Paper Draft for BlogTalk 2003:
"We can observe almost in real-time how individuals use personal Webpublishing technologies to facilitate and feed their own change and learning processes. Watching this rich fabric of learning conversations unfold makes you wonder why people still believe that e-learning is all about content delivery and the production of polished instructional products. People in the personal Webpublishing realm successfully learn outside any institutionally organized system of instruction."
Amen, brother.
I certainly don't keep a weblog for your benefit, dear readers (although I hope at least a few of you enjoy it and get a wee bit of value from it). I keep a weblog because it provides an incentive for me to read and think about things that are of interest to me (like technology in education). It's like a kick in the ass, except for my brain. :-)
However, I do revel in getting a comment or trackback or the unforeseen referrer in my logs. I recognize that feedback loop makes keeping a weblog more interesting than a keeping a journal that just sits on my desk (or my computer desktop). It keeps me motivated.
You may or may not know that I have an MFA in Creative Writing, although I don't do much writing these days. I've often thought that I would like to experiment with writing fiction in public -- not weblog-as-fiction a la Flight Risk, but just working on a novel out there in public, perhaps via a weblog. Why? To see if that feedback loop might jog my creative side as it does my intellectual side.
Harlan Ellison used to do this schtick (and may still) where he would set up a typewriter in a storefront window and crank out a short story while people stood around and watched. Fiction as a spectator sport! Except Harlan didn't solicit feedback from the other side of the storefront window as he wrote; with the Web you could.
Sadly, though, my intellectual side is more courageous and secure than my creative side. ;-)
Posted May 15, 2003 05:49 PM