Blogging – Page 7 – Silence and Voice

Bloggers Unite – Tomorrow, 12/17

To put a face to bloggers, tomorrow is the Bloggers Unite, a day for those who blog to do an act of kindness and goodwill together, each in our own way. What should I do?

Self-Definition

Aidan Henry recently wrote about how he wanted to learn more about his readers, and I have been thinking about how interesting this idea is. Now, I am not going to pretend I have a lot of readers, and while I do not really track my blogging stats, I do want to use this to partially share something about me right now, especially as I just celebrated my first anniversary of this blog.

Back then, I wrote:

I think silence and voice are elusive concepts that are so intertwined they cannot be seen independently. Silence means others can have a voice, and to have one’s voice means another is silenced.

Is it this simple? Who decides?

So, where am I today?

Well, I am still an instructional designer (though a senior one at this point) and an adjunct instructor (yes, a professor) at NYU Stern. I consult on organizational learning and communication issues more these days. I still conduct research in the fields of human resource development and adult education. I like philosophy, though appreciate it most when it is in an applied context, namely in the areas of political and social postmodern thinking (especially with issues of power and positionality and self-identity). I also really ~~like~~ love technology, primarily in its application to the above-mentioned things I do.

I expect this to further develop over the next year, as even dictionary definitions change over time as new experiences occur. I have certainly had no end of new experiences recently, and expect the same for the foreseeable future. I like to remain active and alive!

Northern Voice 2008

I am considering attending Northern Voice 2008 in February. This is a Canadian blogging and social media conference that is very personal and personable. I met wonderful people there and had the opportunity to learn from many people who are very active in blogging, educational technology, and technology / social media consulting. I am considering proposing two ideas for discussion for the conference, both issues that I would like to discuss with others and learn more about (not to mention eventually research):

Liveblogging – lots of people blog about events and conference while they are happening in real time, but there is little research about it. What do we know and what can we learn about this? Are there standards we can follow? Is there a way to make this more efficient or effective or useful for people? Are there limits in and around this?
Tagging – we can tag blog posts, images, and even personal information. Are there any standards out there that can universally help people find this information? Should there be? How are people handling this now, and what else can we learn about this to make it more useful for others in our increasingly “social media” society? This issue was recently raised during a session in SCoPE, and I hope we can continue it F2F with others who could not join us online.

I hope others are interested in these two topics as well! I will propose them and hope for the best.

Northern Voice 2008

Technorati Tags: livelogging, Northern Voice, northernvoice2008, NV2008, tagging, tags

Blog Readability Test

This Blog is at a Junior High Reading Level

Thanks to Beth Kanter, I was able to perform a Blog Readability Test on my blog, with the following results: I suppose this is good, as my work in adult literacy demonstrates that the lower the reading level, the larger a potential audience there is. I have heard critics state that having a low readability level “dumbs down” the text, but literacy experts have pointed out that nobody ever asks people to write with bigger and more complicated words. For this blogging service, I just wish there would be some explanation as to what literacy indication test was used (e.g., Fry or SMOG), who is behind the site (for credibility), and why there was a cash advance link at teh bottom of this image (which I removed, as well as the link to it). Perhaps this is just a link-baiting scam? I like to think of this as an invitation for a programmer to develop a readability test according to more accurate and evidence-based research. This will then help offer real assistance to making the Web more accessible.

Technorati Tags: Beth Kanter, Readability

Northern Voice 2008

I am so happy to see the folks at Northern Voice will again hold the 2-day blogging and technology conference on February 22-23, at the main UBC campus’s Forestry Science Centre (the same location as last year). I met so many great people at that conference last year: Nancy White (finally!), Lee LeFever (finally!), Robin Yap, Arjun Singh, Kris Krug, Aidan Henry, Chris Lott, Chris Heuer, and on and on. While I am trying to stabilize my finances, I know that this past year’s conference changed the way I approach technology as more of a social and educational experience rather than a me-alone-at-my-computer one. I can’t wait to see the new promo image for this year!

Technorati Tags: NV2008