Thing 6: Pandora Radio Gets Free Advertising

I'm so pleased that Pandora got a "best of Web 2.0" award. I love Pandora, and have been recommending it to people for at least a year.

Here's how Pandora Radio works:

1. Create an account. This is the Web 2.0 component, as far as I can tell.
2. Enter the name of a song or an artist you like.
3. Pandora then harnesses the awesome power of the Music Genome Project to identify the key characteristics of that song or artist and creates a random playlist of other songs that it thinks you will like. It saves these characteristics as a "station," which you can name whatever you want (my main two are "Ska-tastic" and "Awesome Metal!")
4. As you listen, you can fine-tune your station by telling Pandora you like a particular song, in which case it will adjust the "seeds" for your station, or you don't like a song, in which case it will never play it again on that station. You can also "shelve" a song for month if you're tired of it or ban artists from a station entirely.

I've only rarely seen Pandora get it wrong and play something I don't like, and that's usually when I'm listening to something reasonably mainstream (i.e. generic) or difficult to pin down (e.g. They Might Be Giants or Phish).

As you listen, you can also click varous parts of the UI (that's User Interface) to get more information such as artist bios, album reviews, and even links to buy song or albums through iTunes or Amazon. You can also share your stations with friends if they also have an account.

Recently, Pandora instituted a "pay to listen" policy, but it's not that bad. Every user can listen to 40 hours/month for free. After that, it costs $0.99 to listen as much as you want for the rest of the month.

Anyway, I don't see that there'd be much use for Pandora academically, except maybe in a Music class, to play with identifying types of music people might not be exposed to otherwise. But as a personal music tool, I've been a fan for a long time, and will recommend it to anyone.

Thing 5: In Which I Show My Inner Curmudgeon

From Wikipedia's article on Web 2.0:

Critics such as Andrew Keen argue that Web 2.0 has created a cult of digital narcissism and amateurism, which undermines the notion of expertise by allowing anybody, anywhere to share (and place undue value upon) their own opinions about any subject and post any
kind of content regardless of their particular talents, knowledgeability, credentials, biases or possible hidden agendas. He states that the core assumption of Web 2.0, that all opinions and user-generated content are equally valuable and relevant is misguided, and is instead "creating an endless digital forest of mediocrity: uninformed political commentary, unseemly home videos, embarrassingly amateurish music, unreadable poems, essays and novels," also
stating that Wikipedia is full of "mistakes, half truths and misunderstandings".

To use some internet slang, QFT. That's "Quoted For Truth," to the uninitiated.

I've been trying to get my head around Web 2.0 - not as a concept, mind you, but what exactly the point is supposed to be. Most of the Web 2.0 tools I've encountered are neat tricks with some underlying technology that will probably SOMEDAY be really handy, but right now they're digital parlor tricks with silly names.

Add to Keen's criticism the fact that these tools are not going to be for everyone until everyone can afford internet access and a powerful enough machine to utilize it fully, and you get - in my opinion - the global information technology equivalent of the Segway. It's touted as revolutionizing the way we do things, but though the underlying technology is impressive, the masses don't see that part. We see the end-user part, and often have to ask: "That's neat - but what's it good for?"

Or, "I don't have internet access at home."

Or, "My computer can't run the required plugins."

And so on.

I know early adopters drive technology, but I don't think we should let technology drive the bus. Yes, students can enrich their education with the internet, but we should not allow the internet to further wedge open the gap between haves and have-nots.

Additionally, I don't see the virtue of technology for its own sake. The "classroom drawing" requirement for this class, for instance, has got me scratching my head. I have to include computers in my "ideal classroom," which means I have to make up some reason to have in-class computer time. At least for my part, I can't think of much of anything my students would do with a computer in class where the time wouldn't be better spent presenting material or answering questions. I do think it'd be useful for all teachers to have a setup similar to what we see in APSU classrooms, with one computer and an A/V setup that includes a smart board and a projector, but that's got nothing to do with "Web 2.0," and frankly it seems to me that many school systems can't afford to go even THAT far.

Thing 4, or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Peanut Gallery

Without comments from readers, blogging is just shouting into the void. There's nothing wrong with shouting into the void sometimes, of course. Sometimes you've just gotta shout, and the void doesn't mind. But that's not really the purpose of a blog. Not if you're doing it right.

Comments from readers allow the blogger to connect with other people, and allow those people to connect with each other. I have very dear friends (and one ex-girlfriend, as it happens) who I got to know in the blogosphere, but even beyond that, the basic idea is that blog commenting brings like-minded (or at least "like-interested") people together to share ideas.

Having never read a blog about blogging (a metablog, perhaps?), I was interested to read the thoughts of others on the ins and outs of commenting. I didn't necessarily learn anything, having found my own way to blogging years ago, but to see it all written down like that was new to me. I did note with interest ProBlogger's observation that commentary increases when there are rules in place as to what's acceptable and what isn't - a phenomenon I've seen in action quite recently on one of the fora I frequent - and I chuckled a little at CoolCatTeacher's description of Darth Commenter. I know that's a real thing, again from my forum experience more than blogging, but referring to "the lightsaber of unkindness" appeals to my geekier side (it's the upper 95% of me, if you're wondering).

Thus far I have only commented on one blog for this assignment. I posted a comment on Emma's blog (Burton's Blog) in which she mused on the word "blog" itself. I kind of picked Emma at random to start with, but the subject appealed to the language nerd in me, so I commented on that. I love etymology, even of modern not-a-real-word words like "blog," so I took the opportunity to explain the origin of the word.

I'll update this post as I leave more comments.

Update #1, 10-9-09: By now I am following the blogs of four of my classmates, and have just now posted a comment in Jessica's blog (Watson Wisdom) in which I posited that perhaps certain technological statistics bear further scrutiny before we get too excited about them.

Update #2, 10-16-09: I have just left a comment in Anita's blog (Ms. Hicks Has Fun!). She was talking about some of the mental obstacles she personally faces in the blog-commenting arena, and I said in effect that it's not a big deal and we all go through that stuff sometimes. I had my supportive hat on, I suppose. I hope nobody gets used to it, though - my "insufferable jackass" hat fits so much better. ;)

Update #3, 11-29-09: The final update. Through the fog and haze of this dreadful cold and the medicine I'm taking to fight it, I have rallied forth to leave some more comments. That sounded more heroic in my head.

Anyway, I left a comment on David's blog (Reflections of a Catalyst) complimenting him on his attitude. Then I left a comment on Morgan's blog (Pros and Conwell) asking what she thinks the future might hold. After that, I left a comment on Jen Ikuta's blog (Ghettokore Studios) congratulating her on the tournament she ran as a benefit event for breast cancer. Lastly, I commented on the latest article at Frankie Minus Johnny, which was sort of about the nature and benefits of thanksgiving - both the holiday and the act itself.

Thing 3: Blog - What Is It Good For?

I've been blogging on a personal level for a long time, but I don't think my students will get a lot out of my usual ramblings. No, for my students I will need new, more academically-oriented ramblings. What if my students don't have easy access to the internet, though? We're talking a lot about using Web 2.0 material and so on, but the simple fact is in many parts of the country, people don't have ready access to Web 1.0. It is easy for technophiles to forget that not everyone keeps up with the times - I myself only do so by plunging further and further into student loan debt.

With that caveat out of the way, I do think I could use this blog to enrich my students' experience. It'd be a bad idea, I think, to post mandatory class assignments online, but auxiliary stuff would be great. I can easily see posting a sort of "Latin Quote of the Week" and encouraging students to not only consider the linguistic aspects of it but also to discuss its meaning. In my own studies I have found Roman writers are surprisingly applicable in our own day and age - Cicero has a lot to say on the ethics of waging war, for example, and Catullus's poetry would ring as true with modern American teenagers as it did with ancient Romans.

There could also be a few bonus assignments posted online - "translate your favorite song into Latin," for example. Then students could not only share their results (which are bound to be entertaining), but they could help each other with tricky parts (and get my help, too) through comments.

Thing 2: De Blogis Natura

Or: "On the Nature of the Blog."

Yeah, I cheated on the word "blog," but it's not like Romans never imported words from other languages before.

Creating this blog was pretty simple. I have two others that I update semi-regularly, so this was a matter of seeing specifically how Blogger does things. I chose to call it "The Magister's Missives" because I wanted it to reflect me as a teacher (magister) and because sometimes I can't help myself with the alliteration. For the time being, I'm just identifying as "Eddie" because that's who I am, and my avatar looks like me.

I could wax philosophical about being true to myself and bla bla bla, but honestly if I had some awesome superhero name or something I'd use that. I don't. I am wot I am, and that's all wot I am - at least for the purposes of the general public. In my personal life I'm much more interesting, but that's not part of my teacher persona.

Not until I get tenure and can let myself go, at any rate. ;)

Thing 1: Reflections on Lifelong Learning

I have always considered myself a lifelong learner, even when I was so young the idea of being a lifelong anything was a little pretentious. I believe when you stop learning, you may as well just hang it up and call the funeral home to make arrangements, because you're done. That said, with the 7 1/2 Habits in mind, some are easier for me than others.

The easiest habit for me to maintain is probably the first: begin with a goal in mind. To quote a great song by Phish, "I don't wanna do anything where I don't know when to stop." If you don't know where you're going, how will you know how to get there? How will you know when you arrive? I do think, though, that "discovery" and "adventure" are worthwhile goals, and you shouldn't get so hung up on the destination that you can't enjoy the journey. Still, for most purposes, it is definitely helpful to have concrete goals in mind from the very beginning.

The hardest habit for me is the third, viewing problems as challenges. That's not to say I discourage easily, but I tend not to enjoy those sorts of challenges. Intellectually I can understand that difficulty is a great teacher, but it's different for me to feel anything other than a sense of grim determination, and that's not a pleasant way to feel. I also suspect it keeps me from learning all I could from adversity.