This is not that.

This is not the post where I say, man, sorry, wish I’d been blogging more.

I’ve come to that verge several times this last week, a week which has seem me utterly crunched on the other job front, but every time, I’ve recalled how annoying I find that post on other blogs and how contradictory it is to the spirit of my blogging.

I try not to feel like I owe anything to a readership.
I try not to regret any downturn in Technorati ranking or subscriber base.
I try not to prize quantity at the expense of quality.

Rather, I maintain a fairly prolific output because blogging – or more specifically, journaling, on- or offline – is some of the purest fun I know. Reflecting on what’s gone wrong and what’s gone right – whether that’s in print or digital or outmoded speech – keeps me going.

Problem is: blogging has integrated itself so concretely into my personal learning environmentHa ha. Just messin’ with the School 2.0 crowd. that when I take a few days off to handle what needs handling, I literally feel like I’ve slowed down, that as a person, I am less.Essentially, the response I need here isn’t, “Hey, man, everyone gets busy. Go take care of things. We’ll be here when you get back.” ¶ It’s, “Listen, man, this personal renaissance you’re enjoying is cool, but most of your conclusions are false and without us, your commenters, to set you straight, you’ll stay wrong. So get back to blogging.”

Weird. And frustrating. And in the meantime, the post ideas, sentence fragments, and the spare body paragraph pile up in draft.

Here, for no good reason, is a complete listing of my WordPress draft folder. Consider it a behind-the-scenes glance at the ‘net’s most widely-read education blog(published out of the San Lorenzo Valley):

  • Pour One Out
  • Information Design 101
  • what i had for lunch
  • fake or legit
  • comment preview
  • What To Call Your Presentation
  • Classroom Management For Men
  • The Pretty Circle, part two
  • Domain Issues
  • dy/dan confidential
  • vol. 3
  • “You hate me.”
  • Grosse Pointe Class Management
  • If anyone wants to make Did you Know 3.0
  • Teaching’s Five Act Play
  • VizThink 08
  • ALBUMS TO BE PROUD OF
  • Seth Godin v. Edward Tufte
  • Bright Eyes & Feist
  • Geometry Snapshot
  • This Cute Thing I Do
  • Information Design 1
  • “When I talk you listen.”
  • stickies commercial
  • McNulty on Teaching
  • This can help or hurt.
  • Why do we do this?
  • Posts I Don’t Have The Stones to Write
  • dy/dannies
  • math and gwr
  • % edu feeds #177 on scott
  • Guest Blogger: Classroom Management Philosophy
  • Guest Blogger: Sucking Air
  • Guest Blogger: Hawkins
  • Guest Blogger: Back-2-Skool
  • Guest Blogger: Sirens in the Distance
  • Guest Blogger: Shark Bait
  • Guest Blogger
  • The Meme Killah!
  • Summer Recap (How’d We Do?)
  • Letting CineMe Lapse
  • From Scratch
  • Ha ha ha.
  • Geometry Course Syllabus
  • School 2.0 Skeptics Wiki
  • Design for Educators: Image Heavy Slideshows
  • Your Friend’s Dress Code
  • How Do You Answer The Question?
  • I Can’t Remember My Students
  • Blown Projector
  • Thank you, teaching.
  • the oratorical slice
  • Ze Frank
  • Personal History
  • How I Work: The Games Entry
  • Why Prez is a bad teacher
  • Sports on Teaching:
  • How I Work: The Keep It Sane Kit
  • How I Work: The Non-Essentials Kit
  • For Next Year

All of that to say, my silence here hasn’t been for lack of something to say.

All of that to say, it’s gonna be a great fall.

Speaking Of Visual Essays:

This 60-second piece on the 22nd Amendment is a stunner. Precisely edited, stridently political, and yet the whole thing plays with a casual no-big-deal understatement. ¶ Dear students: this is how it’s done.

Related:

  1. Stranger Than Fiction‘s opener, which is far better than the rest of the movie deserved.
  2. An Australia-based dating service lays out the odds of meeting someone in a bar. (A: Not good.)

Can We Dial The Hype Machine Down A Little Bit?

Okay, just so I’m clear, this is the next educational paradigm? Really? ¶ Rhetorical question: Wld yo– –u re–ad b–log writ – te –– en liike thi–s? ¶ Ustream offers a choppy, low-res medium, one in which I’ll doubtlessly dabble soon, but one which pushes unedited, free-associative thought onto the careless vodcaster. I’m seeing streamcasts circling for thirteen minutes the same point one could make in a coupla body paragraphs. ¶ At least it’s new, though. New’s important. [via Vicki Davis]

Show and Tell: The New Bravia Advert

The final entry in the Bravia trilogy. Stop-motion plasticene bunnies take over Manhattan. (Man. Has anyone released a viral short in the last two months without stop-motion support? Seriously.) ¶ Awesome, if only ’cause I maintain a serious soft spot for rabbits, even if the whole thing is kinda overstuffed. (The bunnies turn into a wave which turns into a larger bunny which turns into … a bunch of color cubes. Um. Okay.) ¶ The other Bravia entries are well worth the zero dollars you’ll pay to watch them and the behind-the-scenes is good supplementary viewing. ¶ P.S. Anyone who knows what track is underlying the bunnies ad the behind-the-scenes gets a dollar. I’m sure it ain’t “Sæglópur,” so don’t try that one. [via everybody]