Now blogging at Webbed Feat

As documented over the past couple of years, this blog has been in transition. It is now merged with the Webbed Feat blog maintained by Sylvia Currie. See you there!

Another transition for this blog

Two years ago Kate Britt retired from working on this blog and after a selection process to find someone to carry on the tradition of sharing information about tools and resources of interest to educational practitioners, passed the torch to the Educational Technology Users Group (ETUG). Well, actually what happened was she passed the torch to me, and then I brought the idea of ETUG members maintaining the blog to the Steering Committee (of which I am a member). The history of this transition process is tagged 'from pink to green'.

The Steering Committee saw this as an opportunity for ETUG members to give back to the wider edtech community by sharing the many tools and resources they come across, test, evaluate, and critique on a daily basis. These types of conversations weren't happening as we had expected in our own community space, and we felt that posting to this active blog (using Blogger -- so easy!) would encourage more sharing. We also saw a shared space as a way for members to ease into a blogging practice.

We're now at a point where we are revisiting this decision. A few things have happened during the time since we took on this project -- some unexpected, some not so surprising in hindsight, and some very exciting!

1. Few ETUG members stepped up to become a blog author. 
2. More post secondary institutions in British Columbia (where most ETUG members are employed) now have their own blogs for sharing tools and resources related to teaching and learning, and educational technology.
3. Some of us have our own personal educational blogs, so coming to this blog to post seemed like an extra step. (In fact, I often cross-posted to my own blog, because the content seemed appropriate for both.)
4. ETUG now has a new community site using WordPress / BuddyPress (still in the very early launch phase), where we expect to see a higher level of activity than our previous community space. 

From the beginning we talked about changing the URL for this blog, and possibly moving away from blogger altogether. It feels like the right time to make a change, and here's what I'm proposing:

1. I will merge this blog with my own blog, Webbed Feat, where I will continue to post items of interest to educators... and likely more frequently! 
2. All blog posts appear in the ETUG community, along with blog posts from other ETUG members, so ultimately we're still carrying on the tradition that Kate began. 

Does this seem like a reasonable plan? Feedback and better ideas always welcome! I'll hold off for a week before making any moves.

Invitation to ETUG members

Now that Kate Britt has passed the torch to ETUG to continue to maintain this resource blog we have some work to do! Since April when I outlined some of the next steps in the transition from pink to green, I've been working alongside Kate to make some changes to the blog. For example, you may have noticed it is now green! :-) Not quite the right colour to match our ETUG logo but hey, it's all work in progress. I also added the ETUG blogroll, but we're obviously missing many. If you are a blogger please let us know about it. And look at the cool badge Kate made for us! Feel free to grab it for your own website.

Now comes the real fun. We will start using this blog to post resources we come across that we feel are of interest to ETUG members, and the many, many other followers of this blog. Kate has prepared a short tutorial on using Google toolbar to post. This makes adding resources a snap. There is also a ready-made taxonomy which has worked well over the years for categorizing resources. Of course, we can always expand on this.

How do YOU contribute to the blog? Request author access by leaving a comment or emailing me (scurrie@bccampus.ca). We can have up to 100 authors. Don't worry; it doesn't have to be a lifetime commitment. :-)

Obviously there is more work to do as we make this transition. We'll no doubt want to change the URL to something like etug.blogspot.com, or possibly move away from blogger altogether. Meanwhile, let's settle in and work together to keep the blog active!

How to make a quick blog post

At Sylvia Currie's request (see the comments attached to her recent blog post, below), I've made a short slideshow tutorial on how you can QUICKLY and EASILY create a blog post here (or in any blogger.com blog).

Sorry, I couldn't get the slideshow embedded in this post. I guess blogger.com doesn't display flash (.swf) files. So...

Please click here to view the short tutorial.

If you have questions, post them to the comments box.

We're going from pink to green!

Since my last post I approached the steering committee for the British Columbia Educational Technology Users Group (ETUG) with the idea of transforming this blog into a shared space where community members can continue to build on Kate's amazing resource. The response was YES! Let's do it!

We've sketched out our next steps (and questions):

1. Brand the blog as our own with the ETUG logo / colours / URL
2. Invite ETUG members to take on an editing role for a period of time
3. In keeping with the PinkFlamingo tradition, continue to maintain this blog as a "resource site"
4. Keep PinkFlamingo's Resource Site as an archive
   
5. Decide if we should leave the blog at blogspot or move to another platform
6. Showcase the blog contributors. For example in ETUG News , in the community, through twitter / at the Learn Together Collaboratory, at the annual fall and spring workshops
   

A couple questions have come up (expect more!):

• Should we invite blog editors as a term commitment -- say for one month, or one year? Or should we simply invite anyone who wishes to contribute? (Think motivation here, and best ways to ensure the blog remains active.)
• What are some ways we can make it easy for ETUG members to contribute as part of their work flow?
  

What are your thoughts?

Meanwhile, as we work on the details I'll make this my home base for posting resources and get started on changing settings, colour scheme, and all that. Kate has been a huge help behind the scenes!

Where do I fit in?

Oh my goodness. I feel so honoured to be stepping into the world of the PinkFlamingo! I've followed Kate's work for so many years, always in awe of her energy and willingness to share OPENLY. Now look. I'm posting to her blog! In fact, I've inherited her blog! There is so much history here, and so much more to add. I barely know where to begin. So how about starting by looking back. How did I get here?

My first encounter with Kate was in November, 1999. She stepped into (what do flamingos do...tip toe? dance?) the first online seminar organized through the Global Educators' Network (GEN). The seminar was called "The Virtual Professor" facilitated by Linda Harisim. I was the community coordinator, and was nervous as hell about what to expect with this new venture. Here's an excerpt from Kate's first post:

Please ask me (The Pink Flamingo!) questions if you want to ask a
Learner who can also see things from the Educator’s perspective.

I remember thinking wow! Who is this person calling herself a Pink Flamingo? She seems so interesting!

Then the next post Kate changed to a pink font, and also changed her "pen" name to PinkFlamingo. I became event more intrigued. This person has a lot of pizazz. And so much to offer! Here is Kate's response to Linda's prompt to state reasons for participating in the online seminar:


Neat, I thought. This individual really gets it. She understands the value of communities of practice. A big story follows. but the short version is that PinkFlamingo became a regular participant to GEN seminars, and shortly after this first seminar launched her resource collection. To this day the "virtual professor" section remains. I've been following along ever since.

I haven't quite figured out the details of how I will proceed from here. I have a blog where I mostly talk about and reflect on my work in online communities. I'm also in constant contact with an amazing group of people in British Columbia called the Educational Technology Users Group (ETUG). We're looking for ways to share information about tools and resources related to our work. Perhaps a shared blog space for that purpose? We're all browsing, reading, testing, evaluating, critiquing on a daily basis... Imagine the benefits to sharing with a wider audience!

Whatever happens I'm committed to sustaining this amazing resource that Kate began 10 years ago. Thank you, Kate!

changes are a-comin' (to this blog)

As mentioned in a previous post, I'm retiring from the upkeep of this blog. Very shortly you'll see changes here, the biggest of which is a brand new site author/admin, Sylvia Currie. I'm excited to see what changes she'll make here.

Sylvia will introduce herself, I'm sure (watch for the new profile), but let me just say this. I have a deep respect for all she does and she's a wonderful person as well! Since I met Sylvia many years ago (and long before that as well), she has been extremely active in the world of post-secondary online education. I know she's going to do a great job here! For a preview of some of what Sylvia is up to, see her LinkedIn profile.

Thanks everyone for reading, especially those who have subscribed to this blog over the years. I'm off now to have a great time running WORDS, my freelance copyediting service, posting to my brand new blog, a round tuit, and enjoying my semi-retired lifestyle.

All the best,
Kate Britt

I want to retire; here's an offer for you

I'd like to retire from working on this blog and on its associated Educators' Resources website, http://ibritt.com/resources. Having left teaching over a year ago, I find that my focus has shifted away from the world of online education, so it's time.

I don't want to "sell" this site. It's been a non-profit, non-advertising site since day one. I've kept it up just as a service to my global colleagues in education.

Yet, if I just leave it sit here, it's going to get "stale" fairly soon.

I could take the whole site down and delete this blog, but I'd hate for my loyal readers (about 9,000 unique visitors each month!) to lose all this resource material.

So here's what I propose:

- If you're an online educator who doesn't yet have a blog, perhaps you'd like to take this one over? It's at blogger.com, so I could just give you the login and the transition would be simple.

- If you do already have a blog or resource site of education links, perhaps you'd be interested in having a copy of the pages in my site (ibritt.com/resources). You could then add my pages to your site, or just mine the pages for links to add to your own pages. Each of these would be easier if you had my files. That Resources site is a bit old-fashioned looking, having been designed when I first learned HTML 10 years ago. However, since then I've applied CSS to format it, so it would be fairly simple to restyle the pages for your own website if you're using CSS.

- If you don't have a website yet and would like to take over the pages in order to start one, we can talk about ways you could do that using my existing site pages.

- I could do a combination of the above -- give the blog to one person and the pages to another.

I don't want payment. I just want these resources to live on after I remove them from my personal ibritt.com website.

I won't give my materials to just anybody. To qualify:
- You must be involved in the field of online education.
- You must enjoy reading and collecting good information for other online educators.
- You must not use my materials for profit or in conjunction with advertising or marketing of any kind. I stand by my sole reason for creating these sites: being helpful to fellow educators. (So all you software and system marketers, don't even bother writing to me.)

To discuss further:
Write to me using the "comment" form at the end of this blog post. Comments are set to be moderated, meaning I'll get your comment in my email rather than it being posted online. Tell me about yourself and your involvement in online education. If you have an existing blog and/or website, include the link to it. I'll take some time to review everything I receive, and then I'll get back to each of you.


**NOTE TO MY READERS: After somebody takes over the pages from my site, I'll post a referral URL for a few months so that people can find where the resources have gone.