ST CLAIR’D

Posted on May 16, 2009 by Reverend


Image Credit: “bye, Jim!” by Serena Epstein modified by Shannon Hauser

Below you’ll find a pictorial history (and here’s a link to the video—I refuse to embed it here 🙂 !) of the ass-whooping I received at the hands of—the now legendary—John St. Clair while debating the question “Is the CMS dead?” at this year’s Faculty Academy. And while some may say he didn’t necessarily win the debate, let there be no question about his epic victory. In fact, he not only crushed the Reverend, he inspired a brand new verb here at UMW: “St Clair’d!” —which is now a logical successor to pwned for our community. John’s performance in the debate—he so brilliantly conceived of it as a kind of roast which I unwittingly played beautifully into—may have been the single greatest performance I’ve ever seen at any conference anywhere. It was intelligent, fun, irreverent, and downright hysterical. Kudos John, I know when I’ve been St Clair’d.

But pictures are worth a thousand words, so if you can’t do the 45:00 minute video (first 18 minutes is all you need), see Serena Epstein’s photo play-by-play, which accurately captures confidence crushed by a triumphant, and greatly underestimated, foe. Damn you, St Clair….I’ll get you yet, my pretty!

Image iof Tim O'Donnell Starting debate

Beginning the debate

Waiting to start

Waiting to start

ready to go

ready to go

Binder at the ready

Still Confident

Still Confident

Getting excited

Getting excited

Air quotes

Air quotes

The crazed Jim Groom look

The crazed Jim Groom look

Begininng the smackdown

Beginning the smackdown

Smackdown continues

Smackdown continues

And continues

And continues

Uh oh

Uh oh

Bye, Jim!

Bye, Jim!

Triumphant

Triumphant

Jim realizes

Jim realizes

Conceding defeat, happily

Conceding defeat, happily

All images and captions stolen from Serena Epstein’s UMW Faculty Academy 09 Flickr set here. And while I have much, much more to blog about, like the conference, James Boyle’s awesome talk (though he’s no St. Clair), and reconnecting with Laura Blankenship, Cole Camplese, and Brad Kozlek, as well as finally meeting one of my internet heroes Leslie Madsen-Brooks. But that may take a day or two because I’m still licking my wounds after that debate and trying to put the pieces of my life back together after being St Clair’d.

Posted in faculty academy | Tagged , , , , | 16 Comments

Spider-man 1967, Episode 7

Posted on May 15, 2009 by Reverend



And yet another weekly treat.

Posted in pop culture, TV | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

The Wal-Mart of WPMu

Posted on May 11, 2009 by Reverend

Seems like every time James Farmer comes up with a new way to package WPMu, it’s just another attempt to break it big monetarily.  That’s all fine and good, but in my mind the power behind this application, or any other, has far more to do with the specific communities it grows out of and the possibilities of experimentation and play that builds from it.

Image Credit: Toban Black We Sell for Less

Image Credit: Toban Black "We Sell for Less"

In fact, the point is that it’s hard to provide such a service and be able to cater to so many folks when numbers is what you’re after.  You make things cheap, but the system itself necessarily becomes limited and effectively stagnant. Bottom line is that this stuff does not cost a lot money, what is expensive is the  money invested in people and possibilities not necessarily WPMu. When it all boils down to a “Ning-like service for blogs” as we have with blogs.mu it just feels like Wal-Mart as powered by open source tools.  It’s all about volume, a warehouse for blogs, another box-store website online.

Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments

Approximating the Syndication Bus with WordPress.com

Posted on May 11, 2009 by Reverend
Image of the syndication bus

Image credit: The ubiquitous Syndication Bus image first linked to (at least for me) by Scott Leslie (No idea who created)

Michael Willits (do you have a blog I can link to yet, and why aren’t you blogging this?) sent me an email last week about some of the very cool work Danielle Stern is doing with her Gender Communication courses at Christopher Newport University (hereafter CNU). This spring Michael (being a DTLT kinda guy) encouraged her to consider blogging in these course as a way for students to process and share conversations about the role of gender in communication relationships—a course and topic designed for blogging and the internet if there ever was one! Seems like she ran with the idea and has done an amazing job getting her students not only comfortable with the idea of blogging and letting their thoughts extend beyond the confines of the classroom walls, but also in encouraging them to engage in more thoughtful discussions during class sessions based on postings on the their’ respective blogs.

What’s more, given the limitations of the current setup of WordPress at CNU she wasn’t really able to get her students up and running quickly on the campus blog solution. So what did she do? She imagined her own
tag/aggregation syndication bus viz-a-viz WordPress.com. All her student got their own blog, and then simply used a unique, agreed upon tag for all the posts that were related to this course. A course portal that was basically provided by WordPress.com with one simple RSS feed (kinda like what we have been doing with FeedWordPress and the Syndication Bus). You can see the feeds for each of these course below, and note that they are simply display all the posts for these unique tags:

So, I hadn’t realized before—but I should have—that anyone can approximate this distributed syndication model through WordPress.com for nothing. The only drawbacks is that everyone in the class needs a WordPress.com blog—don’t imagine you can pull in self-hosted feeds, Blogger, Drupal, Typepad, etc., which is the essence of the Syndication bus in my mind.

Which brings a larger question to my mind, if Matt Mullenweg is talking to Andrew Keen about thinking of blogging—and by extension WordPress—as an aggregation point for all our distributed online media, when is it going to make something like simple, powerful, and customized syndication of a whole host of feeds from the widest possible variety of services part of the core code/service. Think about how this would change how this professor used WordPress.com, she could simply create a blog and add her students’ feeds, or even better if it was setup properly, allow them to do it themelves using an agreed upon password or something that allows them to add it to a field. Then,  the aggregation bus comes to WordPress.com, and while it might cost a little extra to keep out all the crazy spammers and the like, it would actually realize the push of blogs more generally as aggregation points which, I agree, is exactly the logic all of this is heading towards.

Posted in WordPress, wordpress multi-user, wpmu | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

I’m so mad at my mother

Posted on May 10, 2009 by Reverend

This is probably the first piece of vinyl I came across in my life, or at least the first I remember. We were an 8-track family until about 1977/1978, and while 8-tracks of the Soundtrack for The Sound of Music, The Partridge Family (my personal favorite) and Neil Diamond kept us going as a unit, my brother got the family’s first record player and piece of vinyl—and that was Steve Martin’s Let’s Get Small. I was obsessed with the cover of this album, between the fake glasses, the balloons, and the puckered lips, I was wondering just what the hell it all meant.

And the album itself was hysterical, or so I learned. My older brothers played it non-stop in our room (the room was actually shared by three of us at the time) and while still at the green age of six or seven, I remember my brother Kevin explaining what “let’s get small” meant, and what pot was, and why the mother stuff was funny. It’s kind of a remarkable album to me because it was my first lesson on humor by the funniest person I have ever met, my brother Kevin. I pretty much had a love affair with Steve Martin after this formative moment up and until Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, after that it was mostly downhill.

Download Steve Martin’s “I’m so mad at my mother”

But what I really remember at the end of the day was how fascinating it was learn about how funny it is to joke about being cruel to one’s mother, because for me it was the most alien and unimaginable concept—an by extension hilarious by virtue if its very impossibility. Happy Mother’s day mom, I miss you dearly.

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Spider-man 1967, Episode 6

Posted on May 10, 2009 by Reverend

Here’s the sixth installation of Marvel’s weekly releases of the 1967 Spider-man. It’s remarkable that it took six weeks to get to the Green Goblin, you would think he would be top billing. But I’m not complaining for he was always my least favorite of the super-villains.

Posted in pop culture, television | Tagged , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Building the Syndication Bus: Plugin Ingredients

Posted on May 9, 2009 by Reverend

Image of a Revolution BusWhile at Duke, UVA, and more recently the University de Mayaguez—I’ll post about that event as soon as I finish traveling—the most common question people had for me was how can they design/build the “Syndication Bus” for WPMu. Well, this is probably a multi-post affair, but to get the ball rolling and to do what I told a number of folks I would, here are a few essential plugins (if other folks have others they are using let me know):

A List of Key Plugins on UMW Blogs for building the Syndication Bus with WPMu

  • FeedWordPress: This is a plugin which republishes feeds from just about anything with RSS. This plugin has been key to creating the syndication hub, and with Andre Malan’s Add Link widget (linked to below), we can now place a field in the sidebar so that authorized users can simply add the URL of their site to a course blog now matter where they publish from.
  • Sitewide Tag Pages Plugin: This plugin creates an ĂĽber-blog that brings in all the posts (along with tags, categories, etc.), which allows you create tag or category feeds across the entire environment. This plugin enables the tag and category based feeds which allow individuals to syndicate out selected posts from their own publishing space while leaving others untouched.
  • Add Link This widget allows you to place a text field in the sidebar so that a feed URL can immediately be added to any blog (which can be hosted anywhere). Think of it as self-service feed addition, taking the labor out of setting up the aggregation.
  • Add User: This widget, again by Andre Malan, allows users you have a username on UMW Blogs can add themselves to any blog as an author that has this widget activated. Think if it as self-service author addition, taking the labor out of setting up the space.*

*This one isn’t actually essential, but I find it extremely useful for group blogs so I figured I would throw it in—god I love Andre Malan!

Image credit: Revolution by Lawrence Whittemore

Posted in rss, wordpress multi-user, wpmu | Tagged , , , , , , | 17 Comments

Call Me Ishmael

Posted on May 7, 2009 by Reverend

Image of Moby-Dick Audio Book Cassette BoxSome years ago – never mind how long precisely – having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off – then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

On my way to write a sermon last night I actually was waylayed by some audio readings of Moby-Dick I had digitized a little while back. Almost twenty years ago I would obsessively listen to an excerpted audio book of Moby-Dick. It remains on of my favorite pieces of audio of all time, and to listen to Keir Dullea (of 2001: A Space Odysssey fame) read the opening chapters of Moby-Dick, especially “Loomings” and “The Spouter-Inn.” It’s masterful! And upon listening to this and Father Maple’s sermon (the beginning of this diversion—though Welles’ rendition of that in John Huston’s 1956 version is still my favorite—and I will post this one too shortly), I began to realize just how much the sea and all the metaphors of exploration, discovery, horror, and freedom it represents. We’re all searching for the the White Whale, and I find myself growing grim about the mouth at times. But it’s not impossible to imagine and implement real alternatives, it can’t be. Otherwise it’s all for naught, and I refuse to accept that fatalistic logic that we all must submit. I can’t believe the only ship we can travel on is the ship of fools envisioned in The Confidence-Man—a book I have been taking around with me on trips, but still can’t find the heart to read again.

So, here’s the audio (I’ll pull a Cultra Rare here and say it’s not currently available in digital format and has been discontinued, so I am just doing a cultural/archival service), if you have an extra half-hour sometime, don’t miss it:

Download Opening Chapters of Moby-Dick as read by Keir Dullea

P.S. –This style of writing/thinking/performing is something I really miss in my daily readings/scannings of RSS feeds and 140 characters or less. It’s manna for the soul, and that why I believe in the humanities, and why I continue to labor on.

Posted in audio | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Pirates, Zombies, and P2P….Oh My!

Posted on May 5, 2009 by Reverend

zombie_pirateI’ve had an idea brewing for a little while, and I think I might finally try and act on it.  I have missed the classroom a bit recently, but not so much the physical space and grading and all that.  But just the organization of a series of texts and ideas around a more coherent theme. So, I just commented on Philipp Schmidt’s Sharing Nicely about a course for P2P University. The course would center around the history of pirates, zombies, and our current explosion of these two figures as popular, iconic metaphors for the read/write web. I’m fascinated by the moment of 1710-1726, often referred to as the Golden Age of Piracy, as a lens for thinking about the current economic and cultural convulsions we’re going through at the hands of the internet. I’ll blog more about by reading of Marcus Rediker’s Villians of All Nations shortly, but the idea was to trace the cultural history of Pirates and Zombies (particularly through a historical/literary exploration of colonization, the slave-trade, and the merchant-marine economy in the Americas of 18th and 19th centuries) as a way to think through copyright, intellectual property, and piracy in our current moment. It would be a blast to read and think through this somewhat methodically, and it would be a course dedicated towards thinking critically about the cultural, legal, literary, and economic forces at work currently as the relate to the history of nation-building, capital, and empire. But I imagine any projects emerging from such an experiment will focused on how to re-imagine and re-present the conversations though a wide range of modes and media both individually and/or collaboratively produced (hence the artistic/creative element of the course).

I’m currently working on the syllabus, and I’ll actually be reading and writing about the idea all Summer. If P2P University likes the idea as a kind of exploration of the possibilities, I will try and bring some of the Connectivism logic and UMW Blogs mojo to the course. And if they don’t I’ll just blog it regularly here (which, in truth, will actually happen either way 🙂 ). I guess the attraction is having some loosely structured space to interact and discuss something other than technology through technology as well as to build on the work Gardner Campbell has always dowe with his courses, and thinking about the institutionally un-anchored logic behind what Stephen Downes and George Siemens have done with the Connectivism course (and while it was hosted through the University of Manitoba, it seemed to be a rather distinct entity somehow outside of any specific institutional association).

Moreover, I’m kinda tired of always blogging about the tools and the possibilities, I think it’s high time for me to return to a closer look at what is emerging in our culture through, not of, these tools—the need for a critical, cultural studies reading of all this stuff is quite appealing, especially by way of pirates and zombies 🙂

Posted in eduzirate, open education, piracy | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

Blogfesores 2009: Contenido Abierto!

Posted on May 5, 2009 by Reverend

Image of UrgencyIt’s a great honor to have been invited to talk at the Third Congress of Blogfesores in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, this Friday, May 8th. I’ve been following the work of a number of people in Puerto Rico for a while now, particularly Mario Núñez (a fellow early WPMu experimenter) and Antonio Vantaggiato , both of whom I think were instrumental in bringing a ne’er-do -ell like me down there—so thank you!

What has got me really excited about this opportunity is just how dedicated this group is to open access. They have been pushing hard for opening up the work they are doing at a wide-range of universities through a organized movement of professors and librarians who truly believe the web can help transform and further democratize the process of teaching and learning, as well as the larger vision of society on the whole. I need to be around people like this right now, and I am thrilled to go down there and see how they have organized and pushed forward with a “Declaration of Openness” that outlines and asserts so many of the ideas I fundamentally believe in.

My talk will focus on the transformative power of “transgressive subcultural movements” (just like the blogfesores) to push for open access and transparency in education. On how the time for pushing forward with a more open and political platform is nigh (a great argument for which was made in a recent post on the P2P Foundation website). I will be stealing liberally from Brian Lamb’s amazing presentation “What works?”, and bringing my obsession with syndication and the flow of open publishing in something like UMW Blogs to an hysterical crescendo. I have titled the talk “Re-thinking Publishing: The Revolution Will be Syndicated,” and I plan on focusing specifically on the logic of publishing with these open tools as a cheap, powerful way of realizing the many of the goals set out in the blogfesores declaration from last year. The only thing that scares me is that many of them know all of this already because Mario and others have been doing just this with EduBlogs RUM for over two years (Mario and I actually came into contact while we were both trying to figure out our own blogging platforms independently). So, as is usually the case, I’ll probably get more than I give—which works for me 🙂

And as Antonio notes, it is going to be one hell of a month for Web 2.0 in Puerto Rico, first stop Blogfesores 2009 and then the heavy guns like Michael Wesch and Daniel Altschuler will be showing up for the Ciencias & Web 2.0: un diálogo. Let there be no question that there is a vibrant, vocal, and dedicated open access community in Puerto Rico that we need to be paying attention to and learning from, and I have the distinct fortune of being able to do that first hand in just a few days—how cool is that?!

Posted in open education, presentations, publishing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment