I’m a big fan of Jason DeFillippo’s Blogrolling service—a paying member since way back in November of ‘02, in fact.
It’s an excellent service, and one that’s useful to both neophyte and experienced bloggers. So I have to agree with him that pings to the blogrolling.com service really ought to be integrated into the MT (and TypePad) engine. Sure, MT users can add the blogrolling RPC address into their MT configuration manually (Weblog Config—>Preferences—>Publicity, add http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/ to the “Others” box.). But that assumes that they know to do it—which most will not.
On a related note, one sour note in MT’s new TypePad is that I can’t find any way to integrate my blogrolling.com blogrolls (yes, I have several…one big advantage of being a paying member is that I can maintain separate topical blogrolls—not just the ones that appear on the sidebar here, but also short-term blogrolls for classes). The TypeList feature is nifty, but I’ve already built my lists of people, and I want to be able to update them in one central location. As a Pro user, I can add the blogrolling.com code to my templates, but I’d really like to see it incorporated into the interface directly.
It really is back-to-school season. I’ve spent the weekend working on course materials, and my older son just cleaned out his backpack. (“Mom! Look! The missing SandwichKeeper!”) I told him to toss any papers that he didn’t want to save, and he pulled out one and nonchalantly said “I don’t really care about this, but you might want it.”
It’s just a short “research report” on the rainforest, typed on the computer and then printed out. But I have to say, it’s pretty sophisticated writing for an 8-year-old. (He’s 9 now.)
We need to save the rainforest for many reasons. One is that there will be less runoff. The trees will hold the soil so the rain does not wash away.Another reason is that we will lose oxygen. The trees will take in less carbon dioxide, and they will breathe out less oxygen.
Another reason we should save the rainforest is that there will be more droughts if we do not. The humidity will stop and the dry wastelands will contribute to the global warming so there will be more droughts.
The final reason that we should save the rainforest is that we will not find all the new species. There may even be a plant that can cure cancer, but it will probably be destroyed before we discover it.
This is why we should save the rainforest.
I read it, then say to him “Wow. This is really good. Where’d you find all this stuff out?” “We did research.” “So, did you mostly just copy the stuff you found?” “No. That would be cheating. I did the research, then wrote it in my own words.”
I just wish that more of my 18-year-old freshman students at RIT (a) wrote this clearly, and (b) had such a clear grasp of academic ethics.
(That’s one of my favorite Pogo quotes of all time. So glad I’ve found a way to use it as a post title.)
Sam Ruby points to a wonderful post by Phil Ringnalda entitled “There is No They.”
What Phil describes—the “small town” feel of weblogging where change is effected by “us” rather than “them”—is a big part of why I like using weblogs in classes. I’m often asked by colleagues why I don’t just use the conferencing tools already available to me—the Prometheus-based courseware, the FirstClass conferencing system, etc. The reason is that when I use weblogs in a class, we become a part of the big small town that is the technical weblogging world. The example I like to use is how Shelley Powers, author of the new O’Reilly book Practical RDF, stopped by our XML class weblog to comment on students’ posts when we talked about RDF and metadata.
When you know that the author of the book you’re discussing may be reading your posts, and may stop by to debate with you, it has a significant impact on the tone and content of the discussion—and that influence is primarily positive.
(As I was writing this post, Anil Dash [of Six Apart] commented on my last post about TypePad. An excellent example of exactly what I’m talking about! Knowing that Anil and others in the technical development community read this blog keeps me honest in my comments and criticisms, because I know I’ll be called on it if I’m out of line!)
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