Hi – a challenge on Friday 13th January 13, 2006
Posted by Al Upton in Blogging, Filtered Sites, Finding Your Voice, My Perspective, Remembering Balance, Using WordPress, miniLegends.trackback
… and I believe I'm up to it. 
All the countless hours I've put into my online presence and support at schoolblogs.com/minilegends/, all the bits of me that went into our blog have been ripped away without warning by as of 1st January 2006 – there is an unrealistic financial commitment to get it back. 
Part of the challenge is to calmly reinvent myself, find my voice anew and continue to help others find theirs – along the lines of Stephen Covey's 8th habit. I can and want to do this.
Furthermore I need to find a better balance with all the bits that are me (family and self – body/mind/spirit/heart) and that too is worthy of pursuit.
What's so hard is that all the effort, creativity, pride, passion, enthusiasm and fun the miniLegends (Year 3s) of the last two years put into that blog now cannot be accessed, cannot be built on. And perhaps there lies a wonderful opportunity. It 's not the loss of the "largest single class blog ever seen", it's a call for a new mindset – a shared search for an approach, tools and methods that can be embraced by busy teachers with time commitments. This includes the late and reluctant adopters of ICT. More power to you, I bow to your courage and will to integrate new technologies as something that is needed not something extra. Something, I'm sure the vast majority of us intellectually agree on (perhaps we just search for balance in different ways – something to be celebrated) …
anyway, another part of my challenge is to be more succinct.
I'm not sure if this form of blogging will lead me to the connectedness, convenience and contact I envision and was working towards with schoolblogs in 2005.
What I do know is, this blog, http://alupton.wordpress.com is not filtered at our school. Compare it with http://al-upton.edublogs.org/ (inactive) which also uses WordPress. Not a solution but a way to begin blogging at school (in a commonly used format) without the liability of having site administrators unblocking sites filtered by the department.
To create your own blog using WordPress click the resources tab above.
I thank everyone who has acknowledged, contributed to and praised my previous efforts and contributions. Now I seek the suggestions, advice, collaboration and constructive criticism of those who better know (or are yet to know) this path which brings a different perspective.
Cheers and Happy Friday 13th, Al 
Comments
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Hi, Al. Found your blog via my Referers section on my edublog. I’ve unblocked edublogs at my school by allowing the keyword blog – could your administrator do the same? There has been quite a bit of talk re: filtering etc. maybe via CEGSA, there should be some lobbying for changes, especially to what teachers can access. I have read and responded a bit on Bill Kerr’s blog so where to from here – I don’t know. I’ll be following your mini-legends setup with interest. We’ve gone down the IWB trail here at Lockleys North but I want to make sure with my class (0.5 time) that I’m using it to explore learning in new ways not just teaching traditionally in a fancy way.
Hi Graham, thanks for the first response to this blog.
Yeah, I’ve followed the censorship/filtering discussion fairly closely. What I’ve been seeking is consistent unblocking across the state. Not something dependant at the local level especially considering the transferred liability associated with it. Administrators can tweak this bit and that bit but it doesn’t get to the cause of the problem and help us look at learning and technologies in a new light. Neither does just using WordPress. What WordPress does do is allow blogging at all schools now and it’s the same as edublogs – while we get more vocal and sort the bigger issues out.
I like your last sentence about IWBs “learning in new ways not just teaching traditionally in a fancy way.” As I’ve said before, I believe they are part of the process as we look for new methodologies and understanding of learning. I’d love to have an IWB to explore and compare. I’m interested in how your trial develops.
http://alupton.wordpress.com/2006/01/17/good-news-bad-news/
You would have received this post. I know you were interested in Lanschool and perhaps we could get together after and discuss blogging (eg the Referers feature you used to find me – much I can glean from you other guys:) Invite any others who might be interested and let me know.
NB please let me know if this was sent to you by email. Was it sent again after my edit? Cheers, Al