A little graphic but it got Tom’s point across.  Sometimes crap is what crap is.  I was thinking about this today when I found out that Edublogs has been adding advertisements in a stealth mode to mine and other Edublogs that they host.

Two things I should state up front.  First, I do not pay for my blog.  One of the things that attracted me to Edublogs was their premise that they would host a blog for educators at no charge.  In fact, if you go to Edublogs, you see the notice at right which tells you to sign up and get started for free.  And I did almost one year ago.  I have thoroughly enjoyed this blog and the connections it has afforded.

Second, I believe in the power of blogging and the networking that occurs through blogs.  I have learned much and am indebted to Sue Waters (who is paid by Edublogs) for the superb “how-to” blog she provides at The Edublogger.  The edublogging community has definitely benefited from the hosting and support provided by Edublogs.Org.

So I was caught off guard this morning when Jim Groom tweeted this to Jeff Nugent:

I checked my own blog and there were no advertisements.  But then I cleared all Private Data including log in data from my Firefox browser and then went back in to my blog – in a manner similar to one of my students Goggling me and then checking out my blog.  Here is what I found:

Very interesting!  A blog post in which I discuss things I am thankful for brings up an ad for finding the right bar! That definitely sends a signal about who I am!!!

Of course, I played no part in selecting this ad or placing it in my post.  Those familiar with how blogs work might recognize this for a pop-up ad and not part of my content.  I would wager, however, that the vast majority of people who might read my blog are not as discerning, and since my blogs are full of links, they would not differentiate between the links “Britt” inserts and the links “Edublogs” inserts.  It is Britt’s blog and therefore representative of Britt – or worse, of the Center for Teaching Excellence where I work (my disclaimer notwithstanding).

I have several other examples, but I think the one above makes the point.  Having discovered this, I then began researching it.  If one searches the Edublogs Forum, one will find a forum on ads.  Apparently, the administrators at Edublogs began looking at ways to bring in revenue about 9 months ago, and came up with a process to embed ads that would only show to those not logged in.  If one did not keep up with the legal Terms of Service nor dutifully read their blog forum, one would not be aware of this.  The administrators stated it would be too hard to email all users with this policy.

See picture at top of post.

It also appears that several users have discovered this in the past week and some are pulling their blogs off Edublogs in protest.  The latest post noted that the administrators were re-examining the policy and would email all users soon.

I am concerned enough to start looking around at other options for my blog.  I still feel that the spirit of the Edublogs community is a worthy one, but that spirit has been soiled by the manner in which ads were added without consent to the blogs of professors, teachers, and students.  I also think that it is worth paying a fee to have no ads, and would suggest to Edublogs that they look at the process Jott used to move from a free service to a paid service, including transparency in the process.

How about those of you who also use Edublogs?  Is this an ethical issue of sufficient weight that you would consider pulling your blog?  I would be interested in your thoughts.

[Photo Credit: Tom Peters, Jim Groom]

I am not a Twitter rock star.  I follow 140 people who I truly believe help me grow, and I have as of this morning 163 following me.   I have found Twitter to be a powerful part of my PLN.  I continually learn from my network as they post interesting comments, ideas, and links.  It appears to me to embrace the concept of the Creative Commons – a community sharing alike.

When I get an email notice that someone in now following me, I check that person out to see if I should do likewise and add this person to my network (or block if it is obvious spam).

I got a notice that Todd Gilmore from Oklahoma was now following me.  I checked out his Twitter account and see that he is following 1,776 and has 227 following him.  From Twitter, I linked to his website – Technology Story.  This is where it gets interesting.  Here is what his site says:

“Executives must stay current on the happenings in the technology marketplace at this point. To do anything less is to become irrelevant as a leader. There is a fire hose of announcements, analytics, and trends getting published every day. No one with a real job could spend the time necessary to review all of this information in order to find the valuable pieces. This is what we do on your behalf. Technology Story is a filtered river of information that gets delivered every other day or so. It is reduced to easy to read bites so that you can invest as little time as possible and still be up to date on the latest. Subscribers also have the ability to search the archives in order to resurrect a piece of information they once read that has now become specifically needed. The feeds include many links to deeper resources, surveys, and recommendations. The cool Website of the day feature is alone worth the price of admission.”

The price of admission is $100 a year.

Now, I am sure Todd Gilmore and who ever he works with use more than Twitter to filter the river of information flowing each day over the web, but should I facilitate this through my Twittering?  Is he brilliantly using Web 2.0 tools in a way that makes money for himself or is he using my freely given intellectual property to profit only himself?  I am not seeing this as a Share Alike relationship.

Is anyone else bothered by this?  Should I ignore it, block him from my Twitter account, or follow him to see if he shares through Twitter and helps my PLN grow?  I would be interested in what others think.

{Photo Credits: Tallent Show, ryancr}

Jeff linked to some neat visualizations by Chris Lott of data from the Horizon Report in his blog. Jeff then elaborated with some very cool ideas of educational uses:

• Tag clouds for individual and class sets of student papers / essays.
• Tag clouds for speeches and lectures.
• Tag clouds for analyzing the content of websites.
• Tag clouds of classic pieces of literature.
• Tag clouds generated from set of stories covering the same news event.

Just to name a few…

To follow his line of thinking, I decided to dump my last month’s blog posting into ManyEyes, and it produced the following:

Interesting! I can understand George Siemens doing this…as it really causes you to reflect on what you are blogging.

Now the rub…and the question for others.

Most of us click right through that legal agreement clause, but my friend Bud Deihl took the time to read it, and it has some pretty scary language in it. According to the IBM Terms of Legal Use statement, when I created the wordcloud above, I gave IBM “a perpetual, worldwide and irrevocable license under all intellectual property rights (including copyright) to use, copy, distribute, sublicense, display, perform and prepare derivative works of any information that You provide to IBM, including but not limited to arrangements, visualizations, and selections of information, and feedback and suggestions You provide to IBM.” Wow! Hope they do not go too crazy with my blog notes!

But seriously…there is some interesting language here that “fair use” may put to the test. The Terms of Use notes that you “also agree not to submit anyone else’s copyrightable material to alphaWorks Services unless You obtain written permission of the copyright holder to license the copyrightable material to IBM, consistent with the terms of this Agreement. You also agree not to submit any Software to IBM through the Service. You represent that the information you submit does not violate a privacy, publicity or moral right, or disclose personal, government, business or other information without permission. If You are a student or employee of a college or university, a member of the university’s intellectual property licensing department or other authorized person must approve the terms of this Agreement.”

What exactly does this mean? Does every faculty member now need to go get someone’s approval to use this application? If I develop a tag cloud from the collective papers of a class to look for themes, do I need releases from each student? Can one take a chapter from a textbook and develop a wordcloud as a conversation-starter in class?

I do not know. I do know from the blogs above that people are already using ManyEyes. As with many Web 2.0 applications, the early adopters are out pushing the envelopes, and the policy will lag behind. I would be interested in my colleagues’ thoughts on this.

It reminded me of a blog post from last November that is still relevant, in which Terry Dolson notes:

“The day after I read this {article on wired world in Parade magazine}, I went to a class at Godwin High School,where kids have had laptops in a one to one initiative since they were in middle school. I wanted to show them things about digital storytelling, but all the sites I wanted to show were blocked! Every time I get involved at our schools I get mad. I get aggravated that many teachers don’t utilize the computers we fought so hard to keep available to our students and then I find out just how tightly their hands are tied. This is ridiculous! Our kids should be out front, creating multimedia projects among other cool kinds of projects where they can be creative and self motivated and really engaged… Let’s face it–those kids should have been teaching ME about digital storytelling. Instead, they had never heard of it.

My message to Henrico County Schools is: come on now! Even Parade Magazine is dropping the “fear factor” ! When will we untie the hands of our teachers and students to use these fabulous tools as more than a word processor??”

It is interesting that what came to mind was FDR’s famous quote from his first inaugural address:

So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.

I am running into this same issue in Hanover county that she faced in Henrico. I want my graduate students, all K-12 teachers, to experience and explore educational uses of del.icio.us, but of course, this social bookmarking site is currently being blocked by the school system. My students are investigating whether they can get this site unblocked, but my “fear” is that it will be May and the semester over before the bureaucracy reacts!

This fear factor has many of the characteristics that Roosevelt named in the very tough economic times he faced. The fear of sexual predators, inappropriate websites, and teacher accountability over what students do online carries this same nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror…and it is paralyzing the ability of teachers and students to enjoy a creative, rich, fulfilling online world. I definitely do not have the answers, but I would be interested in your thoughts on ways to move forward (as opposed to sticking our collective faces in the sand).

I guess I fall back on my innate optimism and the fact that my students generally have always exceeded my expectations – and my expectations have always been pretty high!