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One of the requirements for this project was to join an online community of practice or professional organization dedicated to the area of inquiry. I have been a very active member of other lists in the past, including being flamed and drawn into  off-list discussions. I've had total strangers write to me to try to change my views because someone on the list told them I disagreed with the “correct view.” I had the woman who got Senator Robert Byrd to decry “Rainforest Algebra” on the floor of the senate send me her write-up. (I had planned on replying before I got it, but after looking at it, I realized she really had no idea what it meant to teach mathematics. That must be why she is a professor of ethics.)  In short, lists can be a time sink, especially with my Quixotic character.

I already belonged to two lists, ISED-L and Wizards-L. ISED-L is a list for independent school educators and some of the discussion involves issues unique to independent schools (dorm life, tuition, etc.), but most of it is about students and teaching. Wizards-L is a list for independent school wizards, i.e., it's more about hardware, software, and networking issues in independent schools. But the pressure was on to join more.

As I am already swamped by email and interactions within OMAET and my school, I looked askance at this requirement. But there is a saying my dad used to repeat to me when I first went to college, “cooperate and graduate.” (Hmm... It sounds like our learning curriculum formed from the community of practice engendered by the teacher-learner and learner-learner relations and the view that the practice was teaching the subject, not the subject itself.)

So bearing that admonition in mind and with a grumbling heart, I went searching. I ended up joining Middle-L, a list devoted to Middle school issues which I had been on in the past. The same full participants were there, but a few new ones had joined. The discussions were in many ways the same ones I had left over a year ago. There was the debate about grades, about motivation, about rewards, etc., all intermingled with the occasional technical question. The list went on. I responded to a few of the questions but I didn't have time to get into an extended debate. Maybe it's because much of my free time was being challenged by the Pepperdine Newsgroups.

One posting that caught my eye was “In my classes which average around 25 kids I would say that around 6 work as hard as they should. The rest just get by in varying degrees. I think too many kids waste their talents.” I couldn't help but respond to that, although maybe not as nicely as possible. I wrote, “Maybe our definition of "trying hard" and our relations with the students have shifted over the years. Maybe while we think they are wasting their talents they are probably wondering why we haven't retired.” Not exactly on the topic of my project, but I got a kick out of it.

That's one advantage of lists—it's possible to debate subjects with people who believe deeply without having the baggage of having to work with them every day. Also, these folks enjoy the give-and-take on a list, as I do, and they have chosen to debate in the arena. People we work with don't necessarily enjoy the mental stimulation of a debate and are often taken aback when somebody questions their view.

I also joined TeachVB and VisBas-Beginners to learn more about Visual Basic^® programming as I was trying to create ASP scripts using VB Script. TeachVB was focused on folks who teach Visual Basic programming, and much of the discussion on the list was about projects to assign students, although they also talked about the nuts and bolts of programming. I lurked, and only saved a few posts.

VisBas-Beginners was very different. It was a full-fledged community of practice formed around Visual Basic programmers. Although touted as for beginners, much of the information was a little more than I could comprehend. However, I soon spotted the full participants who gave the best, clearest advice. Those were like gold, with many answers to my questions. I ended up saving numerous posts to help me as I got further. I spent the time as a lurker because I was getting such good information that way.

Conclusion

I will probably keep the three new lists for a while. Middle-L will give me intellectual diversion if I wish to debate philosophy. The other two will give me technical advice.

Lists

ISED-L is sponsored by Marti Weston and Ed Siegfried. Information is available from http://www.milton.edu/ISED-L/.

Wizards-L is sponsored by M. Nelson at Thayer Academy using free software (I think). It doesn't have it's own web site. The list may be subscribed to by sending an email to autoshare@thayer.org, with the body of the message being “subscribe Wizards-L”.

Middle-L is sponsored by ERIC. You can find out about it at http://ericeece.org/listserv/middle-l.html. Archives are also available and I had forgotten my first post the first time on the list was December of 1998, which was my first year of teaching. Although I still agree with much of what I wrote, I have grown beyond some of my earlier views.

TeachVB is sponsored by Microsoft Corporation through the MainFunction presence in its Forums area.

VisBas-Beginners is sponsored by L-Soft, the makers of LISTSERV^® list management software. All of the information about the list can be found on the list archives page.

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Created Fall, 2001

Last maintained 11/15/2003