Curt Bonk

Thanks for the kind remarks.  Each talk is a challenge in trying to be informative and entertaining.  Some of my more scholarly colleagues do not like the fact that I am entertaining.  I am constantly thinking of what I might do differently next.  I changed departments as a result, in fact.  Ok, I must go prepare another talk.

My videostreams are here http://mypage.iu.edu/~cjbonk/streamed.html including the one you mentioned.

You can download many of my talks at: http://www.trainingshare.com/workshop.php including the "Oops I did not mean to share that" talk that Sylvia refers to.

My homepage is here with many free book chapters and journal articles http://mypage.iu.edu/~cjbonk/

Thanks again.

No bells that I can remember Sylvia.  I was dressed at Mickey Mouse and got the hostess of the conference to be mini mouse and we did the 10 minnie myths of e-learning.  Then I changed out of that and had a Dr. Evil costume on underneath and got someone to be mini me and we did the 10 mini-myths of e-learning.  Changed out of that and was merlin the magician predicting the future of e-learning.  See videostreamed talks at: http://mypage.iu.edu/~cjbonk/streamed.html

This particular talk is at:

The top talks are more boring than the bottom ones.

I think when Robin Williams reads a quote in Dead Poets Society about truth and identity and that someday we will all be dead and pushing up daffidills (sp), that he is spot on.  A homepage is a static document for most of us and so is a profile provided in an online community.  What makes sharing online pictures and blogs and now video blogs so engaging is that they become the externalization of one's identity.  These are all pieces of identity, but the blog perhaps comes closest to it.  In part, since it is fresh and new and alive with thoughts one only had a few moments ago or perhaps years earlier.  It is the permanency of text but the changeability of ideas that makes a blog exciting.  It is an evolving biography of who we are and what we do.  It is something that can get others to reflect on who we are and also to personally reflect on who we are.

Identity.  We all need it or we would be checking out on life.  It is what life is.  Now a blog can also help stretch your community beyond one letter to a friend to an entire community of millions (or billions) of potential readers.  At the same time, it maintains some of the passion and emotion of a letter and is not distilled down or emptied of one's true self for a publisher to feel safe about.  You really get a sense of a person or a story that he or she is sharing.  It is about story telling and having those stories remain available for others. 

Of course, more tools are needed such as tools to connect our blog stories and look for themes and patterns but they are coming.  And many are already here.  Hopefully, we will use them to share and intertwine our identities before we push up daffidills.

(By the way, before posting this response, I posted it to my blog; see http://travelinedman.blogspot.com/.  Smile!)

Thanks for citing me Sarah.  I am still learning all the ins and outs of blogs and blogging myself.  yes, there is a pressing need for threaded discussions in Blogger and easier ways to post web resources and and and (we need many tools).  Among the differences from an online forum are the following:

1. It is a personal space and a personally shared space.  When you use a blog, it is your tool and your space to reflect on things and draw people in. A discussion forum is everyone's space.

2. Related to #1, it is a way of building identity; I am TravelinEdMan and no one else.  You can send others to your personal URL or space.  You typically cannot do that in a discussion. 

3. It is semi-permanent.  When a class ends, an online discussion often ends, but not a blog.

4. You can invite others to it--anyone including parents and grandparents.  Discussion forums are usually restricted to a community of class.

5. You can keep building on them after a class has ended and look back at your personal growth.  In a discussion forum. you often cannot do that.

Ok, there are some differences perhaps if you are talking about a discussion forum that is limited to a particular community or class.  I am sure that there are at least 5 more to get us to 10 things.