What worked and what didn't

This blog is for nothing if not a recording of the successes and not so much successes in the digital movement this year.
Thus, I must record the happenings of our all day workshop yesterday.

First, I believe it was a really good overall success. We were able to feel, or at least I was and I believe the others did as well, a very good spirit of unity and camaraderie with all our peers. We also had a sense of direction and unity of purpose with all our new information and I believe most of us felt excited to have such strong and definite goals for the year, that will nevertheless be individualized to each of us, making it something to really be creative about and look forward to.

Our Coordinator did a wonderful job of wowing us into this without any overt actions or statements, and I believe that is what made it so exciting.

My part of the workshop, on the other hand, was not so much with the wowing. Ha ha.
Really, the host we chose to go with (edublogs) is having some sort of difficulty, and I’m not sure what is going on as they are very reticent with their information. We have no idea of what the problem is, let alone whether it will ever be addressed or if there’s a time line involved. I’m a little annoyed, because I feel that we lost an opportunity to allay fears that are arising in our more technical conservative people. When we, (or I) stand up and say, “This is so easy! You don’t have to worry! If you can email, you can blog!” and then we can’t even create an account…it kind of undermines the message.

I must apologize to Mac people. Because it turns out that this isn’t just Macs that are having this difficulty. As more people posted on the forums, I realized that this is affecting everyone. And, I was unsuccessful in creating an account with my PC this morning as well. When I first created the account I’m currently using, I was on a PC and it went smooth as butter. When I first read the message boards about the people unable to create new accounts, they were all using Macs, and then we were all unsuccessful yesterday on Macs as well. So, I did jump to a conclusion based on that, and I do have to admit, my huge dislike of Macs in the first place.

We did run short on time, and had to skim a lot of material that would have been beneficial to go through in more depth. I believe that happens all the time, though.

Anyway, we postponed blogging to our first workshop, and shall revisit it then. Will we use a differing host? Time will tell. (I think we'll go with Blogger)

I’m left with a little frustration at that situation and thinking there should have been something I could have done, but in the end, I must just roll with the punches and try to encourage them not to give it all up just yet. I also must admit that it ruffled my dignity a bit as well, and so much of the simmering resentment I feel towards the host service will pass as I humble myself. I will be fine if I can see that none of the excitement and fire of how fun and useful and educational and wonderful that blogging is has diminished or died in the hearts of my lovely fellow co-workers.