Today was the first day of the new semester. The old blogs are staying up but I took down the chatboxes. It felt like I was vandalizing the blogs -- didn't feel good. Next week the chatboxes go live on the new blogs, after we've had a chance to talk about the ethics of blogging. Strange feeling. I put them there but it doesn't "feel" like they're mine to take away. Of course, they are; it just doesn't feel that way.

My classes did projects last semester. Three students came to pick up their marked work. I found one of them (88%) in the trash can in the hallway. That got me thinking ... if their work had been digital there would have been no reason to throw it out. But would it have had greater value to them?

I've done two blogshops this week. (More about them later.) In both workshops I emphasized that when kids do their work on blogs and engage an authentic, global audience they often extend their work beyond the class in which it was created. I sighted the examples of Chris Burnette's kids at The Clem and a recent example in my class where a student researched and posted work after the class had ended, while he was studing for exams, in order to respond to a commenter from Australia .... then I found that project in the trash. Isn't it ironic? Don't you think?