There's a movement growing in the comments to James Farmer's original post about his blog service getting filtered out by the censors. He sums up the discussion in this comment -- the 32nd of 46 and still going strong --

Thanks to everyone who has commented here, wonderful things, and Josie you’re right on the money.

I think we need an organisation that synthesises what is being said here… that has a clear message, signatories and most importantly can be used by teachers (and students!) to put their case against this kind of rampant and ill considered censorship.

The name, I reckon, has to be something that reflects that. It also needs to be savvy in a pitching sense. It’s got to convey responsibility, learning, openness, freedom, authority (of us), balance and understanding (of why people feel and act as they do). How does this sound:

The Online Literacy Association

I think it’s more of an association than a foundation and I love D’Arcy’s link to this http://www.fepproject.org/news/nrcadopts.html which is spot on about the overriding importance of literacy (learning to swim etc.)

If we can agree on this / something along these lines then I’d like to set up a site at an independent URL like: online-literacy-association.org

In the first instance I’ll chuck up a blog for discussion of the key points, namely: mission statement / blurb (something like four key points about freedom, literacy, responsibility etc.), related articles / literature, case studies / stories (like the excellent one here: http://www.edsupport.cc/mguhlin/blog/archives/2005/11/entry_719.htm), news area (of course ;) and perhaps most importantly ways of making a difference… how we can leverage the group for it to have an impact and how individual / groups of teachers can do the same, something like “your stories” or “getting TOLA to help in your case” (in a similar way a union might advertise its services).

Anyway, that’s a first draft…. tell me what you reckon, I’ll give it a day or two and if all is good go ahead and set up the site.

Also, Bud has successfully ported his blogging wiki to a new server. I'm starting a new section called vignettes over at Bud's place and I'll mirror it at TOLA if and when that gets up and running.

The Conversation that Miguel started has now been drafted/edited by an administrator (Miguel) and a teacher (me). It would be interesting to see a parent who doesn't work in the education field take a crack at editing their perspective into the discussion. It would be even more interesting to see other administrators and teachers continue to edit and evolve this piece. The wiki format that Miguel suggested would save a copy of all previous incarnations of the vignette and I think it would be facinating to see it's evolution over time. Take a crack at it in the vignette section over at Bud's place.