I started a journal entry last night, but didn't post it and this morning, when Mozilla started up, it didn't like something and crashed. And I lost the two or three paragraphs I'd written. Oh, well.
In the previous times I've taught my course, we've done just a single reading that I've used to springboard the discussion about on-line communities and communication. It's a piece of writing that I found very interesting called 
A Rape in Cyberspace. It's a little dated now, but it's still a great piece that brings up a whole range of interesting questions regarding technological versus social limits on behavior, but is also (I think) exciting and a bit polemical. A recent example of this issue comes up when I demonstrate wikis -- most people are horrified by the idea of anyone being able to visit the pages and write on them. Even when you show that people can't damage your underlying work, they still don't like idea of anyone being able to add or changes things. Do these people think that all of the blackboards in all of the classes should be under lock and key? Do they think that the chalk should be kept in a locked box? And if they see something inappropriate on one of the blackboards, do they worry about that? No -- just just walk up and erase it.
This semester, I've asked them to skim the same article, but then read Clay Shirky's A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy in more detail. It talks about the same events, but with more analysis and with a current focus. I'll be really interested to hear what people think.
The other thing I did differently this year was to set up a MOO for the students to try out. In the past, I've just had people chat using irc as a practical example of electronic chat. The MOO is really very similiar: you have people together and they can talk to one another -- but there's a lot more too: all of the objects can have descriptors associated with them and that's just the beginning. All I could put together was a really minimal one, but the idea was there
Connected to snapper.bio.umass.edu.
Escape character is '^]'.
Welcome to the BCRC MOO. Don't expect this to work.
guest
*** Connected ***
mcp version: 2.1 to: 2.1
The First Room
A spartan room with nothing -- and nothing out of place.
go west
The Shady Glen
A cool quiet forest glen among a small grove of hemlocks among the beech
trees. A small spring wells up from the rocks here. Peace and tranquility
reign supreme.
limako is here, daydreaming.
say Hello, limako
You say, "Hello, limako"
limako says, "Hello, yourself!"
look at limako
A friendly terrestrial shell-less gastropod.
He is awake and looks alert.
What was surprising to me was how comfortable the students were exchanging text messages versus saying something out loud in the classroom. The earlier event had the students present the ideas they developed for their pyramid exams. The goal was to develop an idea that could be used to create a problem-solving environment. What wonderfully rich and thoughtful ideas they had! But as the first several students presented their ideas, there was almost no response from the audience. Instead, it became a conversation with me. So I aimed to try to model the kinds of conversations I hoped they would have and, by the end, participation was increasing and there were lots of questions and ideas coming from everyone. A few students spoke several times, most of students spoke at least once. It was a good start. But when they began messaging it was like a cacophony of voices clamoring to get a word in edgewise. It wasn't an elevated, academic discourse, but it was discourse and very enthusiastic discourse at that.
I ran into two irritating technical problems. Since we've switched to using NAT, I constantly run into places where we get bitten, whether it's not being able to look up names, not being able to ident or connect back or ping or whatever. This time it was that both systems appeared to have limits on how many connections could come from a single host. When 20 people tried to all connect through the NAT gateway, the system started locking people out at 5 or 8 or 10 or something. I was able to work around the problem for irc, but not for the MOO. So not everyone got into the MOO. At least they got to see it and I'll poke at it a bit more and we may try it again next week.
What is it about the unattainable? It's always the max things that we desire so much. Like being an astronaut. Every small child wants to be one, because it's amazingly cool. and it's completely unattainable, so it's safe to say "I'm going to be an astronaut!"
I wrote a snippet about this last spring. It's safe to say that as long as its not really what you want. What's scary is to admit to yourself that you really want something to happen. How many people say, "I'm going to be an astronaut" and then really try to become one, until some true obstacle prevents them? On the other hand, how many people decide what they want is unattainable and stop themselves, without really trying?
I have another meeting tonight at the Bangs Center in Amherst, so I finally stopped in Barts to try out the wireless network. It's very pleasant to sit in the window, eat pecan pie, drink coffee, and use the network. A lot nicer than my windowless hole at the University. The pie was excellent and the coffee (Sumatran) is very good too.
I'm frustrated that I haven't had time to work on my Zeppelin story in days. Yesterday, while I was in the shower, I figured out how to solve the problem that I was stuck on. But I haven't had time to write. I did get a bunch of unpleasant work out of the way. And I had fun setting up the MOO for the class. Maybe tomorrow morning I can finish it off. Even after I "finish it", I'm going to need to go back and elaborate many of the places to add visual imagery and tighten up the dialog. I worry that the main character seems too passive: events compel him, but he doesn't show much backbone. I think I've figured out a way to use that: to emphasize him making a switch from a passive to an active approach to taking action. We'll see.