with a response from Alfred Thompson
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In Internet-on-a-Disk #18, I pointed out that people using search engines typically look for themselves and then for subjects that are near and dear to them. I described how that behavior has led to people to my site -- finding themselves or their works mentioned there. And I proposed that this "flypaper" approach could be used deliberately to get in touch with certain individuals or types of people.
Recently, while mentioning "flypaper" in a presentation about AltaVista Search to a group of educators at the NERCOMP conference in Sturbridge, Mass. , it dawned on me that this approach can also turn static text pages into opportunities for on-line interaction.
The pre-Web Internet was very interactive, consisting largely of email and newsgroups. The Web itself, in its earliest manifestation, connected people with documents rather than people with people. That is changing now with new and better ways for people to interact, rather than just read, at Web sites (with chat, forum, etc.) But static Web pages too can become "interactive."
Instead of carefully polishing every text and getting official approval/blessing for every document you wish to publish on the Web, post your work in progress. Post your reactions to what you have read, and unpolished notes from meetings. If a thought is important to you, it may well be of importance to others. And if the full text of your pages is indexed by search engines like AltaVista, interested people will find those pages and hence find you.
Posting a document as a "work in progress" begs for comment. Promising to post in the same place the most interesting and relevant reactions (sent by email), provides further encouragement to open up a dialogue. It takes no special software to get a discussion going -- just interesting and provocative content and the will to talk about it before it is completely finished. What was just an article or memo becomes a spontaneous community of people interested in learning about and understanding the same subject in collaboration with one another, sharing experiences and insights -- what formal education sometimes strives for, but very rarely achieves.
And like an open-minded and creative teacher, you learn from the insights of others and also from the new perspectives and thoughts of your own that are stimulated by the questions and comments of others.
I have an essays page. It's similar to several others I've seen. Your site of course has essays both by yourself and others. Another friend of mine from Digital has a "Ruminations" page where he's posted a number of his thoughts. Mine has a number of things I've written over the last year or so. Some have appeared in "Internet-on-a-Disk" in one form or another. Some appear nowhere else.
I announce that all my essays are drafts. I admit that I have seldom, so far, gone back and updated any. But I believed from the beginning that such a statement would do the most to encourage people to comment. After all, why would one comment if they believed the author was finished considering the subject?
Since I started posting them I've gotten feedback from a number of people. So far all by Email.
Some have agreed with my essays. One person told me that an essay of mine expressed thoughts that they'd had but had been unable to quite nail down. Another correspondent Emailed me asking permission to quote my essay in a college paper. They disagreed with my essay but found it interesting and helpful. I received a copy of their paper some time later. They did seem surprised that I was so interested in reading what someone who disagreed with them thought.
I consider myself an open-minded and creative teacher, both in the school I teach at and in "real life", and this helps me learn a lot from my students and those I run into elsewhere.
I initially started writing as an exercise. It was merely a tool to help me get my own thoughts in order. Now that they are posted for the world to see I hope they can become more. Hopefully they can be a continuing learning experience for me and for others.
http://www.tiac.net/users/act2/essays.htm is my essay page.
Alfred C Thompson II, Teacher, Hacker, Net Surfer, act2@tiac.net, http://www.tiac.net/users/act2/
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