For practical, if not definitive purposes, I’ve gleaned that Edublogs’ automated back-links (if activated) pick up direct links from other Edublogs posts, but not necessarily from comments on other posts, or posts on other blogs, nor from other sources such as wikis. By this I mean to suggest that real-world reciprocity, outside of closed systems such as CMSs or SNSs, may depend on folks taking the time to code in links before or after posting (if possible), rather than or in addition to making verbal references to relevant posts and other online sources, and on them cross-posting notices of new developments to interested parties or related sites. Yet in retrospect, I recall only limited pro-active connection forging among contributors to CMSs and SNSs, too, laziness or imprecisiion which likewise assigns from one to many the onerous and repetitive task of rediscovering and clearing paths hidden in or overgrown with foliage.

Would be interested to see the wiki…

I suppose I was asked for names and email addresses when I first visited your Nodes post because I had not been logged in to Edublogs, or because I had not posted a comment already that you had approved. There are so many possible permutations that it’s hard to predict what will happen when learners start mucking about in their own dashboards. Perhaps that’s why lots of teachers set up course, class, and group blogs for “many-to-many communication” (Authorship 2.0, The Unsung Hero…, June 18, 2008) over which they can maintain control.

What dismayed me about posting a response on your Reciprocity post was that my name and email address were required before your blog made explicit any policy regarding collection, recording, or use of personal information collected from commentators. I’m sure my blogs do no better.

A nice thing about Edublog posts about other posts on other Edublogs is that backlinks may appear as comments on the original post. However, this function, I imagine, must be enabled in blog settings. Yours didn’t seem to be fetching.

As you have suggested, elsewhere, comments on posts may not figure prominently in readers collections in social netorking systems because comments may not propogate as initial posts do.

That posts, subsequent comments, and RSS reflections thereof, might have equal status, in terms of subsequent syndication would be cool, especially if a Harvard student would steal the idea and run with it.

Cheers, Paul

Often it’s hard to discern what “the rules” are except by trial and error. What I meant by “communication interference” is what happened here. I came very close to never knowing that you had responded so thoughtfully to my blog post, while I presume you assumed I had read it. You thought we were having a conversation, but I did not “hear” you respond to me. Thankfully, I have heard you now.

I totally agree that ownership of one’s texts and ability to edit them indefinitely is critical to authorship, which I also mentioned in my post on blogging. Maybe I will continue my response in a post on my own blog, for that reason, and also so that my readers will also have access to this conversation…

For educators, at least, opportunities for reflection may be at the root of “the blog-o-mania” you mention (Authorship 2.0, Blogging to Learn, ¶1, 2008.07.30). That’s certainly why I endeavor to maintain the blogs that I do, for teachers, learners, and myself. You’ve spelled it out quite succintly, “Blogging … is extending my learning and informing my teaching and my research enough to make the time and effort worthwhile” (¶3).

Like you said, writing serves to clarify and deepen our thinking, even if it is not immediately or particularly illuminating for (all) readers. In spite of the time and trouble required to make thoughts clear through writing, how could I endorse student blogging for those purposes, if I didn’t appreciate, personally and socially, the benefits and extraordinary potential that blogging entails?

When it comes to blogging and the choices it entails, in and among multi-mediated learning environments, I perceive beyond a drive to acquire a voice as an author, or perhaps more fundamental to it, a desire for ownership in terms of control over the words that I write. In the interplays of technological affordances, blended with rhetorical and social conventions, such a desire for ownership my constitute a cause for what you call “communication interference” (¶3). At the moment, I’d rather call it dissonance, yet grant that we may not be playing by the same rules.

Elsewhere I believe you describe writing as an indefinitely manipulable medium, all the more so now that we’ve replaced carving and engravure with digitalization and syndication processes Though I’m uncertain whether large proportions of learners feel the same way that I do, it pains me to find something I could rewrite better locked down in a disucssion forum 15 minutes after I post it, or locked into a blog comment offering little or no choice but to delete it wholesale and replace it.

Once again, I have a choice of posting this follow-on as a comment on your blog, where I may be unable to revise it, or add links to it later – in effect playing by unwritten blog rules. However, I’m going to post it here, where trackbacks to your post seem functional, and I am free to tweak, stretch, or amplify it virtually indefinitely. Now that I’m learning what my preferences are for online interactions, I feel I’m ready to explore and respond conscientiously to those of other learners with whom I work.