My first opportunity to attend the NWP annual meeting came in 2005, when I was fresh from the Summer Institute and completely ignorant about the ways in which the writing Project functioned as a national program.  All I knew was that NWP coincided with NCTE and that Red Cedar was sending me to Pittsburgh with an iPod and a laptop for me to wiki, blog, and podcast.

It was the podcasting that began my stalking habit. The podcast idea inspired me to set out to interview someone amazing, someone who I had admired since I was a fresh-faced pre-service teacher: Jim Burke.  I was determined to hunt him down and interview him with my little iTalk/iPod set-up.  When I blurted out that I was planning to stalk Jim Burke in the car ride to Pittsburgh, I was met with howls of laughter from my fellow RCWPers.  But thanks to Paul Cryderman, I did meet Jim Burke.  And, reader, I interviewed him.

http://writing.msu.edu/rcwp/podcast/NWP2005/RCWP_Podcast_3.mp3

The word “stalk” always takes people aback, especially when I blurt to my stalkee that I’ve been stalking them. (because I tend to so admire the people I stalk, I get a little nervous when I get to finally meet them and talk too loud, too fast, and say something inappropriate).  But let me be clear: when I say “stalk” it is merely to indicate that I have dedicated myself to networking with my intellectual heroes.  Networking feels a little predatory anyway.  The social interactions are a bit awkward.  My intellectual idol has no idea who I am, yet I have read every word they have written, subscribed to their blogs, parsed every tweet.  How to start a conversation?  The situation always fills me with dread.  But in the end, the stalking always pays off.

So, here are my tips to stalking your idol:

1. Identify a target by knowing who is going to be in attendance at the conference.  Check out programs and when you see a name that gives you a little thrill, you’ve got your target.
2. Tell everyone you know that you are stalking this person.  Your friends and colleagues will help you. Strangers will catch wind and will be intrigued by your total geekness.  This will inspire them to help you, too.
3. Eventually, someone will be so excited to introduce you, that most of the time you don’t have to make the approach yourself.
4. In the event that your friends and colleagues fail in #3, try to place yourself in close physical proximity to the target.  Look for a moment when they aren’t surrounded.  If you’ve picked a good target, they’ll be popular and you’ll have to pick your moment carefully.
5. Take your cell phone/digital voice recorder and ask for an interview.  No one has ever denied me an interview.  This can always be your in.
6. Make sure you share your good news with everyone in #2.  After all, they are now invested in your experience, too.

Happy Stalking!

My tweet

After the first round of Google Wave invites went out, I stayed up all night mentally calculating the time in Sydney and anxiously awaiting that precious email.  The tweet at left was how I felt after that long, sleepless night as folks on twitter complained that Wave was all hype and no substance.  Easy for them to say, I thought, they were invited and I wasn’t.  How mean.

As a person who was on the outside and has now been led onto the dancefloor thanks to the kind invitations of my fellows (you know who you are), I stand by my initial assessment:  Google Wave is the Prom.

All the cool kids are going.

Going alone: not an option.

The snippets of conversations in the hallways are all about the Prom/Wave, who’s going, and, once its over, what happened while they were there.

People walked into the Prom/Wave, looked around for their friends and immediately started talking about how lame the whole scene was.

There might be something fabulous happening somewhere, but it seems to be at the after-party hotel room, or, in Wave’s case, on Twitter, the Blogosphere, etc.

All that being said, now that I’ve been asked to the dance, and had a twirl or two around the dance floor, I am open to the Wave experience.  At first, I felt the strange awkwardness of a new social situation.  After embarking on a couple of Waves (both public and private), I am starting to see what Google is trying to do.  It seems to me that the changes in myriad social networking sites in the past few years that ultimately the users will shape the ways in which Wave will be used.  Users will discover the functionality that works for them and exploit that for their own, not Google’s purposes.

In terms of educational uses, I think kids would get a kick out of the interface and the playback features.  I could see Wave replacing some of the work that’s already being done in Wikis and Google Docs.  Teachers will also love the playback feature that tracks each change in the process of creating the Wave.  It’s like email, chat, collaborative documents/slideshows (and I am think they will add more functionality as we go) all rolled into one.  But does the fact that the interface is new and different mean that we should replace the already excellent tools we have?  I don’t know.

I know some of you are still asking, But what is it?  What is Wave? The best I can do is to direct you to the super long video at http://wave.google.com.

For those of you riding the Wave, here are my two most favorite blog posts so far on the subject:

• Lifehacker’s “Google Wave 101″
• ReadWriteWeb’s ” Google Should Stop Playing Around with Wave and Focus on Spreadsheet”

In case you haven’t heard, the Common Core standards in ELA and Math are up for public comment.  According to the website:

The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a joint effort by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) in partnership with Achieve, ACT and the College Board.

My first point of contention is that the standards are so closely aligned with what the ACT and College Board already have designated as “important” for students to know and learn.  As a teacher who was certified the year that No Child Left Behind was enacted, I have witnessed first-hand the destruction of the innovation of the American education system.  Don’t get me wrong: I recognize that the American education system has problems.   We don’t meet the needs of our learners, we don’t equitable distribute our resources, we don’t utilize teaching methods that have been proven to succeed.  However, the narrowing of the curriculum to focus entirely on a high-stakes test has not addressed these issues.  This has been especially true in what I have witnessed in countless schools across Michigan and has been more articulately described by many writers other than myself (see Yong Zhao’s recent ASCD book: Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization).  In the end, the ACT and the College Board’s high-stakes tests are merely an assessment tool: not the starting point for the Nation’s discussions on what should and should not be taught in our schools.

It concerns me that we are holding up standardized tests, with their history of racial discrimination, and the testing companies as the experts in this most fundamental of discussions.  The content of the standards are vague, narrow, and barely consider the changing nature of writing as more and more content moves into the digital realm.  This is because it is not easy to test for creativity, innovation, satire, humor, or any of the myriad ways that a piece of writing gains resonance in a larger culture.  Why are changing our nation’s students into excellent test takers?   One of the first ideas I was taught as a test prep tutor is that standardized tests measure how well one takes a standardized tests.  Enacting these standards as they are written will ensure that the testing companies will not have to alter their current, and biased, products one bit.

I have more than just a practitioner’s interest in these new standards: I am also a mother.  I worry about what our American educational landscape will look like once the testing companies are allowed to dictate what happens in our community schools.  I have seen bright and talented students fail in the realm of standardized testing.  I don’t know if I could bear to send my children to an institution that cares more about “meeting a standard” than educating my children.

As Mark Twain famously stated, “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”  With the Common Core standards as they are, this will be even more true for my children.  I have added more specific comments to the Common Core website: you have until October 21st to read and respond in your own way.