Community Building - A poor metaphor

Building a community brings to mind a frontier mentality. Few couragous people setting up a homestead. Soon other will see the beauty of their work and decide to move there.

Not only is this idealistic but it is also inaccuarate. We live in the midst of humanity. People surround us at any given moment. We are far from alone. Yet we do not have a community to speak of.

We are supersaturated with people. So my metaphor borrows from science of crystal formation. This project aims to be the seed crystal. Community Crystalizing.

I believe public schools to be the natural place for this form to take place. A place where there are thousands of students, teachers and parents. A place where the potential for real community has already gathered but has no solid form as of yet.

The seed crystal is what it will take for for the larger crystal to form around. If this project can develop a single molecular structure perhaps that will be enough to create a gem of a community.

Domain Name Bought

I bought the domain name "localeducationnews.com"

Sadly, "ourschools.com" was already taken. Just thought that had more zing and marketability. Yet, I don't despair. The other name is much more serious and accurate, right?

This one step further makes me realize the emormity of the project. The role I truly want is a editor/moderator/writer role in this project. I want content that informs and enlightens people on educational issues.

Now I feel like a founder of company worried about marketing, logos, web design and hosting, non-profit or for-profit status and worst of all money. It's a business whether it's a non-profit business or not. All I see right now is the huge cost this project could entail.

Many people might think how this project of getting ordinary citizens to write for free and posting it on the web could cost a lot of money. Sure that part is relatively cheap. But If any one is going to read it then that might cost a few hundred thousand. And it's not about advertising.

Just to get some understanding of the cost. I have spent over $5,000 on classes for teachers just to understand their perspective and insight. Really, I have no intention of becoming a teacher. This is part of my Master's in Journalism and Mass Communication degree.

To host a website and design one that will actually have quality information this project will need a database manager to aggregate test score, census information, government documents, and etc.

The web design and hosting can be expensive as well. There are a lot of bells and whistles to make this project truely work. For example running a chat room will use up much more broadband than simple posting text. Not to mention possible podcasting and video.

Now I see why "Youtube" sold for a billion. It wasn't just the name.

There is much I think I can bring to the table as far as journalistic principles and democratic philosophy. However, all of this money stuff will take more time to process. I still will attempt to work on it.

Forget Esoteric, Let’s Get Practical.

We need writers, photographers, audiographer (My new word for a person recording sounds. Is there a better word for this?) and other content provider to focus on our schools. I want this to be based in and around Pittsburgh but anyone is welcomed to bring issues to the table.

What is going on in our schools is a mystery. I may know a few things about my daughter’s school but I know nothing of anyone else’s school. The same is true for most people. How did the PTO/PTA meeting go? What was the assembly about? Who got elected as school president? Did a teacher or administrator stop working suddenly?

That last question can raise some issues of defamation and libel. So we should respect the privacy and reputation of people. After all, most of these people are not public figures. But if they’re elected officials they’re fair game.

Other things we might want to know is the condition of your schools. Working bathrooms? Security official arrest anyone?

Lets start out with something to focus on covering. It's up to anyone though to determine what is news. There will be some rule to deterimine appropriate content but just a few.

Borrowing from My Missourian, a citizen journalism project, is a distinct possiblity. The rules are:

• No personal attacks
• No profanity
• No nudity
• No attacks on race, creed, or religion

Post a comment to further this discussion.

Media Technology and PeaceMaker

I finally finished proofreading/minor editing a game called PeaceMaker.

This was truly a labor of love. I say this for three reasons.

One – An engaging game that seriously informs and educates the player to peacefully resolve the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is enlightening and moving.

Secondly – Getting a chance to work on the only computer ‘game’ that I would ever seriously play in my adult life was an experience I couldn’t pass. It’s like being an extra in a “Citizen Kane” or a Storm Trooper in “Star Wars,” but a documentary. It was small part but still very cool.

Third - The guys in the company have a thing called a “crawler” and are reading this right now.

Crawler? What the heck is it? It is an automated search that looks for links or other information on the web. So the guys at ImpactGames can find out who’s writing about PeaceMaker using a crawler. I never heard of it until they told me. (Hi, Joe, Asi and everyone in the office.) What a smart bunch of guys! One could expect nothing less from the company that will bring you this game on February 1^st.

The crawler is a new peice of media technology, to me anyway. Boy, these really are interesting time. Reading about fact-based, conflict resolution, video games on a blog being searched by crawlers. Never could have imagined. But here's more about the game.

Playing PeaceMaker taught me more about the conflict in the first thirty minutes then all the news reports I read, watched and heard in my entire life. I’m saying this as a journalism, mass communication master’s student.

This is the main reason I offered to help proofread the content. If you haven’t checked out PeaceMaker’s website please do it now or the rest of this blog becomes harder to follow.

I was so impressed how well “interacting” with this game taught me information according to my personal logical dictates. Media technology transformed the learning experience. In other words, I wasn’t merely passively reading the history of the conflict. I was playing with history to imagine our future. By playing I learned as a child learns by playing. We need to interact/play to see what works and what fails. This is how we make sense of the world.

Child-like playing was how we learned to understand and get along with classmates. We didn't read about our peers. Perhaps adults playing/interacting with game based on actual history and up-to-date news we learn something about our global affairs.

So many other were also impressed with the game, New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, Reuters, and the list go on.

Cynicism might make you think I’m biased because I worked on the game. However it’s the other way around. I wanted to volunteer my time helping because I thought the game was amazingly impressive.

So now the media technology part of the blog.

Sometime the etymology of a word is worth studying. Media is plural of medium, in Latin. “Of course,” you might say. But in terms of communication it literally can mean, “All the thing in the middle or between us and the others.” In a sense, news, books, movies and words are technologies bridging us to others. Actually in hindsight… read the up-coming blog to continue this esoteric topic.

I think this PeaceMaker should stand on its own. To anyone that seen “Battle of Algiers” this is the video game equivalent with more facts.

(If you see a misspelling here or in the game that’s my fault, sorry. Leave a message here; don’t bother those guys at ImpactGames they’re really busy.)

Rational Discussions

I'm considering adding "rational" to the mission statement. Some are asking to themselves, "Is he crazy? What about tradition?" Perhaps this kind dramtic change with such high stakes will keep you reading. I'm sure the title scared away the weak of heart.

My reply is that we're not here to support dogma. I can hear the gasps and sighs of disbelief.

Since rational will be hard to define this might build the tension needed to maintain readers. In other words, there nothing like calling another person "irrational" to get a good fight going. Really, try it sometime.

Everyone thinks they are behaving rationally. Just like everyone thinks they're a good driver. Try this one too. Go ahead and ask the next car owner whether they're a good driver. Whether they drive too slow or lost their license from speeding or crashed numerous times, most people truly think they're the good driver.

Rational is not even subjective but people perceive themselves to be rational even when no one really is rational. How can we as humans be truly rational? Don't we all have a few things we value or believe in that we can't really explain? If we can't explain or express it, then we can hardly be rational about it.

However, that doesn't mean we can't have a rational discussion about things. In other words, once we start discussing a topic and someone say, "Well, that's just what I believe" then reason stops. We have crossed over into the land of metaphysics. Of course we can talk rationally about metaphysics but things inside the metaphysical just "is."

People might believe I'm attacking faith or religion. Let me make this clear. Faith and religion can be rational. There is no inherent contradiction between faith and reason.

So lets tie this with citizen journalism and education news. No one will be the judge of rational and irrational. I just hope people will keep “rational” in mind when writing about education.

My personal belief is that schools should teach rational thinking. Let faith be taught outside of schools. Not that there is no place for faith in America but simply not in our schools. Public schools should develop the mind. I believe, for an aesthetic reason not a rational reason, that education is about logic and proof.

Some may ask, “How can you teach morality without faith?” Love and caring can be rational, in fact it might be even better when understanding is involved. But this is getting way off the subject.

Like I wrote earlier, “rational" can cause a lot of tension and drama. Hopefully this drama will spice up the topic of education.

For a quick update: I'm still reading a bunch of articles and researching “citizen journalism.” This is just transparency in the strategy of hopefully getting and retaining readers.

What’s your thought? Please leave a comment; maybe we’ll start a dialogue.

News vs. Policy analysis

Again, another exciting and sensationalistic headline. Surely every one is sitting on the edge of their seats waiting to read the sizzling drama in the following words.

Two great sources of information battle it out to give YOU empowering knowledge. Which shall win?

News… because that’s what I primarily want to do. (And my advisor told me to.) Eventually, policy analysis would come into play.

Right now this blog is helping me form the concept of running a citizen journalism website devoted to local education. Again another thrilling adventure story jumping out of the screen. Sorry for the sarcasm I’ll stop it now.

It would seem the “news” is something everyone can cover. See it and write about it. On the other hand, policy analysis would take a lot research and intellectual talent. I’m not up for that anytime soon. I doubt anyone would just jump up and take this task on without any pay right, so this won’t happen. (See, there absolutly never a need for sarcasm...doh.)

Students, parents, teachers and administrators could report an original breaking story. Perhaps they would try to keep their biases out. Note I don’t write “objective.” These stories will be posted and each would have a discussion board attached so everyone could dialogue on the topic.

That seems like a good start for the news aspect of this project. But I imagine more than just news. Policy analysis and wiki/community defined terms related to education.

I touched on policy analysis so let’s move on to the wiki thing for a moment. An anecdote explains this well:

Teachers, according to state legislation, must live accordingly to community morale standards. Otherwise they can be fired. One teacher in Austin got fired for some artistic photos of her half nude. But how can we define what the whole community believes to be “moral.” Perhaps a wiki can help. Most likely not but it can’t hurt. At least we might get some intelligent discussion on the matter. And if not, intelligent at least public discussion.

I would like to get in to Habermas’ concept of “Public Sphere” but that could get so exhilarating it might be obscene.

Again let’s read what you have to say. I would love to read something about possible news stories written by the public.

"Community of Citizens" - Adventure and Excitement, not really

There is something about both word "citizen" and "community" that rings hollow. Perhaps the words are overused to point they have become banal and hackneyed. The words lost any luster they might once have had.

The only time I can imagine the word "citizen" used with any power is from some movie. This image is buried deep in my mind. Caesar is standing on a balcony in front of tens of thousands of Romans. "Citizens of Rome," he would say and the masses would roar with cheers. Where this memory is conjured from I have no idea. But I see it clear as day.

Today I hear "citizen" and my eyes roll. I feel like I'm in social studies class being taught other cliche's such as duty and responsibility. "Community" gives me the same feeling but with a claustrophobia of provincialism surrounded by white picket fences.

“Denizen of our district.” That doesn’t seem to work either. Though denizen seems more appropriate than citizen when referring to a school. After all, one doesn’t need to hold citizenship to attend public schools. (I mean that in a good way)

Why worry about the connotations when the denotative functions of these words suffice? Well, because there is such competition to get peoples attention. I’m afraid “Citizen Journalism” and "Local Education News" won’t grab people’s imagination.

Does anyone have a better phrasing? Right now “Our Schools” is a name I’m tinkering with. Post a comment and write what you think.