break is over—back to the #edblog beat & #adjunct blogging

…with something no matter how short or recycled. Not that it was a 100% break what with the persistent ubiquity of social media and email. The combined effect of information/project overload and sandwiching a holiday into a grim news news cycle had me dropping out wherever I could...

The time it allowed reading ed blogs and getting up to speed with my new colleagues on the Education Bloggers Network was well spent. There are 200 now. Just today I posted to the EBN Basecamp area explaining my ideas on configuring personal or open blog/social media networks. Most of the bloggers there are in K12 education. Some currently teach in both K12 and education courses in higher ed, most likely as adjuncts in the latter. I've been bookmarking their blogs on Diigo as I come across them. 

Anyway, when one of the members teaching in higher ed asked me about my field, I made my reply more of an introduction since I hadn't really posted one yet. Here it is, somewhat edited and with the obligatory apologies for tiresome redundancies:

My field is now "retired" with digital ankle biting and online community media as "retirement hobbies." I notice I am not the only ed blogging retiree here. [Aside: Is blogging the educator version of "old soldier" fading? Or just the persistence of longstanding habit?]

I started in English (UL Lafayette) and then Comparative Literature (ABDammit, UC Davis, representations of city space in literature). My move from multi-language lit to social media/web curation traversed teaching Spanish, developmental writing/study skills and 1st composition, ESL, GED, local Family Literacy and after school programs while doing web pages, email newsletters and groups and then onto blogging and social media. That's just the last 25 years...and leaves out non-academic teaching and other workplace byways,

Short version: precarious faculty is my home base / hub blog for what I consider an independent information network that takes in other blogs, aggregation platforms and social media.
The sidebars, top and bottom areas of the page are packed with widgets and feeds. It's getting cluttered...

I do WP #edblog re-blogging/sharing on As the Adjunctiverse Turns. So far I haven't seen any Tumblrs in the crowd but (when/if I do) would re-blog those on Precarious Faculty. I could start a new one just for #edblogs, but my game plan is to get more adjuncts interested in NPE/EBN, education blogging and our shared issues, threats to public education. I see hopeful signs. 

Admittedly all this seems scattered but rss syndication connects and redistributes to social media (FB, Twitter, G+) and back to widgets on the hub. And, yes, sometime I get lost myself but am always on the look for more and better string to find my way out of the maze. 

Ino Reader html clips to display aggregated feeds will be the next stage in the independent information network project. I've got more thinking, planning and homework to do ~ mostly re-reading +Laura Gibbs here and here on her Ino-based course design project ~ but will keep you posted on that as well as the Education Bloggers Network and associated social media