Dear reader… hit the restart button

…[UPDATED 4/5/17] Somewhere along the way I lost my blogging voice. Why? I asked myself that more than once. One factor for sure: I loaned it out too often and for too long at the behest of others -- groups, organizations, campaigns, causes, individuals. My blogger's voice lost track of whose it was. This March I took a leap and committed to the #sol17 March blogging challenge hosted by the Two Writing Teachers blog and writing community where I wrote 31 days straight, a blog post a day and commented on 9 (or more) other posts every day. 

All blogging challenges include a commenting requirement, usually a minimum of three. The additional commenting load was from volunteer to welcome and support a group of new participants because I knew the extra commitment would stay me from dropping out. It worked and was also a lesson about blogging that I had forgotten: the conversation matters as much as content. Authentic exchanges, the sifting of opinion and information, as Jacques Barzun defined conversation, what makes the content matter. Along with regular posts, I want to bring that back to my blogging.

Am I ready? I think so. I know I can but will I?

never mind Carmen SanDiego, where in the #adjunct/iverse is the #precariousfaculty blog?

…but the hat, red trench coat and high boots are snazzy. As for the blog, with 4 posts in January, missed all of February and today being March 25, even I ask if there is one. There's a tunc et nunquam feel about it all and with it, temptation to throw caution to the winds.

return of the dilatory #adjunct blogger…redux

…my last post here, March 4, signaled a return to a blogging routine that dipped during the buildup National Adjunct Walkout Day (and week and all the other names it went by) that did not happen, at least not here, on this specific blog, one of many. It happened on the others: check the feeds on the sidebars and at the bottom of the page. Content is continually refreshed but does not show up on feeds or appear on social media…there but invisible. How very adjunctly. If it's not Facebook, it didn't happen.
to and during

Recurring "going out of business" sales and comeback tours come to mind. Here's hoping this is neither. Just in case though, I'm introducing #returnredux tag. The month of March was like being there while not being there. I needed a longer NAWD recovery period than anticipated. Then came après NAWD recovery. A Rashomon Effect post is in the works. And others. #afterNAWD is, after all, the new NAWD genre.

#NAWD endnotes…resuming regular blogging #afterNAWD

…and the intense experience of participation and immersion in social and digital media surrounding what was an epic event. Everything else, including this blog. went on hiatus or minimal maintenance, depending on how involved it was with event support and coverage. Stories and posts are still coming in. The National Adjunct Walkout Day Tumbler is still open and accepting submissions.

In addition to processing submissions. I'm still sorting and organizing -- literally -- hundreds of NAWD related links on OneTab, bookmarking permanent link bundles and individual links to Diigo. The last bundle bookmarked is dated January 30, 2014, which should give you some idea just how far behind I am processing those links. It's an easy guess falling behind bookmarking coincided with starting the Tumblr and social media traffic picking up. Links saved to OneTab but not bookmarked to Diigo are current.


There's more ~ we are all still processing the experience and thinking on post NAWD directions. I've got all those links -- a independent history -- that I want to organize into events, resources, media (multiple categories), blog posts, videos, Storifys, graphics -- even by region --- and all public. But that could take a while, and it's time to pick up the threads on other projects (including blogging more regularly). For now, I need to save the bundles to permanent public pages and bookmark them.

Here's just a small sample of the link bounty,

on the #precariousfaculty network & around the #adjunct/iverse

I just finished watching Ivory Tower online but should watch it again when I am not multi-tasking. It's definitely on the recommended list. Yesterday, when CNN aired the documentary, my viewing plan was watching skimpy clips and reading reviews. I don't often wish for cable or TV: don't miss the latter; never had the former so can't really miss it. This morning David Millroy's post to the CPFA list about watching Ivory Tower sent me looking for longer clips. Lo and behold...seek and ye shall find. Sometimes.

As for the rest of today (besides not taking all afternoon finishing and posting this), a PD "in the the News" on #HigherEd set up yesterday to have at the ready, awaits my attention. "News," being what it is, dates sitting in draft and will need updating ...the longer it waits, the more updating. 

Briefly noted and recommended, plus links to recent posts in the network

Back online & connected again…blogging, courses, sundry WriMo's, etc

It wasn't easy resisting the Arne/Terminator and Jack/TheShining memes.

I've been off-line (no internet, no telephone, no radio or TV) from mid-morning Thursday until 7 am this morning. Not the usual procrastination or blogging block. Today has been mostly e-mail triage and quick social media check ins with more ahead.

Even so, I expect to resume regular blogging tomorrow. There is no shortage of topics. Posts in progress and on the spike include:

• follow up on the DoE Call for Comments on PAYE Rulemaking Committee, 
• Next steps for PSLF Farness project, including Consumer Finance Protection Bureau pledge
• Network for Public Education, ed blogging and Public School Shakedown
• NAWD-y thoughts and reflections
• color coordinating Walkout online and IRL tees, hats, badges, avatars, twibbons
• emerging regional news ~ Union County NJ, Texas, Nassau County NY, Colorado
• not to mention whatever turns up on the feeds

I haven't had time to read let alone reply to everything but will get to what I can as best I can. In the meantime, there's new content here on the feeds, the news ticker and in the Reading Room

November…month of #writing—#edblogs…#digiwrimo…#nanowrimo & more

…which includes joining the Education Bloggers Network as well as adding a blog challenge to #nanowrimo and #digiwrimo (already a #wrimo surfeit). Still, since I already write at least one blog post a day, just not all on the same blog, #nablopomo seemed a trifle. The rub is that all +BlogHer daily posts have to be on one blog to qualify for the challenge. So I registered Computers, Language, Writing and will post a daily blogging recap ~ so very meta but something I'd been thinking about doing anyway. I most assuredly am not doing #AcWriMo. 

But back to the Education Bloggers Network, which has made a huge difference for K-12 advocacy against privatization, testing excesses and Common Core.  It could be a really big deal for us as well. I'd already added a number of  these K-12 bloggers to our blogroll and here are more for you to check out. I'm in. Are you? PS I'm making a list of adjunct and other higher ed bloggers who ought to be too. Email Jonathan Pelto at jonpelto@gmail.com. Let's do this. Now.

Jonathon Pelto replied to my request to join the network (blogged about earlier here and here):

Oct16 #BAD2014 Reminder + #PublicEdNation followup…all connected…even to #ccourses

…less unrelated than might appear at first glances: both are fighting #inequality. Also Blog Action Day shares a blogging connection with the National Public Education Network via the associated Education Bloggers Network. So of course I connect these networks to Connected Courses…both by blogging and as a "daily connect." There's more but isn't this already tangled enough? If you have a blog, register it with Blog Action Day and blog about adjunct inequality. No blog? Then check out blogs on the livestream (it's already October 16 somewhere), comment and share on social media. We're all connected. PS the ed bloggers want to add higher ed to their mix.

…and now more about Blog Action Day before moving onto Public Education Nation follow-up and the video of Diane Ravitch and Jitu Brown's closing conversation about building a movement.

Sunday Matinee: Blog Talk…hanging out w/#ccourses' Blog Brothers

…Click, Link and Embed, better known as Jim "EduPunk" Groom, Alan "CogDog" Levine, and Howard "Exploring mind amplifiers since 1964" Rheingold.

So what is this about anyway? Sure, there a Sunday film (maybe two), but my main purpose is to entice sign up for fun, blogging, connecting courses and with other educators. The Connected Course starts September 15, but the Pre-Course  (what the video is about) is now. Sign-up; register your blog (start one) and twitter handle; check out the blog flow on the main page -- visit/comment on a few; check out the look around

Connected Courses is a collaborative network of faculty in higher education developing online, open courses that embody the principles of connected learning and the values of the open web. 

Our goal is to build an inclusive and expansive network of teachers, students, and educational offerings that makes high quality, meaningful, and socially connected learning available to everyone.

a list of #adjunct bloggers on the #precariousfaculty blogroll

…precarity bloggers on the left sidebar consists of 65 blogs linked and listed below by name (followed by title of most recent post) in order of posting, with the most recent less than an hours ago and the oldest 6 months back. Inactive blogs, no matter how excellent get cut: if you blog, do try to post more often than once a year. Although only the 10 most recent posts display automatically, there is a "display all" link at the end of the blogroll. Many adjunct blogs are about adjunct issues -- but not all. Explore the collection ~ visit and comment. PS: These do not include the PFR blogs with viewer gadgets on this page: Precarity Dispatches, Equity in Diversity, Ana M Fores' Adjunct Justice; Adjunct Stories; Joe Berry's COCAL Updates.

Recent additions: Charles Bivona (@njpoet); Adjunct Sounding Board; Mark Carrigan; The Consulting Editor (@ProfessorF74); Gordon Haber; adjunct world comics; adjunct purgatory; Contingent Representation (CUNY); The Northern Issue.

Blog populations fluctuate. The average life span of a blog is three years, and most last less than a year. Listing earliest blogs would take some remembering and checking. The Adjunct Project (CUNY) is one: how fitting then for Sean Kennedy's Contingent Representation to be among the most recent...bookends.

precarity bloggers

tools…using them—not being one

…this might not be a post either: call it an extended meta blogging update…planning out loud. Feel free to contribute your 2¢ worth. Let the musing begin:

Tools

I've been exploring Diigo blogging and sharing tools. Using is the best (only) way to learn a new tool. These turn annotated bookmarks into blog posts. If truly useful and making blogging/online information sharing quicker, easier — more efficient, then they will become part of the repertoire. If not, then not — and will fade from regular use. Until then, expect more Diggo blogging and auto-blogging. 

Special Projects

Keith Hoeller's links and commentary, a weekly annotated links post will include links to articles by and about Keith. I'm not the only one who has long thought he should have his own page or blog. Hardly believing he didn't, I started saving links on Delicious in 2008. The project starts with bookmarking and then blogging entries from Keith Hoeller's PT Faculty Links & Commentary on Diigo. Eventually, we'll find them a cyberspace home on the range of their own so they don't have to crash in random locations like a homeless adjunct. The Washington PartTime Faculty Association had a web page...but on a now defunct platform that disappeared from cyberspace taking all the WPFA pages with it...and there you thought nothing disappeared from cyberspace.  

blogging #CEW2013

Joe Berry, CEW 2001, Workplace

…& back to my resolution to blog more now that Campus Equity Week is bearing down on me. This year it is a well oiled, well funded machine spewing out links, resources, events, and so on to be shared, re-posted, RT'd, turned into blog fodder. I can pawn some but not all off on other social media and ever trusty syndication. As sponsoring organization, the New Faculty Majority's still official blog has a feed on the CEW page. With that comes obligation. Obviously, I need a blogging plan to make it through the month - one that does not no point in duplicate. No point in that. Here's what I have in mind:

CEW 2001, Workplace

• personal reflections on CEW experiences; 
• integrating, weaving together, the many threads
• highlighting events and activities; 
• noting key issues
• looking out for orphans
• revisiting past CEW activities and events; 
• lots of pictures
• reviewing the history of Campus Equity Week and Fair Employment Week (Canada);
• covering the coverage
• looking forward

Even with ramped up CEW blogging, I will have to blog like one possessed to make a decent showing for the year. Deadlines and challenges can help. Let this be one that does...

It's Alive! #SocialMedia Musings

Image credit: EDUniverse: It’s Alive!
A New Approach to Communications

…May 23, 2010, post rediscovered in Drafts. Let's apply digital electrodes and reconnect to find out if it's still alive. The general observations are still sound, but the links may not be. There are more drafts to check out and perhaps post, as well as back posts worth revisiting. Digital does not have to be ephemeral, posted and forgotten. Indeed, our all time most popular post, 2,489 views, a guest post by Jen Bills about the public service loan forgiveness program, dates back to 2009 ~ and still gets hits, 100+ just last month.

What has changed? Changes have been more quantitative and qualitative. We have more board and regular members blogging, using Facebook, Twitter, added more social media ~ YouTube, Pinterest, Google+, another bookmarking tool ~ and changed feed readers when  Google Reader closed. Far more important than tools, we are adding connections and growing our network that is part of a larger, loosely connected adjunct / contingent faculty network, substantial and growing. 

blogging through the doldrums

…The NFM blog is having a mid-life crisis. As remedy, I'm thinking swerve ~ a change of direction heading for territory less frequented by social media ~ but keep the furniture (tabbed pages, widgets, feeds), change carpets, curtains and put down a fresh coat of paint. Please share your thoughts…

Why now? Today is reflection day, not just here but across various networks. That is what I told myself this morning and look how far along I am not. Instead of the ubiquitous and easily ignored to-do list, consider a didn't-do list. I am. It seems more realistic. At the end of May, I bemoaned a four post month and promised to do better in June. Instead, I matched with another four. April was a five post month. Blogs do have mid-life crises. Some succumb to them. This one has been going since 2009, cultivated readers, added pages, news stream, video bar, feeds, widgets and such, but, like so many blogs, been eclipsed by social media...hence crisis and now reflection.

Blog Action Day 2012, Oct15: #powerofwe

…Calling all #highered bloggers to blog for #contingent #academiclabor issues. Let's do this one: try some Power of We on for size. You can choose your own cause to blog for (or blog for more than one). One recommendation suggests focusing on a social change movement. This is ours.

Not a blogger? Maybe it's time to start. Imagine if this one day all the contingent faculty bloggers (even ones not blogging on academia or issues) and our tenured friends like More or Less Bunk, Here Comes Trouble or The Professor is In, AAUP's Academe blog, Campaign for the Future of Higher Ed bloggers and others blogged about this social change movement. Surely someone would notice. 

Hello Bloggers

#newfac12, now to sum it up

So far rave reviews, Not that much out yet from those in actual attendance. Organizers are probably still collapsed in a heap somewhere recovering.

I'm stilling gathering materials, waiting for organizers to report to board and definitely not up for a long post but could not resist the word play. Besides, I should address the subject, throw a figurative mortarboard in the air, hail farewell in passing and sum up however briefly before moving on. Undoubtedly there will still be much to report on and materials to put before you.

Team Digital Footprint held its own Social Media Smackdown  ~ Bigfeet every one of them too. And there you thought this was convo not a sporting event.

click to view larger version

Brian Croxall logged the most tweets, followed by Karen Kelsky (The Professor is In). Brian overcame early twit-throttling by improvising a GoogleDocs alternative worthy of haystacker or mooc rat

Lee Bessette liveblogged, tweeted and set up an archive for #newfac12 tweets that includes graphic analyses.

New contenders, John A Casey Jr and Josh Boldt (NFM member and chapter organizer), held their own, with Josh earning the distinction of blogging both the first Summit and the first post-summit posts, also cross posted to The-Compost and Facebook

Check out the #newfac12 stream on Twitter and Topsy ... and wait for the next installment...

trolling the academented blogosphere

Licensed under Creative Commons  Some rights reserved by davidsilver

...annotated, of course, via brief post excerpts, most but not all from blogs of the academented precariat. I was collecting links to post to the Contingent Academics Mailing List and, mindful of recent admonition not to post full length articles, excerpting briefly from opening. When that post in the making got long, mindful of recent complaints about irrelevant, time-wasting posts, I decided to blog my efforts. Then, if so inclined, I could post the link. 

No particular order other than as they came up in my feed reader. Any perceived organization, thematic or otherwise, is either serendipitous or imagined. However, more than one post on same topic, commenting on same material or from same blogger are listed adjacently.

This could become a feature, but I'd like to come up with a better - and shorter - name. I might even theme or otherwise organize them...

---

Ending a Bad UC Week: What Points Might Help Turn Things Around? (remaking the university)

This was one of the worst weeks in recent UC,CSU, and CCC history, as the new Democratic governor dished out triple $500 million cuts to all the segments ($400 m to the community colleges), neck-and-neck for the cutting record of his Republican predecessor.  Comments on this blog and elsewhere suggest that some people think this is a clever political ploy, but many people are on the verge of giving up on the idea that California higher ed will ever recover under our political system.  

Blogkeeping (literally): one of our blogs is missing

"One of our ____ is missing!" is such a movies of the week title, isn't it? But yes, one of "our" adjunct blogs is missing. MIA.  It is not "our" (pertaining to NFM) or even mine in the sense of my being the owner/ publisher/ writer. I wouldn't mind misplacing one of those, but they all have their addresses tattooed on their foreheads and know where they live. So, you may ask, if it's not yours, what's the story and what does it have to do with adjuncts, contingents, ad/cons or whatever we are calling ourselves or have been exhorted to call ourselves this week?

Easy... adjuncts write blogs. All manner of blogs, of such variety that the term "adjunct blog" is misleading. It's not a subject category like a "mom blog" (although adjuncts who are moms write those) or a "foodie blog." No doubt there are also ones written by adjuncts.  I hope to add examples to my adjunct blogroll. 

Do you remember my call for adjunct blogs? 

A few months or so back, I started bookmarking them with the tag "adjunct-blog" and combed my bookmarks for blogs tagged both "adjunct" and "blog." Many but not all so tagged would be adjunct blogs. Some of the best blog coverage of adjunct issues is by tenured faculty, former adjuncts more likely associate than full. I shouldn't need to remind you what safeguards tenure and academic freedom are for a cheeky blogger.  

Otherwise, however, blogging is an ideal medium for adjuncts: the price is right and it can be done anonymously.