We will not be silent!
If you have not been following the situation with James Farmer, you should be. I heard little alarm bells in my head when he first posted a disclaimer on his weblog which said:
“Unfortunately this is necessary, after I’ve received some professional (and possibly legal) advice there may be some more on this.
Please note that all of the material in this weblog or any services or support that I may provide through this weblog or incsub.org are entirely separate from my employer. This is all done through me, at my expense, separated entirely from my 9-5 life and in no way representative of anyone else’s views apart from my own.
I feared what might follow this post but when he was given the ultimatum, as he so aptly described, on this post, to cease supporting and promoting weblogging, wikis or any other technology not officially supported by the University. I was in shock. For the past week I have experienced a range of emotions….. disbelief, anger, disgust, outrage to name a few. I can only imagine how James must have been feeling. I wanted to reach out and help. I’ve been thinking about what would be the best way to help. I’ve thought and thought on a post about it but the matter is so important and I felt inadequate to the task. I was at a loss for words.
No more! Our voices must be heard! I already had a lot of respect for James. It continues to grow. His blog is one I’ve always read daily. His contributions to the educational technology community are immense. I have learned much from him and his voice has helped effect change that is so needed in education. My respect for James grows as I watch his courage in telling a story that needs to be told.
Now today I read his most current post, Update & Objections. He states,
“In relation to my job, after some further communication it now seems like I may be able to continue to pursue this are a as part of my professional research interest, which is great if a little unwieldy (as each project I enter into is now going to have to have research / publication outcomes, gulp), but the objection to promotion and support within the University remains the same. This time it¡Ùs not down to my commentary¡Ù on the issue or even policy and procedure (which encourages me to think that the implied threat to prohibit my right of expression may not be carried through) but rather that:
-As any projects will be supported only by me (i.e. I hold the keys) are not feasible as I may get sick / move off.
-I can only do this with a handful of academics so a. This won’t be scalable, b. Other academics may perceive this as favouritism (as I can’t support this with everyone) & c. This may set up unreasonable expectations of level of support.
-In order for any such exploration and use to take place it would need to happen with clearly established needs, supporting resources, $$$s and people available.
Now there is much, much more in his post, so read it all. He also gets to the heart of the matter of this concern and shares his thoughts about creating a type of community response- objections and rebuttals, possibilities, issues, solutions…. Yes, we need to do this. Just recently, Jim Flowers and I had discussed the Wall Street Journal article about blogs being shut down in an elementary school. He thought this would make a good topic for discussions for the e-learning meetings sponsored by the Georgia Electronic Commerce Association. Jim suggested constructing a list of items/problems that blogging presents in terms of integrating into the school exercises. Discusss legitimate versus bureaucratic concerns/ response. Maybe use the introduction of blogging into schools as a metaphor of the changes we must address in our thinking, expectations, etc. of education in the 21st century/knowledge economy. Jim is so right here. We’ve all thought about all of this but get so busy in the actual teaching and other day-to-day activities that we don’t have or make time for this. Anyway discussions of this type could be a start. Others could do the same in different forums. We all need to be addressing this issue- hit it head on, so to speak. We need to do a better job of clearing stating the benefits and why this type of dialogue in our educational community is so essential. Our voices need to be heard!
James brings up other good items for us to ponder in his latest post. Thank goodness we can still hear his voice! In closing, Stephen Downes said it best on his blog post and was repeated here. It needs to be repeated over and over…..
“Silencing James Farmer is to silence us all - and we will not be silent.”
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