is catching up with back issues of other blogger’s work. Case in point: Lisa Williams’ excellent “Principles of Blogging,” a golden oldie (2003) from her “Learning the Lessons of Nixon” blog. I found her blog by following one of Obadiah’s links, making an educated guess that a Bloggercon IV session he found particularly inspiring would be of interest to me as well, and then following that link to Lisa’s blog, where “principles” was a permanent tab at the top of the page. I read the principles with admiration. I just downloaded the podcast. I’ll listen to it on my way in to work this morning and even if it isn’t my full cup of mp3 I know I’ll learn something valuable, given the principles list I just read.

I’d call this an example of reading for reading. It probably lines up with George Siemens’ whole notion of “connectivism,” except that when I’m reading for reading, it’s not just about being a node on the network or even looking for other nodes on the network. At least, that’s not how it feels. It feels more like hearing a record at someone’s house and then going out the next day and buying it for myself. The network leads me, not to another node, but to another place to be, to reflect, to experience. Connections will radiate from there, of course, but the “there” is not entirely defined (may be defined very little) by what it’s connected to. Although I admire much of what I understand Siemens to be saying, there’s something a little concerning there for me, something that seems to define meaning as endlessly deferred, or located only in the network itself. For example, I cannot agree with his statement that “the network itself becomes the learning.” In my view, the network enables learning and represents learning, but it is not learning itself. Only persons learn. The network points to meaning, and enables us to share meaning, and the network itself is meaningful, but it is not meaning itself. Meaning is prior to the network, and subsequent to it. No Saussurean, I. A link is a portal, a pointer, but not the thing itself. Or so it seems to me this morning.

Back to the principles. I wish I had found them earlier. They’ll be a great resource for my next classroom experiments in blogging. I’m naturally a little skeptical of such lists of principles–how could I not be, having seen Charles Foster Kane’s “Declaration of Principles” and its painful denouement close to one hundred times?–but I’m also an idealist and a good audience for anyone’s attempts at a comprehensive ethics. So I salute Lisa Williams, and thank Obadiah for the link. And I look forward to more.