Trying to catch up with the ETMOOC recordings and listening in on Dean Shareski’s session on Sharing=Accountability.   Much is resonating with me and I am seeing connections to my experience.  I think over the past few years I have accepted or found a need and interest in sharing what I learn.

Dean made a point about some re-thinking about the concept of publishing.  

“The [Publish] button should be replaced by [Share]“.  

 I have had a discussion recently about publishing student work on their blogs. Should we publish only ‘perfect, final drafts’ error free or should we allow their first efforts to be seen?  It became obvious to me – that we need to re-define [Publishing] and Dean’s [Share] option sits well.

Previously when we published it was our finished product, the result of a writing and editing process.  This was necessary and preferred as the printed results were set in stone (all-be-it ink in paper) .  Web 2 has altered the way we can go through the editing process, we can now [share] our unfinished thoughts, elicit feedback and constantly edit and re-edit.  

Clicking [Publish] does not mean we are finished working, finished thinking but simply exposing our process. Whereas, publishing, once referred to the final process in an exhaustive editing process.  

This brings me back to my previous post about why people shy away from blogging.  Our expectation that what we publish is perfect.  There is a concern amongst teachers of young students that we are weakening the conventions if we allow less than perfect writing to be published, that we are modelling poorly and I can understand that, but I feel that  the benefits of exposing our first attempts and our process  outweigh this risk.   Some re-thinking about how we view what we read on-line, how we evaluate it and what we expect of it may be required.  What do you think?