happy 10th, webheads!



i put this on my personal page as a conscious decision...there is so much about the webheads that i learn for the purposes of using technology to teach...not being afraid...doing good stuff with students that helps them be part of the new world...learning how to use new tools...talking about esl/efl as i would in any teacher's lounge, only this one virtual, friends all over the world...

uae, argentina, australia, brazil, kuwait, pittsburgh, turkey, pakistan, caracas, maryland, germany, osaka, mexico, arizona, ottawa, oaxaca, paris, taiwan, sudan, kamloops, houston, virginia, china, west texas...

i tend to think geographically, so the first & most amazing thing is, every sunday morning, almost, sun rises on a quiet sleepy no-count one-horse town, & i'm with these people all over the world talking about this stuff & learning...i've learned so much i can't begin to express it...but, most of all, it's a community, it's friends, & i know them, so i care what happens & look forward to seeing them & knowing where they'll be next time they check in...& i find chat to be intensely personal, interesting, a whole new medium- and how would i know a thing about it if i hadn't done it? like everything, you have to just jump in there sometimes, but most of all, have someone to talk about it with later, tell about the goods and bads, compare it to other stuff that's out there, what you can do, & why you'd want to do it...

this cartoon is a good example...i tried following it, and ended up making my own...but couldn't copy my own, so i ended up linking to my own, but copying the webheads' which someone had already made & generously provided...



i no longer remember who, or where, i got it, ...i've been a webhead for a few years....i knew a couple of folks before i really joined...and, never had time much for hardly anything but the chat, even the f2f times, i'd like to have been there more, every meal, every time...but couldn't. first, though, let me say one important thing, you don't have to know 12:00 from a vcr to be a webhead, otherwise they never would have let me hang around, and i never was much of a technological genius, yet i never felt like i had to prove that i was, or that anybody was anything better than just trying to figure one's way around a new world...i am like lots of us in that i recognize the changing world, the need to be in the places where people are going, and especially where my students and my children are going, and where they're going to need to be going, and i know, we've all got to be getting familiar with this stuff, 'cause otherwise the bad guys will get there first & lock the doors behind them...but mostly, i just like hearing where they are, what they're doing, where they're going, what's up...

key west, la plata, abu dhabi, islamabad, yucatan, beijing, lisbon, seoul, phoenix, brasilia, chicago, melbourne, tashkent, oaxaca, galveston, seattle (f2f), new york city (f2f), fukuoka, ...

one more thing to say...lee baber was a schoolteacher in virginia, a banjo picker, a webhead, a kindred spirit...i'm playing the banjo this weekend, & i'll send a song out, i've got one for her...tried to put it on mp3, put it here, share it with webheads, but it hasn't happened yet....for one thing, i spent all week teaching, & trying to fix the banjo, no time to figure out the details of making one's own mp3, and the guy who could have helped me left town, such is life. webheads will hear it though, i promise you, the future is ours, and life is too good to keep this stuff to ourselves.

to the webheads, who share their real world in the virtual world, and offered me a hand up...

happy tenth! cheers, from southern illinois, to all!



come join the anniversary party...i'll be there if i can...
-tom leverett, carbondale illinois usa