I started with a big player – Will Richardson – and specifically this page, where he has posted all sorts of resources and relevant links about blogs. I clicked on about a dozen links that seemed at first glance to be relevant.

And here, ladies and gentlemen, is a “retroactive live-blog” of the highlights of my one hour hunt. (Stealing a page from Bill Simmons – his passion and humor deserve all praise.)

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First Stop: Anne Davis.

Hmm. Nope, this is a post to get educators convinced of the value of the blog, both in and outside of the classroom. Not for me – I’m already converted!

But before I leave her page let me skim the right sidebar…wow, she’s been blogging since I was in college! Back then, all I did online was Napster. Maybe there’s something else to be found, under “Beginnings” (3 posts), or “Obstacles” (3 posts)…nope…and the category of “Weblogs” is too big to spend time on, with 349 posts.

Repeating the fruitlessness of this experience with the blogs of Clarence Fisher, Chris Lehmann, and Scott McLeod, I wonder if I’m going about this the wrong way? What else can I do in addition to scanning tags and categories and few searches?

We’ll try again: Konrad Glogowski

Vygotsky reference in the title of the blog is a plus. Nice prose as well – despite running on for substantially longer than your typical blog post.

Initial reaction is that this looks like more of the same, preaching to the converted, as the ideas in this post are on how to foster student blogging. But upon a closer reading of this related post, I wonder if what I am looking for isn’t contained in the ideas there. I also have the feeling after reading the bio that if I dive deeper into the archives I’ll find what I’m looking for here.

We end with one last flicker of hope: Karl Fisch.

I remember his blog fondly as one of the sparks for my first ever presentation on technology – it should still be alive online at slideshare here.

And it looks like with Karl I have again found something worthwhile! His last two posts are on the topic of protecting student identities online. Not directly related, but this would be a great chance for me to add my two cents and put in a question as well.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/76206184@N00/775521097

So – what did my hunt catch me? Konrad’s (dormant?) blog and archives which should occupy me for some time, and a “happening now” conversation related to this topic at The Fischbowl. Hopefully I have enough food for thought to formulate whatever will satisfy me as a “code of online professionalism”.

I have to say it, though – should I have had to look so hard for this? Or am I tilting at windmills when the answer to being “professional” online is something simple and right in front of my face?

Am I allowed to refer to my professors by name?

The bigger issue is, what topics do I feel comfortable putting online? What’s fair game, what’s in season?

On my last blog, I was only blogging about specific lessons and how I saw my career progressing. I made it a rule to not mention any specific names, certainly not students, and to refrain from posting anything about my school that I wouldn’t want to email to all users. The result of this was that most of the issues and events that made me passionate and got my mind twirling stayed off of the blog. A bit of a conservative stance, but a safe one.

But with this fresh start on a new site, I want to expand my definition of what it means to have professionalism on a blog. There is so much more that I want to write about, so much more that I want to write to a level that I feel is “publishable”:

• I have lots of thoughts about what worked well, and what didn’t, at my former school, specifically on the institutional structure, the delivery of language instruction, and the MYP.
• I would like to see what response I will get if I respectfully and professionally approach my superiors at my new job and tell them that, with certain principles in place, I plan on blogging about my job.
• And now that I am poking around the world of academia, shouldn’t I be able to post ideas / responses to the work of my professors? After all, each professor here rings up thousands of hits on Google and has hundreds of citations on Google Scholar. My little blog would just be a drop in the bucket.

So to do all that, I must expand my definition of online professionalism. Where shall I start? With the guru, excuse me “Learner in Chief”, Will Richardson. Not to say I’m comparing myself to him – but I bet I can find a link or seven from there that will serve me just fine.

We’ll see what I come up with.