Teach42

I really enjoy your blogs. I first learned about your site at the Connecting and Collaborating Conference in 2005, and I’ve been a regular reader ever since.

I think your posts are great, whether they deal with Discovery or not, because they are actually useful to the classroom teacher.

Hi Steve,

I run into the same thing sometimes, wondering if I should talk about “work” and wondering where the lines of appropriateness are for readers. I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that if you believe in the company for which you work (which I do and I imagine you do as well), and the impact they have on education, then posting what you find interesting and energizing will be appreciated by the vast majority of your readers.

I agree completely with Elizabeth. Be who you are; be passionate about what you do. If you like it, share it. The other side of that is that, sometimes, when you don’t like it, you should share that, too.
A trickier prospect, huh?

I read both blogs and I read them because both are helpful and informative. Cross postings haven’t happened very often making one less useful than the other.

Your posts don’t come across company-line gushing. The posts on this blog about Discovery truly come over as a share the wealth opportunity or a “Hey! You just gotta see this!”

What I’m getting at is credibility. We can feel your enthusiasm for the wonderful things your company is doing.

Keep going what you are doing Steve. I know over at my Seeking the Wisdom of the Ages I have on occasion posted Discovery Information. Being a part of the leadership team in Florida I would be in the same boat. Like Fred says, it’s all about credibility, and you have plenty in my books!

Don’t care at all. Link away.

When it comes down to it, you want to “play” to your audience, Steve. To me, thinking about webinars, events, and other paid development session makes me think that you’re trying to connect with administrators and PD people. Not that I can’t appreciate what you might post about, but I have no say in how my district spends money on professional development opportunities or providing release time for webinars that are usually held during school hours.

Would I care and stop reading if you posted more about what Discovery is doing? No, but I would probably be less inclined to read about those events since I know I’m not the target audience. That, and as long as all of the usuall good, free stuff keeps coming (the stuff we classroom teachers enjoy), I’ll gladly keep reading

If it bothered me, I would tell you in o uncertain terms. I tend to be like that.

Hi Steve,
Discovery has some great learning opportunities, and I appreciate you writing about them on your blog.

Kind of a funny question. I usually worry that I have posted too much on personal things. Darned if we do, darned if we don’t LOL I think you have to post on what you are thinking about. I read so many blogs that I tend to skim till I find something that catches my interest and I think most people do the same. What it boils down to is no matter what we post on, some people will be interested and some won’t so I say go for it.

[…] Every once in a while, I check out my ‘ego-feed’ to see what links are coming in (Ok, ok, I do it several times a week) and came across the blog of Andrew Pass. He linked to the post I put up yesterday and responded with a series of ‘discussion starters’. 1. What does the word “impartiality” mean? Is there really such thing as impartiality? 2. What is/are the purposes of writing? 3. Do your students think that a business owner would rather take out an advertisement in a newspaper or on a website or have somebody write about their product in glowing terms? (For the purpose of this question, imagine that the advertisement is free of charge. […]

The key thing is to be up-front about it. We all know you work for Discovery, and you talk about it, so we’re not surprised when you blog about it, in the same way that my readers aren’t surprised when I talk about a project I’m working on for NPR or my PBS blog. Some bloggers have advocated publishing a disclosure statement on their blog, so readers know about their affiliations and potential conflicts of interest. I think it’s a good idea, and have been meaning to pull one together for myself. Some good examples include David Weinberger, Jeff Jarvis and Ethan Zuckerman.

One thing: I also subscribe to the DEN blogs. Just make sure that you aren’t “cross-posting” content from those.

[…] You see, I’m not just an open-source geek, not just a language teacher, I am all of these things. What really got me thinking about all of this was Steve’s post about being impartial. I decided not to comment on his blog, but rather to send him an email, and it said this… Thinking about your posting about your job… […]