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I’m trying to engage you in some way other than just a nod of the head or a sigh of exasperation. I’m trying to connect you to other ideas, other minds. I want a conversation, and that changes the way I write. And it changes the way we think about teaching writing. This is not simply about publishing, about taking what we did on paper and throwing it up on a blog and patting ourselves on the back.

Those of us who write to connect and who live our learning lives in these spaces feel the dissonance all the time. We go where we want, identify our own teachers, find what we need, share as much as we can, engage in dialogue, direct our own learning as it meets our needs and desires. That does not feel like what’s happening to my own children or most others in the “system.”

I literally don’t think I could do my job any longer without it - the pace of change is too rapid, the number of developments I need to follow and master too great, and without my network I would drown. But I am not drowning, indeed I feel regularly that I am enjoying surfing these waves and glance over to see other surfers right there beside me, silly grins on all of our faces. So it feels to me like it’s working, like we ARE sharing, and thriving because of it.