Student "edition" found at {csi dot journalspace dot com}.

Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

Today I'd like to set aside academic concerns for a while to talk about the pros and cons of "chirping" services although before that I'll give some "headlines" about the latest classroom developments I would expound on in later posts.

First, the exemption for the daily quiz I gave my students who showed up on time for my earliest class worked to get the irregular fourth year students to arrive early. Question is, will it last?

Second, since I already mentioned pros and cons earlier, I had to endure a report today where the students, instead of just labeling the advantages and disadvantages of using the component they picked, titled those sections of their presentation somewhat inappropriately "bright side", "dark side" and "downfalls".

Now on to chirping. This is in reaction to Chat giving up on it after reading in the news about someone getting a lot of undue sympathy from others after chirping about thoughts of suicide.

Yes, I myself prefer online journals, because you're not forcing yourself on people, but they have to go to their site to know about what's happening in their lives or their opinions on issues.

I only found out about chirping from a small cadre of computer science students here in school, who are using it to pass around among themselves personal messages no one else would be interested in.

While playing around with the features after joining them, I found that a dear friend who I haven't seen in at least a year is here, and that her life just gives her enough time to post about what's going on with her that she can't even update on her regular journal site. For me that was a treasure I just had to share with other close friends who I'm sure would have wanted to read back on what she's been up to since the start of the year - who I encouraged to join the network.

But other than that, I'm not using the service to reach out to people.

In fact, I could have my posts turned private so as not to "expose" myself.

I already have almost two thousand pages of posts under my belt to be proud of in my two online journals, which beats having three thousand entries in chirping - more like squawking actually about the same old shallow stuff and no insights at all.

Session 1897 can talk all day about buying cloths, but until others see dresses made, it's all just a call for attention. Class dismissed.