Today I want to take a little time to try to make it easier or less intimidating for more of you to become more involved in our virtual reunion for the Class of '63. For those of you who are not too familiar with blogging, I am going to explain some of the basics involved. First I want to emphasize that this is a first for me, too. I am learning as I go along and fully expect to make some mistakes, but hopefully, not too many noticeable ones!
A blog is defined as "an easily created, easily, updateable website that allows an author or authors to publish instantly to the Internet from any Internet connection. They can be interactive, allowing anyone to begin conversations or add to the information published there."
From the book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Tools for Classrooms by Will Richardson
Someone has to build the blog which I did for the purpose of getting the CHS class of '63 together for a virtual reunion. Hopefully we can get re-acquainted, relive old memories, find out about ourselves and each other as we are today and what we have been doing for the last 44 years. It would be wonderful if we can laugh, have fun, and enjoy this process. We might even shed some tears.
A blog is defined as "an easily created, easily, updateable website that allows an author or authors to publish instantly to the Internet from any Internet connection. They can be interactive, allowing anyone to begin conversations or add to the information published there."
From the book Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Tools for Classrooms by Will Richardson
Someone has to build the blog which I did for the purpose of getting the CHS class of '63 together for a virtual reunion. Hopefully we can get re-acquainted, relive old memories, find out about ourselves and each other as we are today and what we have been doing for the last 44 years. It would be wonderful if we can laugh, have fun, and enjoy this process. We might even shed some tears.
There are two parts to our blog--posts and comments. Posts are what I call the "meat" of the blog. They can start conversations, share information, serve as an "ice breaker", or propose a topic to explore. Posting is generally done by the blog's author (me) and other contributors who are invited to publish on the blogspot (Jennifer). Our posts have titles and appear on the main blog page along with a list of the titles of all the posts at the bottom of the page along with the dates they were published. Clicking on these titles will open a separate page where the post can be read along with any comments that have been published. At the bottom of each post is an invitation for readers to comment or to email the post to someone.
Comments are written by anyone reading or participating in the blog. Generally, comments serve as the threads of a conversation started by something said or shared in the post or in another comment. Anyone can respond to a post or to a comment to keep the conversation going. Clicking on any comment link or option will open a comment box where you can share what you want to say. Under the comment box all you have to do is click the appropriate option preferably giving your name. ( Sorry, but anonymous comments won't be published.) When you are finished, click on publish your comment. That is all you have to do. Your comment will soon appear under the post or comment that you are responding to and you will officially be part of the reunion.
Do I sound like a teacher or what?
I want you to "find your voice" on our website. Express your opinion; let us get to know you; share yourself with us. You are invited to join us at the reunion. It is free; you don't have to pack; dress is optional, but preferred; no special diet to lose weight; just bring yourself online and participate!! We know you are reading us, now we can't wait to "see" you through your blog voice.
Speaking of "seeing you"--if you have old or new pictures you want to share, you can email them to me either as a digital file or snail me a developed picture. I will publish the picture for you and mail the picture back to you if I need to scan it. It is helpful for you to identify people in the picture and tell me the year or date and perhaps the event where the picture was taken.
Please, let us hear you out there!
Nicki
Email: coachwil@suddenlink.net
Oh yes, if you have questions--click on the comments link and let me hear them.
Comments are written by anyone reading or participating in the blog. Generally, comments serve as the threads of a conversation started by something said or shared in the post or in another comment. Anyone can respond to a post or to a comment to keep the conversation going. Clicking on any comment link or option will open a comment box where you can share what you want to say. Under the comment box all you have to do is click the appropriate option preferably giving your name. ( Sorry, but anonymous comments won't be published.) When you are finished, click on publish your comment. That is all you have to do. Your comment will soon appear under the post or comment that you are responding to and you will officially be part of the reunion.
Do I sound like a teacher or what?
I want you to "find your voice" on our website. Express your opinion; let us get to know you; share yourself with us. You are invited to join us at the reunion. It is free; you don't have to pack; dress is optional, but preferred; no special diet to lose weight; just bring yourself online and participate!! We know you are reading us, now we can't wait to "see" you through your blog voice.
Speaking of "seeing you"--if you have old or new pictures you want to share, you can email them to me either as a digital file or snail me a developed picture. I will publish the picture for you and mail the picture back to you if I need to scan it. It is helpful for you to identify people in the picture and tell me the year or date and perhaps the event where the picture was taken.
Please, let us hear you out there!
Nicki
Email: coachwil@suddenlink.net
Oh yes, if you have questions--click on the comments link and let me hear them.
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5 comments:
E.M. Forster wrote in "Howard's End": "Only connect. ... Live in fragments no longer."
As a class, we have been fragmented for the last 44 years. When we "turned" our tassels on graduation night, we took our first individual steps into the future, into maturity, and responsibility, into our adult lives, and toward becoming the people we are today.
I am sure that some of us vowed on that emotional night to stay in touch, even while wondering in the backs of our minds whether our connection and our shared experiences would survive more than a short time out of the terrarium that was Childress High School in the 1960s. (Some might say it was a "Terrell-arium" ... but I digress.)
Some of us kept our vow and were blessed that we never lost our connection after graduation. Some of us were able to reconnect with former classmates after many years, in many cases through the circuitous paths of the Internet, e-mails, and most recently, this blog so carefully crafted by Nicki to facilitate reconnection and reunion.
A few years ago, on a summer day when I was visiting in Childress, I drove by the old (our) high school and noticed that the doors were open. I parked and entered, and asked the woman in the office if I could walk through the place where I had passed the better part of four years of my life. My first impression as I looked down the hallways was that it was SO SMALL. It loomed so much larger in memory. But there was Mr. Shaw's classroom, and Ms. Kennedy's, and Mr. Morris', and if I closed my eyes I could almost hear the cacophony as the phantoms swirled around me, changing classes.
Now, we have a chance to call back that past, by connecting once again to share our voices, to speak of past, and present and future. What a wonder!
We have families, and careers, and sundry stories to tell after so many years, and we have memories to share of our time in Childress and at CHS. Nicki has offered us a chance to come together again, ethereally, both literally and figuratively speaking, and like her, I am hopeful that more of us will accept her invitation.
I don't recall most of our class being particularly reticent, so come on, you guys. We want to hear from and about you.
"Only connect."
Jennifer,
As always you have touched my heart. You are blessed with a true gift for expressing yourself in exactly the right way and I am blessed with having you as my "partner" in this endeavor. My hope is that others in our class will be touched, also.
Only you would have thought to share the Terrell-arium phrase with us!
Nicki
"Finding your voice" reminds me of a challenge to me from Barry Wakefield to join the debate team.
Here I am ready to speak but can't think of a thing to say! Now that is a new one for me!!
Thanks to Nicki for even thinking of this great way to reconnect, and Thanks to Jenn for fertilizing our dormant minds.
Shelia, it is so great to have you coming on board with us on the blog. I would love to hear about what you have been doing, where you live, about your grandkids or kids or anything you want to share. We all know so little about each other! Stay in touch,
Nicki
Welcome, Sheila! So good to have you with us in blogland. The first time in is always the hardest. I know that you have wonderful stories to tell, and much wisdom to share. And as Nicki said, she (and others who are reading even if not commenting YET!) would love to have an update from you.
Y'all come back now ....
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