One of my favorite publications–ISTE’s Learning and Leading with Tech–sent me this survey to complete. You’re supposed to rank what future articles you’d like to see in the L&L. Of course, the challenge is that almost everything that might find itself into the magazine is already available online. When I sit down to write an article for the places I usually contribute to, I feel an almost insurmountable barrier is ahead of me…on every subject you can imagine, a legion of writers and contributers is creating content.

How can any one person hope to beat that? It is the same feeling I had when I imagined writing poetry after studying Alexander Pope and other great poets of the past. How could one ever top that? The answer, though, occurs in the blog psychology reflection that Wes Fryer made earlier:

As I process events and ideas in my life, I find they become better connected to other experiences and thoughts as I go through the mental steps of articulating, explaining, and often hyperlinking them to the thoughts of others. The feedback and ideas I intersect with as a result of this sharing process is also VERY powerful and transformative. This is the biggest tangible benefit to remix culture, in my view: The opportunity to appropriate and own ideas to a much greater degree of depth and breadth because of the CREATIVE writing process shared within an interactive, global environment.

As erudite as this response is, I find myself connecting back to the simple idea that I enjoy writing and connecting to some ideas, to playing with ideas (even controversial ones or those that will raise people’s hackles). Though I cannot play as a virtuoso, I can certainly still play and have fun.

This thought occurred to me as I was working my way through Seth Godin’s Meatball Sundae again. I spent my Saturday this past weekend spending some time at the local Discount Tire Company, getting a new tire (and breaking my Dad’s cardinal rule for tire replacement–get two, not one) for my Nissan Frontier that had trundled onto a chunk of junk metal in the dark amidst Xmas shopping. Though the book is somewhere else–probably in my truck–Godin makes the point that good isn’t good enough in a world where there is a lot of choice. If you can choose between good and awesome–and the Internet makes that possible–then you choose awesome. Why settle for good?

How does one make the jump from good to great?

As I reflect on what I’d like to see discussed in Learning and Leading magazine, these topics rise to the top:

1. Online Learning
2. Open Source
3. Professional development (but online with open source tools).
4. Digital citizenship

The intersection of online learning with open source tools to enhance professional development opportunities…well, I can’t get enough of that. In fact, that seems to be the best stuff to read about lately.

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