GPS Updates Winged By Words

I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things
Antoine de St-Exupery

The latest topic from the Green Pen Society has already gathered a flock of winged posts! September’s GPS topic is,

"What gets you flying when you feel you want to write?"

GPS, the brain-child of Paul Cornies at quoteflections, is a group of writers/bloggers who are developing their voice in writing about the world around them.

What brings you to write the things you choose to write about?
What gets you flying when you feel you want to write?

To participate in this month’s venture, tag your post with the label Green Pen Society and link back to this post. Put a comment here with a link to your post (important if you want me to know you exist!)

I've pasted my contribution at the base of this post.

Here is the flock of wonderful winged contributions to date.

Virginia Yonkers - Connecting 2 the World
Why Do I Blog?

Paul Cornies - quoteflections
What Empowers Your Blogging?

Tania Sheko - Brave new world
Why do you write?
What gets you flying?

Jody Hayes - Navigators
I Blog So That . . .

Joanna Young - Confident Writing
What Makes Your Writing Fly?

Kathy Stilwell - Stilwell Reflections
What Gets You Flying When
You Feel You Want To Write

Susan Ens Funk - What Counts!
Inspired by . . .

How do I know what I think till I see what I write?

Ideas, feelings and stories that lie idly in my mind rise to the surface and glide when I write about them. Tangled thought-threads, perhaps diffuse and disparate, become less so and move more freely and succinctly when I do this.

Even if I’m confused or baffled in trying to make sense of what may seem like nonsense, I try to think of a title relevant to the jumble of thoughts I have. I write to the title. It is rare that any title determined this way remains unchanged, but it is a place to start.

The original tangle of thoughts begins to change shape as I write. What was bound and knotted starts to unravel. Thoughts become more linear by writing about them.

During this unweaving, I find that related thoughts can be grouped – ideas can be prioritised. There is opportunity for differences to become apparent – comparisons to be made. Twaddle can be culled. Emerging thoughts take shape and make contributions to the edits.

The cycle reiterates in loops in much the same way as a gull soars in circles higher and higher in the warm updraft from a sunny hillside.

When the looping is complete, and my thoughts are brought to rest,
I can sleep on them.

A Green Pen Society contribution

Visitor to Second Life

Last year, I listened to Clare Atkins talk of Koru at the DEANZ Conference, Wellington. I watched as Nancy White met with Clare (or rather Choconancy1 met with Arwenna) on Koru Island, just one of many virtual islands in Second Life (SL).

This weekend I ventured into Second Life as a first time visitor. Here are my first impressions.

Having done the requisite registration and created my avatar, I set off to visit ISTE (International Society for Technology in Education) Island.
I followed the link to Blogger’s Hut given to me by Scott Merrick who announced the nomination of this blog for Blog-o-the-Month sponsored by ISTE.

Getting the hang of a few mobility controls was easy, assisted by an easy-to-follow tutorial.

Blogger’s Hut sits among many other similar and some larger buildings, as well as stadia, conference centres and concourses on the island - an educator’s dream. The Island’s clean, freshly cropped grassy terrain and its shrubs and trees reminded me of Kinloch, a little village on the North Shore of Lake Taupo, New Zealand.

I felt quite at home walking about the precincts of the hut. I met Scott’s friendly ginger pussy-cat snoozing nearby.


I think I was extremely fortunate to meet up with a few very helpful ISTE Second Life members, among them PZ Zadark, from Mexico, who took me off to meet Snowflake and Aviva. After a brief conversation following introductions, Aviva invited me to become an ISTE SL member, which I accepted.

Exploring the Island was an experience. I enjoyed the flying – a far more efficient way of moving about from place to place on an island. Having got the hang of flying and then returning to terra firma, as it were, I happened to be soaring across the Monroe Public School building, when I decided to drop down to have a look.

Unfortunately, I stopped flying immediately above the swimming pool there, only to find that I dropped right to the bottom of the pool.


No problem. It’s SL. I started to explore underwater and was delighted to see that the pool designer had a sense of humour. Along the base of the pool is a lamp-lit street with a mural of the moon on one side and a couple of what look like vacant shop premises on the other.

One of the shops sports the sign, “Second Life Education Resources”! Now that’s funny!


PZ also gave me the teleport coordinates for the Science Centre, Info Island. I teleported straight to Info Island! Best ever way to travel.


This was a most interesting excursion. I visited a memorial exhibition, Slane College of Communications and Fine Arts Gallery, in memory of author Philip José Farmer who died early this year. It features Cover Art from International Exhibitions of his works.


I recalled my experience in the swimming pool when I came across dolphins frolicking in the water outside Bradley University main building. I didn’t pass up the experience of having a virtual swim with the dolphins.


Living in New Zealand means that at certain times during the day there would be very few educators who would be visiting ISTE Island. Most of my time was spent exploring alone. But on one occasion, early on, and being new to teleportation, I happened to choose ‘Go Home’ when selecting a destination. I found myself at Bay City Airport.


This destination was not the most enamouring. Lots of people there. But like most airports I’ve been to, it made me feel I wanted to teleport out of the place, soon as.

( 7 ) ( 6 ) ( 5 ) ( 4 ) ( 3 ) <-related posts - > ( 1 )

Nominated Blog-o-the-Month

This was one comment I got that certainly wasn't comment spam!

Scott Merrick’s announcement almost made me jump out of my newMiddle-earth blogspot!
Would you believe!
Blogger in Middle-earth has been nominated Blog-o-the-Month!

The announcement and polling place is at ISTE Island's Blogger's Hut in Second Life. Scott maintains the island for the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE).

Apparently, your vote counts. So if you’d like to vote for this site, teleport over to the ISTE Island's Blogger’s Hut and cast your vote.

I'd much appreciate your support.

( 7 ) ( 6 ) ( 5 ) ( 4 ) ( 3 ) ( 2 ) < - related posts

SPAM – A Blogger’s Nuisance

How do you recognise comment spam?

Just over a year ago I started getting weird comments against a few blog posts. Not too frequently, perhaps one or two a month. Their occurrence was regular enough for me to consider using comment moderation. I didn’t switch it on as it happens, but the experience made the option very tempting.

The comments were not always posted on the most recent posts, which could have been a bit of a worry.

Luckily I enabled Comment Notification Email early on. This option in the blog settings is a splendid alert system. It’s just as good to know when valid comments arrive as it is when bogus ones hit the fan.

Cut-throat approach

When I get comment spam, I usually just delete it there and then. It's a minor nuisance. But in recent months I’ve noticed these infrequent occurrences are becoming more sophisticated. I’d hate to delete a valid comment from a well meaning commenter.

These days, it takes me longer to work out whether it’s spam or just a comment with odd diction. Some of them can be almost appropriate to the post, though usually they come at the blog from left field.

Tell-tale signs

There are usually signs that indicate something is dodgy. One comment that I deleted recently, Nice blog and have lots of stuff here, actually linked to what appeared to be a valid and reputable environmental site. However, a search on Google, using the parenthesised comment as search criterion, returned 1740 hits.

That was telling!

Here’s an example of a recent comment I got against a post published in July last year:

First time I have seen your blog and what a great post that was!Remember the saying “Genius is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration”So once you have a great idea you have to work hard to turn it into a viable product that doesn’t just exist in your head. Keep blogging.

Plausible comment

At first reading, the comment makes some sort of sense, even with its idiosyncratic punctuation. But it linked to a commercial site, which is a tell-tale spam characteristic, rather than to a blogger’s account or about page.

Having jostled uneasily with comments like this over the past year,
I eventually developed a speedy strategy for putting them to test.

Perhaps you have a strategy of your own? Here’s my three point plan for nutting out an otherwise convincing spam comment –

Does it make any sense that’s appropriate to the post it’s posted against?

Does it link back to a valid blog or site that may be associated with a single person or valid group?

How many hits do I get in Google when searching using the text of the comment or any parenthesised significant part of it?

The last point sometimes presents the need for closer inspection, despite a low number return. 15,00 hits is unequivocal, but if the number is less than 10, as it was with the otherwise convincing comment featured here, I have to inspect a few of the destinations listed in the search return.

Tracing the origins

At the time of posting, the search criterion, which was the first sentence from the suspicious comment, "First time I have seen your blog and what a great post that was”, returned only 9 hits.

But it becomes clear, when tracing their origins, that the comments are bogus – check them out.

I’d like to learn more about how others view this growing nuisance.

Are you a cut-throat deleter? Or do you have a sleuth-like strategy up your sleeve? What checks on suspicious comments do you make before you delete them?

The Mind is Winged by Words

I wheeled with the stars, my heart broke loose on the wind - Pablo Neruda

You may have read posts tagged Green Pen Society on this blog. September’s first post is hosting the 'Green Pen Society' (GPS) writers' club for Paul Cornies at quoteflections.

GPS is a group of writers/bloggers who are developing their voice in writing about the world around them. As this month’s host, I have the privilege and pleasure of choosing the theme.

What gets you flying?

Seth Godin is one of the world’s foremost blogger/writers. In the short video at the base of this post, he summarises what writing (in a blog) means to him. I identify with Seth’s childhood fascination for short-wave radio, for like him, the phenomenon of true wireless communication with others was one of my teenage obsessions. Today, writing is everything for Seth, especially writing a blog post.

Some write to pass on their thoughts to their descendants; some writers record their daily activities; others just write for the hell of it.
The theme for this month is about the passion that makes you write.

What brings you to write the things you choose to write about? Go on! Sock it to us! What gets you flying when you feel you want to write?

To participate in this month’s venture, post on the theme:

“What gets you flying when you feel you want to write?”

Tag your post with the label Green Pen Society. Put a comment here with a link to your post (important if you want me to know you exist!)

I will summarise your response with an update on this post. Go for it!

Virginia Yonkers - Connecting 2 the World
Why Do I Blog?

Paul Cornies - quoteflections
What Empowers Your Blogging?

Tania Sheko - Brave new world
Why do you write?
What gets you flying?

Jody Hayes - Navigators
I Blog So That . . .

Joanna Young - Confident Writing
What Makes Your Writing Fly?

Kathy Stilwell - Stilwell Reflections
What Gets You Flying When
You Feel You Want To Write

Susan Ens Funk - What Counts!
Inspired by . . .

A Green Pen Society contribution