It’s not the tool — it is the options –
my motto, my belief, my pledge…..
but what happens when the tool is not available any longer?
Yesterday, about 5pm, as I wandered over to wordle.net I saw this on his site:
Whoa — site completely down — with only this notice.
I had an instant flashback to 2003 when I was hit with a sist and desist letter…..and instantly my thoughts were with Jonathan Feinburg.
I don’t know that man but I know that he offered a free opportunity on the internet, which was probably NOT created solely for educational use – but as teachers we took it, saw potential, and made it work creatively. I don’t know the man but I know that every email I sent to him was responded to, I know that when teachers had issues with the front page being not a safe place to lead students to, he changed it, and I know he always was open to new ideas.
Not knowing the whole story — I can only speculate in my mind what might be going on.
But Jonathan, I want you to know, we appreciated Wordle and the possibilities it opened. True, I ran with it and made it much more part of my life than most…..but I just wanted to say “Thank you” and please keep us in the loop of what is going on.
If you wish to contact Jonathan with either legal help or personal support — please visit http://www.wordle.net/
If you wish to follow on twitter — it is http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23savewordle
Jen
Hello Jen,
I see today that wordle.net is up and running!! and that Jonathan has found lots of help with whatever issue has come up. He talks about the support he received in his blog at http://blog.wordle.net/. One can only wonder if it is the name alone that’s causing him problems, as he certainly got permission from IBM and many others to offer this free service.
Testament to social media, it is great to see that the word spread, by you and others, of his need and the crowd responded so positively.