announcing a winner

The nominations came fast and furious. Delegates traveled from far and wide to take part in a process to determine the future of online, collaborative creation and sharing of teaching resources. Gathered in a smoke-filled room tucked away in an obscure midwestern town, they debated into the wee hours. Sure, all the candidates had their strengths, but which would prove most likely to go the distance, to hold up to the unforeseen challenges of the future?

  • EngLog
  • Wordherders taken
  • Pedablogy
  • PedagogicalPalimpsest
  • BlogN
  • LitMeme
  • TeachMeme
  • SeeBlogRun
  • OpenSourceTeachingResources
  • OpenSourceEnglish
  • Wordswap

In the end, one candidate was the obvious choice.

palimpsest: open source teaching resources. good stuff, free.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines palimpsest as follows:

  1. writing material (as a parchment or tablet) used one or more times after earlier writing has been erased
  2. something having usually diverse layers or aspects apparent beneath the surface

The delegates believed that the site might not always be a blog, or might eventually develop areas that are not blog-based, so any name playing on the word “blog” was elimated.

They also leaned toward a single word name, easy to remember. Some thought a few of the candidates were too cute, and that they would not reflect the seriousness of the project. Others thought these names were fine, but in the interest of party unity, they were willing to compromise.

The nature of the project – one significant aspect of which is that documents are submitted, and then rewritten by a variety of participants – seemed to be best captured by “palimpsest.”

Finally, the pithy description provided by one of the unsuccessful candidates has been attached to the winning name.

It was decided that both eriC and Scott should receive the promised music-mix CD, and so it is requested that they send their mailing addresses to ghw at wordherders dot net.

Many thanks to everyone for their suggestions. It is the participation of blogosphere citizens like you that makes democracy possible. *sniff*

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7 thoughts on “announcing a winner

  1. Wasn’t that a movie with Don Knotts?
    The incredible Mr. Palimpsest
    just kidding.
    I like it. Though it will be hard to say in an altered state of mind. Not that I’d know.

  2. Bummer. The contest is over…I’m just emerging from the latest preschool plague to hit my family, and I was all ready to subit my candidate. I like Palimpsest–good choice.
    But can I get an honorable mention for this?:
    open TEACHsource
    (or how about this:
    Revolutionary Nonpollutionary Mechanical Wonder?)

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