Thanks to the popularity of my column “This is Sparta!—Facebook Prank or Political Statement?” I am now a footnote in Wikipedia. I have written about the Advanced Placement program for more than twenty years, yet this is the first column to create any buzz.

The column itself recorded the phenomenon of a Facebook group that encouraged students to write “This is Sparta!” in their AP tests, and place a single line through the sentence so it wouldn’t affect their scores. In the English Literature and Composition reading, we adopted that line as a rallying cry to help us finish reading a million essays.

The column received eleven comments on the Examiner website —approximately ten more than I usually get. I received an email from the Facebook group’s creator, Kevin Xu, and also from several AP graders who saw the phrase over and over again during their subject’s readings.

As my column continued to be popular online days after its publication, I explored websites that linked it. Kevin’s original group, “Everybody write ‘This is Sparta!’ on Their AP Tests” accompanied the link with the comment: “Everyone we hit the news!”

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Discussion boards on his site explored “What the readers are thinking” and dispelled rumors that students’ scores might be cancelled if they had participated in the group campaign.

A link on “Digg” called my column “Edutainment,” and I realized at that moment that Edutainment was the wave of the future!

I discovered “College Confidential,” a website devoted to all manner of obsessive ruminations by high school students over college admissions, policies, and AP tests.

That website let me know the exact moment AP scores were available by telephone (Friday, June 27, at 1:15 p.m.) The first entry after that, at 1:18 p.m., was from a mother bragging that her daughter got the highest scores possible on her AP tests — all fives. I noted with a pang that previous to that moment there had been many pages of commentary by students who were in an agony of expectation and anxiety as they awaited their scores.

The high point of my online research was the moment I discovered I was a footnote in the Wikipedia entry “Advanced Placement Program.” If you click at the bottom under #8, my Examiner column pops up. It is as close to Andy Warhol’s fifteen minutes of fame as this education columnist will likely ever get!

A prank that announced it was “Just for fun — Totally Random” has, through the magic of internet connections, rippled far beyond its original goal of bringing a smile to the faceless AP graders. My column has led me to discover the existence of multiple types of online connections—from commentary to virtual discussions among parents, graders, and test takers.

I have discovered that because students suffer the same anxiety teachers do waiting for scores, they have created a special website devoted to expressing their fears and mutual commiseration.

I have also discovered that high-stress situations, such as taking tests and waiting for results, benefit from random LOL moments—like discovering yourself as a footnote. And it all started with Kevin’s innocuous words, “Let’s all give the teachers a lil surprise!”