Blogs as branches from the same the trunk of thought

Will's unsuccessful attempt at finding student "bloggers" (writers) reminds me that there is still a lot of teaching and learning to be done on fruitful classroom blogging. While I cannot attest to the strengths or weaknesses of the blogs Will received from his Tweeting, I acknowledge the fact that Will's evaluation of student blogs was most likely fair and appropriate, given his professional background. If future teachers hope to incorporate blogs into their classrooms, perhaps there should be more of a focus on how writing is different from blogging.

Blogging is not simply writing online. Although blogging does ask students to produce text, it additionally provides a means for collaboration through hyperlinks. In a standard classroom, teachers provide writing prompts to students with the expectation that students will each write their own individual responses. When teachers read the assignments, they more than often look to see whether students succeeded in sustaining a thorough, complete argument. But what if teachers could evaluate a student's ability to continue a discussion rather than to complete one?

Every teacher wants to foster a safe learning environment where students feel comfortable sharing ideas in front of their peers without the fear of ridicule, and most teachers will give students the highest marks on persuasive and analytical assignments as long as the evidence supports the thesis, regardless of a teacher's bias. However, shouldn't teachers also strive to reach a shared understanding to some degree? Wouldn't a longer conversational thread (via a blog ;) )help in building this shared understanding? In the event students were providing hollow discussion tracks, teachers could step in to challenge or redirect thought. Now, I'm not suggesting that teachers lecture from the pulpit on the one, true interpretation of a text, but what I am intimating is that teachers should, perhaps, reconsider how they assess student thinking.

Being part of a conversation, as blogs enable its users to do, is a skill that all students should develop.

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Image Citation:

Mrhayata. (2008 January 3). Tree trunk. Mrhayata's Photostream. Retrieved on January 22, 2008, from http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrhayata/2161899616/

Who needs journal articles?

Scott McLeod presented some interesting analysis today in his blog. He points out that blogs have the potential to reach much larger audiences than academic journals. For example, his blog could potentially attract 4,200,000 people per decade; whereas, articles written by the same author in academic journals may only draw 166,667 people per decade. By the end of his post, McLeod poses the following question:

Why would anyone who wishes to actually reach educators and hopefully influence change in schools not be blogging?

Well, I simply agree. Blogs have the potential to reach wider audiences, but only if their authors take them seriously. According to StatCounter, I only attract about 15 unique users a week, but if I advertised my blog in local education newsletters or encouraged my colleagues to provide material for the blog, then maybe I could create a larger readership. Blogs serve as a medium of communication that links many people, and if we could create a virtual arena for discussions to take place, perhaps more educational endeavors could be begun. Perhaps, more ideas of reform could be discussed. The possibilities are endless.

I will end with McLeod's final question:

Why haven't more faculty caught on to this?

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Image Citation:

Automania. (2006 February 10). Spider web gravity well. Automania's photostream. Retrieved January 16, 2007, from http://www.flickr.com/photos/automania/97936640/