Jun 02 2009
Thing 4 Thoughts on Blogging
The world of blogs is mindboggling! This was my first experience with blogging and my first reactions were-what a great way to learn more about things from others’ thoughts and experiences and, how in the world do you find time to write a blog, read and comment on other blogs, as well as keep up with email, professional responsibilities, family responsibilities, etc.
Blog writing is certainly interesting-I found the various blogs I read by students and teachers enlightening. It definitely gives people a chance to write about things that interest them, share those ideas with others, and learn from other peoples’ comments.
Blog reading is different from reading a novel. I find reading a novel allows me to retreat to another world and just relax. I would hate to see this next generation give up reading fiction-I think there is still a place today for reading both on the internet and in the world of books offline.
I found reading from the list of education-related blogs both interesting and thoughtprovoking as an educator, but very different from the world of fiction. What is interesting is the give and take-the blog posts and other’s comments. This is different from reading a novel in hardcopy on your own and then having to wait to share your thoughts on it with others. You still have to think about what you are reading whether it is a blog, a textbook, a novel-that does not change.
I see blogging as similar to journal writing or letter writing. You are sharing your personal thoughts about things, but you are doing it online in a forum where others can read your thoughts and respond. What is neat is that you can find blogs that resonate with your interests and learn from other people’s thoughts and ideas.
Commenting definitely adds another dimension to blogging since others add more depth to the originator’s blog post with their comments. I can see how blogging can facilitate learning by students reading blogs, and responding. It is also a way for students to interact with others from all over the world, which is something that I would love to see happen more in the U.S. Traditionally our students have been very insular here in the U.S. and not really in tune with world events or people that are different from them. Through the internet and blogs we have opened the whole world to our students and the possibilities are endless!
I found that MarkBlech’s Edutech posting “Is this SSR, 2.0″ hit home. As a librarian/media specialist I am always wondering in this age of the internet, will our children be reading books twenty years from now? Mark admitted that he, as an adult, hardly ever reads a book, due to time constraints. Mark’s classroom activity was to do sustained silent reading in class with 3rd graders by having them read blogs some of the time, since he struggles to get all of his students turned on to reading books. Children are reading a lot, but they are reading textmessages, websites, doing Instantmessaging, etc. What is the future of reading novels? I wonder about this. I agree with him that it is a great idea to expose children to blogs by kids, etc. I wonder though, if children take their interest in blogs home and explore on their own what is the content on some of the blogs out there for adults? What is out there and what can children access? I think SSR in the classroom is still a good idea, and that children should perhaps have a mix, sometimes reading on the computer, and sometimes still reading print media. This blog post gave me a lot of food for thought.
Another blog that I found especially interesting was Chris Betcher’s Betchablog posting on “The Myth of the Digital Native.” (from Feb.2007) Chris maintains that just because our students were born into the world of technology from day one does not necessarily mean that they, as “digital natives” are the experts of technology that we assume they are. He also proposes that “those of us who grew up in the primitive pre-Google world” can still be very technologically savvy and can teach our “digital natives” how to use technology more effectively. I too have noticed that many of our students instantly go to Google to search for information but do not necessarily know how to search Google well to get effective results, and how to sort through the results/hits once they get them. Chris mentions that most kids are great at sending textmessages, using Facebook or Myspace, downloading music, but do they all know how to get past the basics of graphic design, choose websites for research that are truly authoritative, search Google well, etc.? He states that “being young does tend to make one more at ease with technology and less afraid of the digital world” but he is not sure that the terms “digital native” and “digital immigrant” necessarily still apply now that us “immigrants” are becoming adept in the world of technology as well. I loved his conclusion, that “Perhaps we need a greater meeting of the minds. Instead of thinking in terms of us and them – natives and immigrants – maybe we need to value the qualities that both parties bring to the table – combining the fearless sense of exploration of our natives with the wisdom and experience of our immigrants – and work harder on teaching and learning from each other, regardless of age, so that we all live happily ever after in this shared digital land of ours.”
Another blog posting that really resonated for me was Wandering Ink: How to Prevent another Leonardo Davinci . I think that even with all of the technology we have available today to help make learning for our students more meaningful, our educational system still has a long way to go towards bringing out the creativity in our students. Some schools are doing a better job of this than others. This is enumerated very effectively in Kris Bradburn’s blog post. When I hear from my son in college how traditionally and boringly so many of his classes are still taught and I see in the elementary schools how much is still taught traditionally this blog also gave me a lot of food for thought. In many schools we still squash our students creativity- we need to think out of the box to nurture creativity and thinking skills in our students. I think we are definitely heading in that direction at my school.
