The Art of Knowledge

 

More Unanswers

I have been scouting around again today on the RSS feeds and have now noticed the surge of "blogging being used in education" posts. So I got all excited to hear some really good ideas.

Today's comments about using weblogs for electronic portfolios are absolutely timely for me. This afternoon, I'm to meet with the director of our M.A.T. program for elementary teachers, and with an adjunct technology instructor to begin planning portfolios in which the MATers capture 'work samples,' including, we hope, streamed video clips. I see many aspects of the utility of including instructor commentary as documentation of process, so would love to share notes with you as we progress. When I wear my English teacher hat--less and less frequently, unfortunately--I like the idea of incorporating the digital audio commentary that I give students while they develop their work. But I'm not audioblogging at all yet...So much to do just to keep the bugs from totally infesting our version of Frontier. (We crash chronically.)

Acronyms...audio...? Think bigger. That comes from here.

Excellent summary of blogging trends in education and the challenges to make blogging a more personal option for students. Can we call it "Personal free range blogging" that is organic and authentic. Would we need a tool that provides both private and public blogging spaces. Just like a journal, we can keep writing private, private to a group of invited friends or mentors, and the public. I wonder if Manila or other apps can be modified to offer this from one weblog, and not two or more.

Of course these things are needed. It is one of the answers on how to get people to learn more. Let's stop looking at how to merely adjust it or move it, or add a feature. That won't work. For example: People started learning on the web and on their computers at home. Edutainment software took off. Mavis Beacon was in every home. Did it work? Well sort of. What happened to the people, was that they started learning at a faster rate in their leisure via new more encompassing medium. Why did it not totally work? Because we didn't alter it in anyway, we simply took the ideas already being used and moved the old concept to the new medium...uh uh (that's me moving my index finger back and forth). That came from here.

It's that second part that almost requires the conversation take place publicly or privately. It's great when people decide to get actively engaged in the dialogue; I know I don't take the time to comment on other people's posts as much as I'd like. But the silent conversation with all of them is ongoing. And it's what continually pushes my own thinking and my own writing. What I want, obviously, is that it do that for my students as well. I want them to find writers that they can tap into for ideas and inspiration and talk back to them in whatever form that might take. Definitely a goal I'll be shooting for this upcoming quarter...

A little better. But people people people we aren't taling about a fad. We aren't talking about an idea that can possibly enlighten. We are talking about a social movement that needs to be adapted into modern technology. A social interaction that is now taking place that needs the rigor of data repositories, networked social paradigms, autonomous systems that involve meta data unbeknownst to the user. The short run will only get you short run results. I love the evolution, I do. What I get frustrated by is the short sightedness. It's like taking a trip around the world from Baltimore and stopping in Cincinnati real quick and saying, "Well hell this is awesome. Let's just go home."


Link posted by JVMM : 4:23 PM