the future of blogs will richardson weblogg-ed.com [email protected]
TRANSCRIPT
Blogs are no longer about the technology…
It’s now about imagination.
The State of the Blogosphere
Blogs are blooming…
40+ million blogs
Doubles each 5.5 months
A new blog each second
Over 20 million active blogs3 months later
(55%)
1.2 million posts a day
Edublogging
But…
There are voices of transformation…
"A student came to me this morning carrying a globe and a look of complete amazement on his face. I know, sounds like the intro to a joke. . . but seriously, he pointed at the globe and said "Shanghai is in
CHINA! Someone read my blog in CHINA!" As if this wasn't perfect enough a student looked up from his blog and said, "Mr. Showers already told you, we are world wide!" and then calmly went back to
entering his blog."
Clarence Fisher
“It is about communication. It is about the light it gives them into the lives of others and their ideas. This changes how we use technology with kids. The user friendliness of these tools has
democratized who uses them, who has a voice, and who we get to hear. When computers were hard to use and the tools were complex, we heard from geeks and hackers, now we hear the voices of
teenage girls. Wait until technology penetrates into places it isn't right now. When we hear from more African girls, and the voices of young boys in South East Asia, I'll know that we are getting somewhere. It will be their lives, their stories, and their hopes spilling into blogs, podcasts, and wikis. They are the next line of early adopters.”
Anne Davis
“It is empowering to students that they can voice their thoughts and immediately see
them published on the web. Then the anticipation they feel when they open
their own blogs and knowing that someone cared enough to comment and care about what they wrote. It really gives them
ownership in a way we could never provide within our classroom walls.”
Darren Kuroptawa
“When a student is scribe they take particularly good class notes and think deeply about what they learned that day. The process of writing their scribe (we've created a new use for that noun) forces
them to reflect on their learning and work to articulate the lesson as though they were teaching it. The paradigm in medical school is ‘watch it, do it, teach it.’ My students have brought that paradigm into
our classes.”
Konrad Glogowski
“When I think of blogs, I think primarily of what this
technology enables my students to accomplish. When I look forward to reading their entries and comments I am really looking forward to thoughts made visible.”
Blogging Benefits:
Motivation
Writing Skills
Reading Skills
Collaboration
Connective Learning
Learning by Network Building
Learning by Community Building
Examples
Math Blog
Class and Student Blog
Audio Blogs
Project Blog
Student video blog…
Staff Development blog
So…
Blogs are…
Archive
Communication Tool
Collaboration Space
Portfolio
Learning Space
But…
Is the blog future bright?
Obstacles
Fear (of Technology)
Solution:Better teacher training
(new and old)
Fear (Safety)
MySpace would be the 15th most populous country in the world.
Solution:Education specific tools
BlogmeisterNovember Learning Communities
21Publish EduBlogs.org
Fear (of Change)
Solution:Small Steps(Read blogs)
Time
Solution:??????
Lack of Research
Solution:Research
Lack of Support
Solution:Easy ToolsHosting
So, what is the future of blogs?
Web Publishing is not going away
“We are at a turning point in the technology industry, and
perhaps even in the history of the world.”
–Tim O’Reilly (May 14, 2006)
"We do not realize how significant the Read-Write
internet could be." --Lawrence Lessig Author “Free Culture”
If you have access, you can take charge of your own learning.
Convergence of the tools
Audio Commenting“Hyperlinked Radio”
Personal Learning Environments(PLEs)
ElggMoodleOthers
Small Pieces Loosely Joined
Blogs might go away…
But in a world that is “ubiquitously connected and
pervasively proximate…”
…the idea behind blogs will not