Voice of One in the Crowd
This week’s topic in ETEC 565 is blogging and the wisdom of the crowd. I reflected, read and came across a wealth of voices in the crowd, each one sharing something important about the topic of blogging in educational settings.
Here is my response:
I came across this blog post in my wanderings and had to bring it into this discussion.
I have read material from Will Richardson in the past but think that I will put this one on my RSS feed (now that I have one).
This particular blog post, although done in 2004, is very relevant to our discourse here.
http://weblogg-ed.com/2004/04/13/.
The focus of the conversation was on the ultimate purpose and passion that true bloggers and blogging require. Unless there is that burning need to express a thought, opinion, idea or concept, the blog and blogger are doomed to failure. Will quotes Stephen Downes when he asks the question – Where is the locus of blogging? is it with the students or is it with the teacher?
For our case study this week, I would say the locus of blogging is with the teacher creating a contrived circumstance to provide a means for students to write in a public forum for the sake of sharing their choices publicly. For many of the other educational blogs listed in the ‘Links to School Bloggers’, again, it is contrived for the sake of the exercise. Once the exercise is over, the blog is dropped.
To be true to the nature of blogging, it needs to become a passionate endeavour of sustained energy with depth and breadth to the topic of discourse. Would my personal blog fit into that category? Probably not. Maybe not yet. Will my words echo in the blogospher with the likes of
Will Richardson, (http://weblogg-ed.com/);
Stephen Downes (http://www.downes.ca/news/OLDaily.htm);
Seth Godin (http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/)
Steve Hargadon (http://www.stevehargadon.com/) or even
Chris Kennedy (http://cultureofyes.ca/)?
Probably not. But that doesn’t mean my words shouldn’t be publicly published with passion and penache! (try that one 3 times quickly 🙂
That can also be said for our students. Those who feel strongly about a topic or interest. That’s where they pick up the pen and begin to write. As found in the Downes article “Writers will write because they can’t not write.” (Bloggers will blog because they can’t not blog.) Their voice will shout out through their words and, like the ones from the ‘fish bowl’ be celebrated for their contribution. The marks and grades, at that point, would be a secondary consideration.
Another great posting about educational blogging also comes from Will Richardson (http://www.infotoday.com/MMSchools/jan04/richardson.shtml)
What we’re doing when we blog written by Meg Hourihan is another interesting link to review – published through the O’Reily Web Development Center (http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/javascript/2002/06/13/megnut.html).
So the voice of one can make a difference in the crowd. It’s linking those voices together that leads you to the ones you want to listen to, and that will lead to my next post – It’s All About the Tags!