In his book "Blogs, Wikis and Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms", Will Richardson suggests that blogs are ideal tools that use collabortaion, reflection and conversations to:
1. Promote critical and analytical thinking.
2. Promote creative, intuitive and associational thinking.
3. Promote analogical thinking.
4. Increase access and exposure to quality information.
5. Combine the best of solitary reflection and social interaction.
On reading this, I thought about some of the the values and approaches that Dr. Norton has been teaching to us on the GMU ITS course. These have focused around a number of key concepts, including:
Search, Sort, Create, Communicate -
Problem solvers, Information users, Community, Knowledge, Literate - both of which encourages students to be good handlers of information, good problem solvers and creators of ways to communicate with others.
To me, this would suggest that the use of blogs would make an ideal tool to use within the ITS program to help teach these skills. However, it is clear from Richardson's book that it is important for people to select their activities using blogs very carefully, for although blogging can take a variety of forms, only a few are really effective in the classroom. These would take the following form:
Simple blogging:
1. links with analysis that gets into the meaning of the content.
2. Reflective, metacognitive writing on practice without links.
True blogging:
1. Links with analysis and synthesis that articulates a deeper understanding or relationship to content being linked and written with potential audience response in mind.
2. Extended analysis and synthesis over a longer period of time that builds on previous posts, links and comments.
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I agree with you that the effective use of blogs requires SSCC and PICKL and they exemplify a medium that encourages students and teachers to think and create together.
ReplyDeleteI am also reminded of the concept that I think Alvin Toffler described in Revolutionary Wealth. He compared and contrasted the industrial and knowledge economies. In the first wealth is created by isolating the materials of that age, land, water, gold, iron, people, etc. The knowledge based economy wealth is created by the creation of knowledge, which happens best when it is shared, and then built upon in a iterative process of refinement and discovery.
I think that Toffler would say that when students use blogs, wikis, or any other collaborative tool to share and use information that they have become generators of wealth for the state, nation and world. This makes a student’s contributions just as valuable as the teachers or experts as long as it is used to build up and share the knowledge. That changes the role of students in society from passive onlookers or resource hogs to generators. That’s pretty cool to me and I think if students knew their own impact they would think it cool as well.
Matt, I like how you tied this in to the theory of our readings and research. I also think it is a powerful tool when considering Daniel Pink's "A Whole New Mind". Students are designers and the content of the blogs a great symphony.
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