Reflections on blogging…in a blog

…how convenient is that?
Contrary to my previous post, today’s installment will not look into any government bedding conspiracy. Instead, I’ll be reflecting on a reading taken from Will Richardson’s “Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms.”

Fist of all, I’d like to compliment wordpress.com for including the word “blog”in the site spell check dictionary. It’s ironic that most blog-creation sites don’t include “blog” as a legitimate word…but I digress.

Richardson’s textbook provides a quick and easy overview of some of the more common web-related publishing tools of today. Geared toward “digital immigrants” (a term from fellow digital educator Marc Prensky), Richardson’s book breaks down the seemingly complicated web world into easy-to-understand layman’s terms for the aging community of elementary, middle, and secondary educators. What I found most impressive about the book (thus far) was Richardson’s ability to cut out most of the unnecessary techno jargon prevalent in similar works, and explain the nuts and bolts of using the internet as a powerful teaching tool.

At 24 years old, I feel caught between the “digital native” and the “digital immigrant” identities. True, I grew up using computers and have extensive experience with the internet; however, there are thousands of net intricacies, tools, and jargon that remain out of my grasp, even though they’ve become second nature to most preteens. I’ve used a number of blogs and social networking tools, but I never keep them up for more than a couple of months; I do a lot of my personal banking and shopping online, but I still send paper checks in many cases; I can locate and navigate any given website, but I can’t build one to save my life. This book, while not introducing me to many new tools, per se, does provide a number of new ways to use them in the classroom. I was particularly interested in Richardson’s discussion on weblogs as personal online filing cabinets, e-portfolios, and class collaborative spaces. I had never really examined weblogs outside of their basic write/read/comment functionality, so this was an interesting notion to employ in the classroom.

Similarly, I like that the book includes a number of ways of getting the support and involvement of parents in the use of the internet in the classroom. Thankfully, as we learn and grow as a society, many “digital immigrants” are being replaced by “digital natives,” meaning that the concerned parents of a generation ago are being replaced by more willing and understaning web-conscious parents. While getting support from 100% of your parents is rare, providing specific information on how you will utilize the tools of the web, how effective they can be in the classroom, and how children can be kept safe online will certainly quell many parental fears.

I personally feel that most literature that focuses on children and the internet is unnecessarily saturated with warnings and cautionary tales of misuse of the medium. In a way, I appreciate that Mr. Richardson waits until he has sufficiently praised the usefulness of the web as a tool for education before discussing these inherent risks. While I don’t mean to imply that these warnings are in any way unnecessary, I believe that it is detrimental to the image of the web as a positive tool (especially to those “digital immigrants” whose primary educational resource on the matter is the porn- and molestation-obsessed media). Through group discussion, one-on-one interaction, parental involvement, and clear restrictions and expectations, Richardson’s book takes a unique approach to keeping kids safe on the internet while still keeping as much of the net within reach as possible.

I’ve only read the opening chapters of the book, but I’ve already learned a number of useful techniques for introducing the tools of the internet to the classroom. I don’t have much experience with RSS or building Wikis, but I’m very interested in those upcoming chapters in the book – especially because Richardson has named RSS “The New Killer App for Educators,” meaning that Richardson believes it will be a necessary and groundbreaking new tool for teachers…interesting. More to come…