EduBlog Insights

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This is so neat to break it down this way. I have come back to this chart several times and it really gets me thinking.

OK, as I go over the chart, I see that my kids have done all of this, although much of it has been verbally during our discussion times. We never have as much time as we need to do the actual writing.

This is an important area that we need to start talking about more when telling about our projects with students. It really is hard to sift out just how the tool adds to the learning, but it does. I’m going to think hard on this aspect. The setup just lends itself to ways to expand their thinking. Categories, comments and reflections, comparing, analyzing…..) 

We need to start looking carefully at how the features of the weblog coincide with our learning objectives and start having more discussion in this area.

I’ve used Bloom’s with my kids before when studying current events and had them think about their learning and had them use some of the related Bloom’s vocabulary rather than just 5 W type questions. (relate, recall, interpret, contrast, develop, organize,examine, infer, predict, elaborate, imagine, judge, evaluate, etc.) They can do it! They just need some teaching and relevant discussion and lots of examples. 

 I think I need to have the kids use our Bloom’s Quick Flip books and start discussing this some more. Gosh, I’m already got more on our plates than we can possibly finish by the end of the school year.  So much to do, so little time! But weblogs are such a great way to “bloom” critical thinkers!

P.S. - If you don’t have the Quick Flip Questions for Critical Thinking check it out at Edupress. Every teacher needs one on his/her desk!

This is lengthy, but I know many of you don’t have access to The Chronicle Review and this article will be of interest to you.

Jefferey Cole’s article, “Now is the Time to Start Studying the Intenet Age”, published in The Chronicle Review is so timely.

He directs the Center for Communication Policy at the University of Calfornia in Los Angeles and began a panel study of 2,000 Americans, returning to the same people year after year. His subjects are a national, representative sample. The study looks at the effects of the Internet as nonusers go online, as modem users become broadband users, and as some users (about 3%) give up the Internet. After only 4 years, they have collected irreplaceable data on how people use the Internet, its effects on their online and offline lives, and who does not use the Internet and why. They have even expanded this project to study people in more than 20 countries.

The article states these emerging facts:

• The Internet is an important part of most Americans’ lives. Over 70% use the Internet at least once a month, and the average user is online for nearly 12 hours a week. The digital divide is closing. Latinos and African-Americans are the fastest growing population of users. Only 4% more men than women use the Intenet.

• For users, the Internet is now the most important source of information. The Net is the first place users go for information for just about any type of question. The “always on” function of broadband has increased this trend because of ease of use. However, the Internet still trails television as a source of entertainment.

• Users watch less television than do nonusers. In 2002, Interent users began to report spending less time with newspapers and magazine, about 45 to 60 minutes a week less than nonusers. Some users are spending more time with online newspapers. So far, about the same amount of time per week by users and non-users is spent with books.

• Intenet users have healthy social lives. This is the opposite of what was originally predicted. Internet users get about an hour a week less sleep than nonusers do, but they engage in about 30 minutes more of physical activity. This may be becasue they are a few years younger. Users also spend more time in person with friends than do nonusers and report slightly lower levels of depression, alienation, and loneliness.

• Use of the Internet increases productivity. This doesn’t mean they spend less time working though. Users are finding the line between work and home increasingly blurry. Many users report working more and harder than ever before, including late at night or on holidays when they are at home. E-mail is one of the most appealing elements of the Internet and the single biggest reason people go online in the first place, but it is becoming an enormous burden to many.

• E-commerce is becoming more common. This had a slow start but is now expanding rapidly. Users like the wide selection and 24 hour availability. Users reluctance to pay for digital content is also beginning to ebb. However, both purchasers and non-purchasers have great concerns about online security and privacy.

• More Americans will go online. In 10 years, 80-85% of Americans will have Internet access, matching the percentage of the Swedes, Finns, and South Koreans predicted to be online at that point. The rest of the industrialized world - Japan, Britain, and Germany, for example - will probably be under 75%. But it may well take 25 years before 90% of Americans are Internet users.

• Wireless connections will become standard. By 2014 the notion of an Internet connection permanently anchored in one spot will become archaic. Users will expect the Internet to be everywher - garage, backyard, work, school, car, etc.

• Education will make greater use of the Internet. The Internet’s impact on how we learn, both formally and informally, has been minimal and limited to the periphery of education. Over the next 10 years, as children who grew up with the Internet become teachers and administrators, they will begin to apply the Intenet to the foundations of learning.

• Entertainment will not dominate the Internet. Television’s communal viewing and network programming that reaches all demographic groups in the nation makes it a better mediuf for entertainment. The real future of the Internet is information.

• It will become hard to do some tasks offline. In 2014 most Americans will use the Internet to send letters, file tax returns, pay bills, etc. People who resist this will find it increasingly difficult and expensive to avoid doing so.

The author sums up saying that it is easy to see how changes in communication, buying, searching for information will occur. It is clear how technology is creating a major transition in how political campaigns are waged and financed, in how crime occurs, and in the development of children raised with the Internet and e-mail. But less clear, but much more important, is technology’s long-range impact on creativity, national and individual self-concepts, and the quality of personal relationships. Finally, he says that the greatest changes will not be the obvious ones, but the subtle and unexpected shifts that we can understand only through longitudinall, scientific research. That’s why it is so important for researchers to begin work on the Internet now.

This study really caught my attention in so many ways! First, I want to be around down the road to see all these exciting changes! It’s mind-boggling how much has changed in the last 20 years and just think what is ahead for us! Then in education we are so slow to take hold of these changes - oh, the frustration!

The fact on educaton - Education will make greater use of the Internet - that pointed out how its impact on how we learn, both formally and informally, has been minimal and limited to the periphery of education is discouraging yet I am encouraged that many of us are exploring possibilities with weblogs that focus on the learning of both the student and teacher. This is where I wish I knew much more about research and how to go about recording it so it will be useful. I hope our weblog records of our journeys will help. Just think, we never had a way to provide our records before to so many. We didn’t have a way to bounce our ideas and thoughts off to each other. We didn’t have a way to just quickly send out our thoughts and get reactions back. We didn’t have a way to peek in classrooms and see what others are doing who are from all over the world.

We’re sharing, learning, and recording but, in a way, it’s all so half-hazard. There is much to sift through. I think there is probably much we are missing (that we should be recording) but at the same time we are contributing by taking the time to record our actions, thoughts, plans, etc. I envy those who can take all these pieces and put it together in a form that let’s us build on what we are doing and continue to grow. I’m going to start thinking more on what areas weblogs could be used to keep records of learning, both formal and informal. Let’s encourage others to do more of this.

The author’s last point on the subtle and unexpected shifts that will occur is what I want to be around to see. I can’t help but think that weblogs in education are right in the midst of some of the good changes that will occur in education.  Yep, I want to see those changes but why or why won’t education move a little faster!

via <KairoNews>

The libraries at the University of Minnesota have gone live with UThink, a big blogging initiative. They are using Movable Type and making blogs available to students, faculty, and staff. Shane Nackerud is the librarian who is leading this initiative. They have a page listing the guidelines, how to get started, info about the service, how to use Movable Type, templates, and a blog directory which at this time contains about 40 blogs!  I’ve got to send this link over to the folks at Pullen, our library here at GSU! I had posted here  about our library blogs a little while back. I’m sure they will be interested in knowing about this.

The University of Minnesota is taking the lead in bringing blogs to the university!  I will be following it with great interest!