EduBlog Insights

and 20 secondary schools entered the final round of this competition

where their blogs were evaluated in terms of the depth and clarity of

thought as well as the creativity of presentation by a panel.

Some 18,00 unique votes were cast by online readers for the school blogs.

perspectives of the student bloggers on a myriad of issues.” It was jointly organized by the Education Ministry and Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel), the country’s biggest player in the telecoms market.

we blog, we write to a real audience, to someone out there who might be

reading and, most importantly, responding to our blogs.  Through this we learn new ideas, gain new perspectives, and learn to appreciate alternative views.”

hope our participants have also learnt that because we are writing to a

real audience, what we say has a real impact. We have to be sensitive

Victoria Junior College and Nanyang Girls’ High School emerged as the champions. The school blogs can be read at Campus MoBlog.

Take some time and read through some of these blogs. These students are

really blogging their  thinking and there are many intriguing reads. I will

be back to these blogs to read some more.

written by one of the high school students. (You’ll need to scroll down

Yesterday was a good day because I began the “blog project” journey at

a local high school. I met with

Dawn Tincher. She is the instructional technology specialist at

Rockdale High School. We networked last year and when she heard I was

looking for another project we began to talk. She’s a motivated, caring

teacher who became interested in blogging after seeing what had been

done at J.H. House. Rockdale is the high school that the kids from J.

H.

House end up attending. I look forward to running across some of my

past students while I’m there this year. I begin something new for me

this year - blogging with high school students! I’m looking forward to

it! Wish me luck and a lot of learning!

Dawn and I spent the morning brainstorming projects. This is what we

have tentatively set up. I’ll start off working with two groups. One

group is a special education group - a mixture of students considered

at risk. We visited the teacher and she was interested in the project.

I had a few minutes to meet her, explain blogs briefly, and listen to

Dawn talk to her. She is a willing participant and wants to learn! She

teaches the group English. I suggested that we start off with

discussing school reform since that is an important topic now in high

schools.

I want to get the kids writing about what they think, suggestions they

may have, etc.  Next week I’ll introduce them to blogs, go over

guidelines, get a feel for the group and go from there. This setting up

will take a while because everyone around me is new to this. Dawn

recognizes the value of blogging and wants to learn more about

it.  Dawn is going

to be with me and will guide me through the high school experience..

Now teaching high school is going to be new for me. Those that know me

know that most of my experience is at the elementary level. I’ve

tutored some high school students before but not taught them in a

classroom setting. Do you know that when I did a search for student

blogs (at schools) I could find very little, so point me to them if they

exist.

The other group is a ‘Teacher Cadet’ group. They have a wonderful

teacher who was intrigued at  having them blog about their learning experiences.

This program introduces the students to the teaching profession. Then

they are assigned to various schools for further work.

Next week I will have my first meeting with the groups. I plan to give

them an overview, go over guidelines, show them some blogs and have

them comment, etc. I’m in the planning stage so any suggestions,

especially from those of you at the high school level, will be much

appreciated!

think about much else other than the tragedy that has unfolded in the

wake of Hurricane Katrina. I’ve just been following the blogs. I put my

trust in the many blogs that are from every day citizens. I look on all

the evolving ones from the media with some skepticism. Many of those

are informational only from that media’s perspective. Usually comment

features are not included. We need give and take, back and forth

communications so we can develop relationships that work better than

the top down mentality we currently have. I am weary of rhetoric from

our political parties. I wonder if events like these will be the

catalyst to help us understand how stories from many can help us

develop the wisdom to trust and begin to understand that we must

change. To me, it is not a question of whether bloggers are

journalists. Somehow that is not relevant. Maybe this can be the

toppling of how we look at journalism, if that is what we want to call

it. I like to think of it as communications from the people -

authentic, real and a phenomenon that we are just beginning to

understand.  Will it be heeded? Will we start to trust and respect

the building communities? We need more from the people. The voices need

to be heard.  We need much more from our current administration.

We need more voices from our educators. We need to get our student

voices in the mix. Sometimes I feel real hope but I have to say at the

same time I feel fear that we won’t learn from all this. There is so

much to sift through and it is really hard to know and understand what

is true and what is not.  This post, “Rambling About Katrina” offers more food for thought….

One of the recurring themes that’s been going around and that’s been intensified by the Hurricane Katrina coverage is

the concept of citizen journalism.

This is the idea that regular folks (*gasp*) can inform the public

debate and populate the shared information space by using blogs, photos

and other forms of digital media (including audio and video).

Before the Web, citizen journalism existed, but was largely the stuff

of newsletters,  grassroots advocacy action alerts and letters

to the editor.  Big media
incorporated it, but mostly as a supplement to regular coverage –”man on the street” interviews, call-in shows, and the like.

The emergence of the Web, with its lower technological and economic barriers to entry, has turned the traditional content model upside-down. (Or at least sideways.)

Now, it can be tempting to dive into the metaphor of the big old-media dinosaur fighting a losing battle against the small, fast new-media mammal…though

I think it’s a pretty safe bet that the future lies in some sort of

convergence between the two, with big media adapting by bringing to

bear its ability to bring in eyeballs and advertising dollars.

Anyway, because there are so many individual voices involved, one of the main challenges with citizen journalism is figuring out how to

get particular voices heard; at one end of the spectrum is a centralized, top-down model,

where a traditional media presence acts like an editorial filter to

direct the conversation and to focus people’s attention on a particular

item.

At the other end is a kind of controlled chaos,

where there’s no distinct centralized authority, when people rely on

technology and a shared set of norms to self-regulate what goes in and

what rises to the top.

Keep in mind, no matter

where you go on the spectrum, we rely heavily on technology to help

filter the noise, pick out nodes of interest, spot trends and all that

good stuff.

Now, at the risk of getting too attached to

a particular metaphor, think of a football stadium full of people: If you step back and try to take it all in, most of the time you get a dull roar.

However, if you have the right tools, you can zoom in to hear what a

particular group, or maybe even an individual, is saying. Also, every

once in a while, a synchronized chant will spontaneously self-organize. Sometimes, there’s a marching band. And every once in a while, a streaker will run out onto the field. (Let’s ignore the riots for now.)

Okay, that’s a silly metaphor — I’ll leave you to think about which part means what (I’m not quite sure myself).

What does all this mean? For now, it

means keeping track of efforts ‘both big and small’ to harness the power

of thousands and millions of voices on the Web.

I’m all for the kind of controlled chaos. I’m thinking back to my brain

studies and how we learn - out of chaos comes order. It’s also thinking

I’m going to keep on keeping track of efforts, both big and small and

feel hope that all these voices will make a difference. Ours

Many thanks to you all for your emails and comments inquiring about my

safety after Katrina. We stayed in our house through the storm and got

through it with nothing more than a blown out rear window on the car.

We have no electricity or water, but we are fine. We have food and can

haul water from the college where I work. Things are getting better

every day.

I had to drive 30 miles to get internet, so it will

be awhile before I post again, I’m afraid. I just wanted to let you

Diana’s Weblog

Jason’s Jumping Jukebox

Derrick’s Documents

Graceila’sBuzzin’ Weblog

Marisela’s Library of Knowledge

Angel the King of Computers

The Jose-Juan Journal

Zachary’s Weblog