Lost Johns: In Response To: Teachers Not Blogging (Says Me)

Yesterday I highlighted an article in EDTECH magazine by David Warlick and today I came across a blog post by Will Richardson about David’s article. Will’s post sparked the neurons in my somewhat limited cerebral cortex and I found myself asking the following, “What is educational blogging?” Will clarified this for me with the following points:

“Blogs are powerful communication tools. Blogs are powerful publishing tools. But blogging (the verb) is still much more... Blogging, as in reading and thinking and reflecting and then writing, is connecting and learning, neither of which are discussed in the article.”

I don’t think David meant to overlook the importance of blogging as a learning tool in his article, but he did. However, In David’s defense, the purpose of his article wasn’t to promote educational blogging as a learning tool, it was to promote safe and responsible blogging practices in our schools.

Nevertheless, Will’s ending premise makes a powerful point for educational bloggers. Will contends,

“I’m just asking the question: how are…teachers modeling the use of blogs to learn not just to teach?”

After thinking about Will’s question, I reflected on the way I am using my class blog and I found it to be lacking. I’d like to sit back and make excuses about being newbie, but I won’t. Instead, I am looking and will continue to look for ways to improve the class blog for my students. For example, I plan on making blogging more efficient for my students by setting higher standards for feeling, thinking, and writing. Blogging is more than just a platform for teaching. Blogging is a platform for learning. Hence, we have to move beyond posting, journaling, and begin blogging. Like Will, I too expect more…