homoLudens

I’m in Waltham, Mass., staying with Gail Pressberg, an old friend from American Friends Service Committee days. Sleep-deprived and internet access-struggling, I put some thoughts together that mght help me to appear as something other than fatally jet-lagged tomorrow. This is what is posted as the bloggerCon discussion prompt for the education panel tomorrow:

“Weblogs play an increasing role in education, from primary schools to scholarly research.

1. In what ways do weblogs provide new tools for teaching and learning?
   
2. Do they distract from other tasks?
   
3. What has worked and what has failed with weblogs so far?”

There are so many answers to #1, we’d need a week to note and describe them. I made a short list based on my own use. My own use is limited. Lots and lots of teachers are pioneering blog use in teaching and learning. See eBN for just one aggregation of such folks.

As for #2, yes, using blogs can be distracting. Using any tech in a struggling public school can be distracting. This is a function of infrastructure, training, and support. Luckily, I’ve survived the distractions and stumbled into confidence about how “digital paper” can be used for teaching and learning. It’s worth noting how I survived. I started school-related blogging at a site that had infrastructure problems. As a librarian, I had unique control over my daily work schedule and was able to hustle up the infrastructure. (BTW, at my new school, Galileo Academy of Technology and Science, I’ve entered digital heaven. Minh Ly, our server admin, keeps a good network running smoothly.)  For training, I’ve been able to rely on the Bay Area Writing Project, founding site of the National Writing Project. BAWP has supported me with release time, tuition for the fantastic Ken Dow weblog trainings that got me feeling slightly confident about all this years ago, and most importantly, with a model for working respectfully and effectively with my partner teachers. For support, I’ve had Manila server admin Erin Clerico and weblog design manager Bryan Bell from the Kern County Superintendent of Schools office. I need another panel discussion to do justice to this collaborative team. It is, I think, unusual: a teacher, a programmer, and a designer able to talk to each other regularly about how to use a tech tool for the benefit of students. And to like each other while doing it! At least, most of the time. Without them, I’d still be wondering about studying a Dreamweaver manual at some never-arriving future date.

#3. Everything has worked for me so far. But I keep wondering where other teachers - the hardworking, ill-supported, tech-interested but time-contrained mass of public school educators - are going to get the infrastructure, training and support that I lucked into.

It can be done. There is an educational “commons” that extends beyond the walls of struggling urban and rural classrooms. It includes public libraries, museums, governmental offices, some better off suburban schools with fellow travellers on their staffs, well-endowed and budget-strapped university projects and programs and departments, non-profits and community-minded for-profits, national advocacy and professional organizations, parents. This commons could make “digital paper” accessible for all teachers and all students if it recognized, honored and acted (with talent, time and money) to extend the decentralized, democratic, grassroots, and disruptive nature of weblogging into our schools. (See The Case for Digital Paper II for one incomplete action scenario.)