So says Joanne Jacobs in her essay “The Knowledge Tree Goes Social” which I listened to in podcast form on my drive up to Newport, RI today. (I’m speaking at EdAccess tomorrow morning.) She cites the blog search engine Sphere as the source though I couldn’t replicate the result. Regardless…
69,000.
Whoa.
Not to sound like an old blog fart, but if true, that’s an amazing number. I remember way back in 2001, I couldn’t find more than a handful of educators blogging on a regular basis. And I looked pretty hard (though I’ll admit that I missed Stephen Downes who had been edublogging longer than I.)
If true, that’s a pretty amazing number.
And food for thought.
This is getting serious…
I think that this number proves that blogging has become an effective techology over the years. Many educators continue to blog and sometimes involve their students in blogging. This technology can enhance learning among teachers and students if used effectively.
I doubt that blogging will be able to affect education process; this is just another technology that is mostly used to exchange some news and ideas. In my opinion until the basics of the education remain the same the blogging will assist in education but it will not affect it.
I disagree with Bestessaytips. Technology has frequently driven social change. The key is dissemination. Web 1.0 changed the way people buy things and find information; Web 2.0 will change the way we CREATE and UTILIZE information. This will require that teachers (and parents) realize that society is changing, and the models from their childhood are no longer the best way for these students to learn today. That’s where the challenge is. We need to tell the stories AND we need to provide the data.
Blogs are here to stay and the fact that over 69,000 educators are blogging is evidence enough. Teachers need to incorporate this technology or others like it in order to keep up with society. We need to give every advantage to our students we can.
i think the number points out how saturated the market is becoming. i was in a debate recently where another blogger was hoping to see people publish research on their blogs as a way to circumvent scholarly journals (referred to as snobish).
who has time to read even 1% of the number of blogs you cite? none of us do. i subscribe to a lot of blogs, but i really end up just skimming the titles when deciding which ones to read on any given day if i check on that day. most posts made in the blogs i watch are missed by me, so trying to use a blog for anything depending on a wide audience is growing more and more difficult for the average blogger.
blogs have a place in education, but they can’t be counted on to bring about the kind of change that some folks hope. elite blogs will emerge as another source of information to supplement existing sources, but the masses won’t crack this shell.
I also have to disagree with Bestessaytips. Blogs may be another tool, but the underlying activity of blogs, wikis, folksonomy and the Social Web generally is making our education managers sit up and frown at the way it can potentially democratise teaching and learning! Perhaps it hasn’t yet reached a critical mass where this is unavoidable by our managers, but there will come a time!
We are to run an inhouse forum at our institution on the Social Web, and I’m very aware that we attempt to illustrate the philosophies underpinning the social web. It’s focus on the user, it’s levelling the playing field between teachers and learners, and its potential to break open the closed institutions in which we are constrained to ‘learn’. Yes, its more than just blogs.
It’s more than just another tool – but we can start there and grow into the philosophy, the more we learn about it. Good teachers and capable learners will probably not see so much of a difference, but for others it may be a leap of faith! It is not so much about changing what we do, more its about being effective and not stagnating in the information quagmire.
🙂
Hi, I am taking a class at Buffalo State College and my eyes were opened about blogging, wikis and podcasts. The book is great and such a help. I really would like to use this in the future and it really is so addicting. Technology is so great and now I know so much more. I am very excited and I hope I receive an A. My Professor is so fun and I enjoyed the class very much and enjoyed working with computers every day.
I am very encouraged by some of these comments. As I have often said in my blog, we have to change the delivery of education, if these new tools are to be effective.