So my Feedster search feed for “classroom weblogs” kicked out a few interesting reviews/reactions to the story yesterday. Here are a few snippets…
From editorsweblog.org:
Not directly related to the newspapers industry but a trend which will have effects on our future readers: the New York Times reports that “webblogs will eventually become a more successful teaching tool than Web sites…
Yeah, you know, we talk a lot about blogs and writing but not much about blogs and reading. Reading starts the whole process, and more of our students are going to end up reading blogs on their own than writing blogs on their own, most likely. Someone must be blogging or writing about reading Weblogs…
And Furd Log picked up on something I just noticed a couple of minutes ago:
Of course, in classic NY Times style, they screw up the name – “web blogs,” indeed!
Ouch! Web Blogs! Now if they could just get together with Wired on that capitalization thing…
Here’s a comment at Talkleft that’s kind of interesting, though I think he/she meant wary…
I’d be very weary if teachers actually encouraged students to use blogs as credible sources. Mainly because they are mostly OP/ED and rarely base their presupositions on facts. Let’s not be too hasty and making our wonderful university and public libraries obsolete.
Followed of course by the Alan Levine Award winner:
Teachers should forget using blogs, TV, movies, as “educational tools” and get to work teaching the young how to read and write. Books. Laziness is what impels most “teachers” to use the simple-minded approach.
Ai Carumba.
Another thing I think the NY Times article misses is how I think a blog cannot be a viable tool in the classroom until each student has access to their own computer in the classroom. And I don’t mean sharing four or five computers in the classroom or going to the computer lab once a week (if you’re lucky). We would never expect students to share four or five pencils or writing notebooks.