(via CyberJournalist.net)
Aggregation is having and will continue to have some major effects on
the Web, and one of them I’ve been thinking about lately is the decline
of the homepage. I mean I can probably count on two hands that number
of sites I’ve actually visited in the last week, all because of they
way I can aggregate the content in Bloglines.
An article in Digital Web Magazine does a great job of deconstructing
the effects of aggregation from a user and content provider
standpoint. For instance:
Aggregators are promoting a shift in the control of content. They’re
challenging the idea that we as designers control public access to
information in our domains, that users must view things in the way we
prescribe, and that our hierarchy is best to present our content. This
change is also suggesting that we need the help of others to market our
own ideas. It is plausible that another’s approach to our information
may be working better than our own.
I
still see a lot of people talking about teachers creating their own
homepages to put up course information or homwork, and I wonder why
would they do that these days? Why wouldn’t they just start a blog with
an out of the box template that will satisfy the few people who might
actually visit the site but has the built-in RSS feed to push the
important content to the relevant audiences? These days, it’s the
information, stupid. I’m much more interested in how many people read
my feed than visit my page.
Weblogs are a tool that I think bridges the divide between Prensky’s digital natives and digital immigrants,
’cause the immigrants can put a blog to good use without a lot of
expertise. I think we’re at the point where teaching them HTML and FTP
and all those other acronyms doesn’t do much to add to the fluency they
need to put the read/write Web to work.
I think that one reason schools might object is that the content
(assignments, etc.) is proprietary information. Might seem quaint
in today’s world, but a private school for which students pay $20,000+
is not likely to want a blog/RSS feed that anyone can access to become
the primary way for teachers to contact studdents.
I don’t think this has been an issue in public schools, in fact, I’ve been
pretty impressed by the willingness of teachers to share their ideas
and plans and handouts. It’s too bad that private schools wouldn’t be
willing to take advantage of the collective efforts and ideas of other
teachers. Also, Manila, the weblog software we use, has password
protected sites and RSS feeds, so you can limit the number of people
who can access them anyway. With private school parents even more
interested in what their schools are doing, it seems like it would be a
great opportunity to improve communications.
I started teaching educators to create web pages in 1995. Since then my
experience has been that for any 10 teachers that I have introduced to
HTML, Dreamweaver (or other editor), CSS, Telnet, FTP, image formats,
compression, file management, etc. two years after the fact only 2-3 are still actively
posting content.
For a while now I have been advocating the use of some manner of
content management system (CMS), be it blog or otherwise, as a far more
efficient method for the average teacher to regularly update
information.
A blog may not meet the needs in all situations, such as a complete
online course, but being able to comment and carry on a conversation is
an attractive option.
While I do think that RSS and aggregators are great tools, the average
teacher (if there exists such an individual) is not taking full
advantge of them, at least not in my neck of the woods.
It is clear that RSS is having a profound effect on the manner in which
more savvy users are accessing content. How relevent it will end up
being for educators remains to be seen.
There is a compromise between html/FTP based classroom web sites and blogs that provide benefits of both. Solutions such as those offered by School Center allow educators to create an entire site using templates (for design) and entry screens (for adding and editing content) without knowing any html or needing to use software such as Dreamweaver.
There are several advantages to using a solution like this. Teacher’s classroom web sites will be similar, allowing parents to navigate various teacher’s sites without getting “lost.” Templates for calendars, assignments, forms (in PDF format), discussions, online quizes, photo albums, etc. make it easy for the teachers to provide information without a lot of work. In our district teachers even post grades to their web site using Easy Grade Pro.
School Center even provides an option (quite simplistic) for blogs. We use this option to try and get teachers “blogging” and then provide better options (we host Word Press on our district server) for them as they outgrow it.
Another signpost- Digital Immigrant blogs bear default templates 😉