Quote: “Given past patterns where technologies like portals, personalization etc. have found their way from the public Internet to mainstream enterprise use after 3 years or so, I figure blogs
have about 12-18 months to go. Here’s a preview on what I think is coming-and why.” Joe Katzman (via David)
I found this presentation (.pdf format) really interesting, probably because I’m getting more and more interested in this idea of Web logs building what he calls “Communities of Practice.” There is so much good stuff going on in our classrooms that is just waiting to be shared…it needs to be published. In fact, if you want to make teaching better, it requires publication. I keep reading all these Web logs with such amazement because I LEARN SO MUCH from them. Pat and Joe and Seb and Sarah and countless others inform my teaching and my practice every day. They push my thinking, in some ways demand that I articulate that thinking, and in some way it all translates. Why shouldn’t we be doing that for each other here at my school, or among many schools?
That question I asked about teachers being more afraid than kids to “publish” their work has been tumbling around in my head for the past couple of days and it just keeps making more sense. Teenagers are the digital gurus in our school. In my media class yesterday, one group produced a video commercial that was worthy of any 2 a.m. major channel time slot. Another cranked out a rap CD that was “produced” in ways that boggle my mind. (I went to both groups after class and told them they need to show me how they did those things.) But this happens all the time, students teaching their teachers. Now, we come along and ask those teachers to follow their students to foreign turf, and it’s no wonder they balk.
But why not sell Web logs as the pretty painless way to enter the next phase, where publishing is king?
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