So a number of different threads are congealing in my tired brain regarding writing and blogging and why we do all of this stuff. The post that finally led me to try to get this down was Bud’s Brain Dump on NCTE where he quotes council president Kathleen Blake Yancey as saying this:
If you are writing for the screen, you are writing for the network.
Oh. Yeah. How nice that is to hear, isn’t it? Not “global audience,” but “network”. And as Bud unpacks his conference experience, you get the sense that this whole blogging thing may finally, finally, finally be 
tipping over the edge in terms not just of a tool to publish but of a tool to connect.
And that is a crucial distinction, I think. Yes, we write to communicate. But now that we are writing in hypertext, in social spaces, in “networked publics,” there’s a whole ‘nother side of it. For as much as I am writing this right now to articulate my thoughts clearly and cogently to anyone who chooses to read it, what I am also attempting to do is connect these ideas to others’ ideas, both in support and in opposition, around this topic. Without rehashing all of those posts about Donald Murray and Jay David Bolter, I’m trying to engage you in some way other than just a nod of the head or a sigh of exasperation. I’m trying to connect you to other ideas, other minds. I want a conversation, and that changes the way I write. And it changes the way we think about teaching writing. This is not simply about publishing, about taking what we did on paper and throwing it up on a blog and patting ourselves on the back.
This after-the-publishing part is difficult because we are forced to attempt to do it in filtered, restricted, contrived spaces for learning, spaces that are not conducive to this type of writing or learning. Barbara Ganley (who was featured last week in the Times as a “slow blogger”) is consdering this as well.
As a college teacher, I thought I was all about collaborative learning, about students taking responsibility for their learning and their lives–together–but how can you do that within an artificial environment? Within a closed environment?…Teaching and collaborating and learning and working inside an academic institution have absolutely nothing to do with how to do those things out in the world.
And I continue to wonder if the two are even possible to combine. Those of us who write to connect and who live our learning lives in these spaces feel the dissonance all the time. We go where we want, identify our own teachers, find what we need, share as much as we can, engage in dialogue, direct our own learning as it meets our needs and desires. That does not feel like what’s happening to my own children or most others in the “system.”
Barbara’s post is worth reading not just for her own reflections but for the connections she creates in the writing process. She took me to Scott Leslie, whose post “planning to share versus just sharing” is as one of the commentors called it, “another doozy.” Scott writes about how frustrating this dissonance is, how difficult institutions make it from a tradition and culture standpoint to make this kind of learning happen.
In all of this lies the tension of the world “out there,” outside the walls, this great unknown, or more likely, this great potential wrench in ointment to what we’ve been so darn good at doing for all of these years. I can’t tell you how many “why me?” looks I get from people who listen politely to my presentations but then probably want to go home and throw up. And I think it’s because they’re not writing for the network. They’re not connecting, seeing the value, feeling the network love. Scott nails it:
Now I contrast that with the learning networks which I inhabit, and in which every single day I share my learning and have knowledge and learning shared back with me. I know it works. I literally don’t think I could do my job any longer without it – the pace of change is too rapid, the number of developments I need to follow and master too great, and without my network I would drown. But I am not drowning, indeed I feel regularly that I am enjoying surfing these waves and glance over to see other surfers right there beside me, silly grins on all of our faces. So it feels to me like it’s working, like we ARE sharing, and thriving because of it.
Oh. Yeah.
(Photo “A fractal night on my street” by kevindooley.)
Being in the midst of trying to encourage, cajole, and at some level,coerce the professionals within the walls of my school to share their learning and knowledge even with each other and knowing the unbelievable resistance to that, I wonder how to convey to others what you and Scott Leslie both describe – the power of the learning networks that are accessible & incredibly valuable – if not crucial to continued professional growth and the creation of meaningful learning opportunities for our students. In a traditional educational system with professionals who are entrenched in their way of doing things – this is the biggest frustration I am facing! I would love to get some insight into this dilemma and how others are bringing about genuine change – not just the tiny steps we have been seeing. BTW, Will – teachers from my building and admin from the district had rave reviews of your keynote! (But then, I have been telling them how powerful a message you deliver!)
Thanks to all here for allowing me to sympathize and empathize with this “network” issue, since I deal with many of the same issues on a daily basis. As a high school teacher, I personally believe that each teacher in the building per term should be allowed a day to observe other teachers at work in the same building or beyond in order to ENCOURAGE this sharing of ideas, methods, approaches, etc. What a simple idea! We let most of our teachers-in-training and first-year teachers do this (i.e. “observe”), but why not every year?! I agree with those who’ve alluded to the sense of secrecy pervading many schools, and all I can ask is “WHY?!”
Tyler,
Why just once a year? I feel like I have a window into so many different classrooms thanks to the people in my PLN who blog, tweet, and discuss what is going on in different Ning networks. I cannot figure out why teachers turn their nose up at collaborating and learning from these types of environments. Maybe because it is intimidating to those uncomfortable with technology? I would like to think that all teachers are life-long learners and that they enjoy being exposed to new ideas that challenge them, but that is simply not true.
Will,
I only started building my PLN early in the summer, but it has made a dramatic impact on my career. I rely on my network for about 95% of my PD. I teach in western Nebraska where not too many educators are quick to embrace change, especially if those changes involve technology. I set up a Ning (Nebraska Educators Network) as a way to help teachers get their feet wet with networking. It is growing….slowly. I hope someday it helps connect teachers in my region to others who are blogging and using Twitter and other tools that will help weave us together. I am just a teacher and I do not have that much influence, but for now this is what I can do to fulfill my role as an agent of change.
Will wrote:
Oh. Yeah. How nice that is to hear, isn’t it? Not “global audience,†but “networkâ€. And as Bud unpacks his conference experience, you get the sense that this whole blogging thing may finally, finally, finally be tipping over the edge in terms not just of a tool to publish but of a tool to connect.
Great semantic distinction, Will and Bud—and one that is still lagging behind in the way that digital tools are being introduced to kids. The prevailing message around using blogs (even in my own classroom) is that digital forums provides students with a broad and inherently motivating audience.
A static audience isn’t why I read and write in the blogosphere. I read and write to be challenged—and that challenge doesn’t come from readers. Instead, it comes from participants who are willing to push my thinking.
And kids are inherently social creatures driven by connections and turned off by static anything!
Until we push connections over audience as the real benefit of digital writing, we’ll be missing out on meaningful change.
Thanks for pushing my thinking on the day before break…
Bill
In December of 2006 I wanted to quit teaching. I was so frustrated with the walls that kept defining my classroom while my mind soared beyond. Blogging has changed that forever. Now, it is becoming an integral part of how I survive knowing there are others in the network who think the way I do. Even though I still long to connect within my building with others on this level, knowing there is a presence of minds to support my thinking and continued learning puts me at ease. I’m still adjusting to the type of new professional relationship that develops in this space. It continues to be far more than any static, prepackaged, one-size-fits-all PD. Now, I hope someone in central office can get a taste. Soon.
“I share my learning and have knowledge and learning?”.. I understand the importance of networking in order to learn.. but what is it we are learning? I have been immersed in the web 2.0 movement for the past six years…. and have only learned about the more tools to use to network and “keep learning.†I still rely on traditional methods for investigation when researching complex issues. It is important that educators be careful not to place all their eggs in one basket. The irony of the “network” revolution is that complete access by all has relegated many forms of information to mere editorializing, thus limiting its validity in many arenas… so what is the knowledge being produced within these arenas, other that our self serving desire to “network†for we enjoy these “spaces?†over others?s.
Late to the party, but the “network” instead of “global audience” angle takes me back to the findings by Ito and boyd that teens don’t seem to give much of a flip, at their stage of psycho-social development, for “global” connections, but do give said flip for local ones.
To me, that pulls the focus of classroom blogging back to the local in interesting ways that have been borne out in my own experiments: instead of pushing for “global” responses, teachers should consider exploiting student preferences for feedback from their local peer-group (and that doesn’t have to be an exclusive either/or). It seems both easier to pull off, and more effective to boot: win/win.
On a larger scale, I’m curious to know about any “local” classroom blogging projects that have aimed to connect students not across a school, but across a town, city, or county. That seems an intermediate step that could get kids beyond “cafeteria networking” (TM) to the type of far-flung networking we adults are so ga-ga (rightly) about, while still feeling local enough for students to experience said network as “potential cafeteria (or mall, or whatever) network”. Then they’d taste the power that might meet them on their psycho-social developmental level.
Disclaimer: it’s 6.25 a.m., and I shouldn’t try to write at such a time. 😛